Language:
English
Year of publication:
1995
Titel der Quelle:
Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal
Angaben zur Quelle:
13,1 (1995) 97-127
Keywords:
Antisemitism
Abstract:
Surveys the evolution of the attitude towards Jews expressed by leaders of the socialist and communist movements, including the early socialists, the founders of Marxist ideology, and Soviet leaders. Distinguishes antisemitic trends within the Left movements, despite their anti-discriminatory and anti-xenophobic stances, as well as the opposite trend - struggle against antisemitism, defined by the author as "philosemitism." Concludes that during the late 19th and early 20th centuries the socialist movement gradually switched to an unequivocal denunciation of antisemitism, which was strengthened due to the rise of Nazism. However, a deterioration occurred during the Cold War resulting from antisemitism in the USSR and its denial by the Western pro-Soviet Left. 1967 served as a watershed in the leftist stance toward antisemitism. With Israel no longer seen as a victim, with a new generation for whom Nazism was in the remote past, and with the cessation of support for Left movements by most Jews, the radical Left, and to some extent the mainstream Left, became increasingly anti-Zionist and even antisemitic. Recurring motifs of the radical Left are the negation of Israel's right to exist, relativization of the Holocaust, and the Zionist-Nazi collaboration myth. One of the main sources of current leftist antisemitism is the feminist movement. As a whole, the Left lost its interest in defending Jews against antisemitism.
Note:
Appeared also in the "Australian Journal of Jewish Studies" 9 (1995) and 10 (1996).
URL:
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