Reflections on Anti-Semitism

Dear Editor,

The “The Psychology of Anti-Semitism and Judeophilia Special Issue” (Vol. 17, No. 3, December, 2010) of Clio’s Psyche offers an important window into one of the most crucial aspects of a phenomenon that has existed for at least two millennia, and is still of great concern today. It may be of particular interest to those interested in psychohistory because the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was a Jew who wrestled with his own awareness of being Jewish, and because the detractors of psychoanalysis at their most virulent wound up calling it a “Jewish science.”

One aspect of contemporary anti-Semitism manifesting among Western European intellectuals is the re-casting of the agonies of the Shoah by equating Israeli actions with Nazism, so that victim and persecutor are reversed, the Jews becoming Nazis. In this schema the Palestinians are the only victims, and therefore are Jews. In this way Western Europeans rationalize and justify their historical anti-Semitism, in effect saying, “You see, we were right. The Jews have always been virulently dangerous, they are vermin, and should have been exterminated.”

This is a manifestation of a complex system of defenses, including denial and projection, in an attempt to ward off the shame and guilt occasioned by the genocidal psychopathic rampage of the Shoah, which was initiated by Germany and which involved massive cooperation in occupied countries such as Poland and France. Even Resistance fighters cooperated in persecuting Jews. Thus the Western European exonerates Europe, attributes the repudiated murderous actions to the Jew, and regains self-esteem. (The efforts of those called “Righteous Gentiles” to rescue Jews must be acknowledged as courageous and extraordinarily moral.) What is notable is that whatever atrocities take place anywhere else in the world, whatever genocidal actions are initiated by repressive regimes and terrorist organizations, the pejorative “Nazi” is reserved for Israel.

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Jews, although only one quarter of one percent of the world’s population, are disproportionately represented among Nobel Prize winners in science and medicine and literature. Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud all were Jews whose contributions to world thought initiated major world movements. Yet Jewish contributions to world culture are described pejoratively by anti-Semites, who are fond of asserting that Jews “dominate” entertainment, the arts, literature, and finance, and want to take over the world.

Why has such a minute fraction of a world population been the target of so much hatred? The articles in this issue approach the question with eloquence and sensitivity.

Sincerely,

Merle Molofsky

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