A Convenient Hatred

With some 1,000 books currently in print on the subject, does the world desperately need another tome on anti-Semitism? What difference will it make, when anti-Israelism provides only the latest justification for Europe's persistent prejudice against Jews and anti-Semitic views are shared by 15 percent of Americans and 90 percent of Muslims worldwide?

The British Strain  Anthony Julius,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  The author of the magnum opus Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England speaks with Elliot Jager.  SAVE

Back to the Future  Robert Wistrich,  Jerusalem Post.  Can rational refutations of false arguments play an effective role in combating "apocalyptic anti-Semitism?" Interview by Ruthie Blum. (PDF)  SAVE

The New Anti-Semitism  Josef Joffe,  Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism.  Post-Holocaust, anti-Semitism is taboo—which means that people repress and conceal it even from themselves. (PDF)  SAVE

SAVE "A Convenient Hatred"

Gertrude Stein, Fascist?

Does it say something that the most indelible portraits of Gertrude Stein come from the outside? Or, to frame the question a different way: what does it say when our most lasting impressions of a writer are based not on her words, but on the visions and appropriations of others?

Gertrude Stein’s Vichy Protector  Eric Banks,  Chronicle Review.  The modernist writer's dogged role as anti-Semitic propagandist was enabled by dapper Vichy bureaucrat Bernard Faÿ, who not only guaranteed her safety but solidified her status as a literary star.  SAVE

An Eye for Genius  Arthur Lubow,  Smithsonian.  When Leo Stein first saw Matisse's Woman with a Hat, he thought it "the nastiest smear of paint" he had ever encountered. But for five weeks, he and his sister Gertrude went repeatedly to look at it.  SAVE

Crackdown  Reuters.  Newly discovered documents show that Pétain personally penciled harsher measures into Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic legislation.  SAVE

Gertrude and Alice  Katie Roiphe,  New York Times.  A joint study subsumes specific questions (Why was the tenor of their relationship slightly sadomasochistic?) in the biographer's account of her own inquiry and interpretation.  SAVE

SAVE "Gertrude Stein, Fascist?"

English translation (1934).

Evil Genius

Very little anti-Semitic literature is new; most of its tropes seem ageless, continually recombined and updated by haters reacting only dimly to their actual circumstances. Few anti-Semitic works exhibit literary or lesser, sociological gifts. The one exception is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Myth of the Jewish Menace  Lucien Wolf,  Macmillan.  As early as 1921, English journalist and historian Lucien Wolf tried to debunk the forged Protocols.  SAVE

The Protocols in Arabia  Middle East Media Research Institute.  Collected reports on the appearance of the Protocols in Islamic media today.  SAVE

Among the Truthers  James Kirchick,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  With the democratization of the media, conspiracy theories are becoming more prevalent. And while not all conspiracy theorists are anti-Semitic, all conspiracy movements attract anti-Semites.  SAVE

Treacherous Texts  Benjamin Balint,  Haaretz.  The amazing and enduring power of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion has little to do with the mind of its forgers and everything to do with the avidity of its consumers.  SAVE

Back to the Future  Ruthie Blum,  Jerusalem Post.  In a 2007 interview, Robert Wistrich describes the return of apocalyptic anti-Semitism, its perpetrators, its enablers and fellow-travelers, and its global implications. (PDF)  SAVE

Eco Chamber  Paula Marantz Cohen,  Smart Set.  With The Prague Cemetery's virulently anti-Semitic protagonist, Umberto Eco may have joined those famous authors whose "editors grew afraid to edit them even as reviewers grew unwilling to pan them."  SAVE

SAVE "Evil Genius"

Mensch in the Moon

Right now there are two Americans aboard the International Space Station, and their only way home is to hitch a ride in the Russians' Soyuz capsule, a ramshackle remnant of the 1960s. There's no space shuttle to bring them home because the shuttle's been retired; also retired are plans for an American return to the moon.

Moon Landing, 1969  NASA.  The great event, in what now seems a very distant time. (Video)  SAVE

Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War  Michael Neufeld,  Random House.  In the most recent biography of Von Braun, the man's moral complexity remains irreducible.  SAVE

SAVE "Mensch in the Moon"

Desbois’ team digs for evidence of Nazi atrocities.

Toward an Archeology of Hell

Remembrance is a contradictory imperative. Respectful preservation of the past, especially the remains of those who have gone before us, stands at odds with the need to understand the same past, especially through means like archeology.

Treblinka: Revealing the Hidden Graves of the Holocaust  BBC.  Forensic archeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls describes her work at the site of Treblinka.  SAVE

Excavating Nazi Extermination Centers  Isaac Gilead, Yoram Haimi, Wojciech Mazurek,  Present Pasts.  What do archeological excavations actually tell us about the operation of death camps?  SAVE

SAVE "Toward an Archeology of Hell"