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Anti-Semitism and the Left
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12384 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
3,849 Words |
| Author
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Aileen S. Kraditor
Aileen S. Kraditor is professor emerita of history at Boston
University. |
Debates between paleoconservatives, who are mostly Christian, and neoconservatives, who are mostly Jewish, have sometimes hinted at the religious-cultural tensions between the two groups. One gets a strong impression that the arguments might be less bitter if all that were at stake were theories and policies. One way not to respond to the problem is to deny that it exists: a review of by Robert Nisbet of Alexander Bloom's Prodigal Sons managed to cover seven pages of this magazine (No. 7, 1986) without even using the words 'Jew' and 'Jewish,' even though Bloom wrote his book to analyze (from the left) the connections between the neoconservatism and the Jewishness of the "New York intellectuals." A serious effort to confront the ethno-religious aspects of the controversies should, I believe, distinguish between two principal themes: first, the difference between doctrinal and cultural animosities, and second, the historical significance of the recent massive shifts of attitudes on these issues.
By doctrinal animosities, I mean belief in theories that blame the target group for the sufferings on one's own group: anti-Semites' theories concerning Jewish cosmopolitanism, radicalism, capitalist exploitation, and so forth, and anti-Christians' theories concerning Christian condemnation of Jews as Christ-killers and persecution of Jews on religious grounds. By cultural animosities. I mean the unrationalized dislike of the target group. Ingrained from childhood, such dislike is often unconscious or even denied and therefore difficult to overcome. Sometimes people who harbor cultural prejudice find a need for doctrinal rationalization, but in principle the two sorts are distinguishable. Doctrinal anti-Semitism was discredited on the Right a generation ago, when William F. Buckley, Jr., denounced the John Birch Society on that and other grounds in 1965! The Liberty Lobby, neo-Nazi groups, and other people often and wrongly called "Far Right" have no standing or influence within the paleoconservative movement. But cultural anti-Semitism remains within it; its manifestations are usually but not always subtle. Doctrinal anti-Christianism is expressed from time to time in Commentary, the chief voice of neoconservatism, and cultural anti-Christianism seems as prevalent among Jewish neocons as it is among many other Jews. Like cultural anti-Semitism, it seems restricted mostly to people over forty.
As to the second main theme, the historical context, I suggest that, if both sides tried to locate their feelings and beliefs within the long sweep of Western history, they might find it easier to confront those tensions. Here are some relevant facts in no particular order: the premodern church's treatment of Jews was not an
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