Turning to the Past to Understand the Future

Turning to the Past to Understand the Future La Judeophobie des temps modernes, des Lumieres au jihad mondial [Judeophobia of modem times, from the Enlightenment to world jihad], by Pierre-Andre Taguieff, Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 2008, 683 pp. [French] Reviewed by Michelle Mazel Philosopher and historian Pierre- Andre Taguieff has made a lifelong study of racism and anti-Semitism. In his powerful new book, he explores changing attitudes towards the Jews and Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel. Why use Judeophobia, a word he coined, and not anti-Semitism? Phobia is taken today as meaning irrational feelings of hatred and revulsion. Anti-Semitism, he says, is the form of judeophobia which brought about the Holocaust. Traditional today is but one element in the overall picture. In fact, he claims, following the war, as such has become a marginal phenomenon limited to skinheads and neo-Nazi fringe groups. This is the author's working hypothesis, and it is undoubtedly one of the most controversial elements of the book. Taguieff presents a sweeping panorama of the changing image of the Jew, from the period of the Enlightenment - mid-eighteenth century to the present day. This is not an easy book. It sometimes reads like a textbook, with a wealth of details, not always readily comprehensible to people not thoroughly grounded in the history of France and Europe. It is also backed by copious notes, which account for nearly a third of the book. Step by step, Taguieff traces what he perceives as the gradual disappearance of hatred of the Jews based on religion alone as the main motor of anti-Semitism. New forms are appearing: Voltaire, who condemned all religions, had harsh words to say about Judaism and the Jews. He abhorred them and launched what Taguieff calls modern anti-judeo-christianism (89). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, we can see the emergence of neo-pagan racial anti-Semitism (96), which somehow found its place within the context of the new socialist theories and the fight against capitalism, with Rothschild the banker replacing Shylock in popular imagery. As the century drew to an end, it seemed that attacks against the Jews were coming from every available quarter. Conspiracy theorists saw a sinister Jewish plot to take over the world (Protocols of the Elders ofZiori), while pseudo-scientific studies pointed out the inherent racial inferiority of the Jewish people. These racial themes led to the biologization of the Jewish question. The stage was set for the Holocaust. But Taguieff is more interested in what is happening now than with what happened in the past - - because he believes that the past is just that. It is his contention that during the past forty years the perception of the Jew in the world has been transformed beyond recognition. For centuries Jews had been stigmatized in the Western world as aliens - Oriental, Asians, or Semites - belonging to an inferior race, and European countries wanted to be rid of them. Not anymore. The Jews, says Taguieff, are now branded as being part of the Western imperialist world and as oppressors. …