One of the many consequences of the long history of antisemitism is that when a Jew commits a crime - and particularly a financial crime - the entire community feels like it’s being judged.
So when the Jewish Journal headlined one of its blog entries, “Bernie Madoff gives ammo to anti-Semites everywhere,” they expressed the secret fears of many Jews. The corrupt and all-powerful Jewish financier is one of the most well known tropes of modern antisemitism. Its endurance is startling. When a financial scandal erupts with a Jew at the center - like Boesky or Milkin or now, in what is alleged to be the biggest act of criminality ever perpetrated on Wall Street, Bernard Madoff - Jews start peering nervously over their shoulders.
Even before the Madoff story broke, the whispers of Jew hatred were growing louder as the financial crisis worsened. All the usual suspects, like Ahmadinejad and Hamas, have joined in. The 9/11 style rumor that that Jewish executives at Lehman Brothers sent $400 billion to Israel before the investment bank collapsed has continued to circulate. And just hours after Madoff’s arrest, commenters on the popular dealbreaker blog were leaving such choice quotes as these:
* “yet another jew on wall street gone bad…”
* “LOL Jews!”
* “This guy killed more Jews then Hitler.”
* “Now that the JEW has been thrown down the well, is our country free?”
If you go to Google’s blog search page and enter the words “Madoff” and “Jew,” similar trash comes up in the results. And because antisemitism is not really about Jews, but about a vile representation of Jews, the irony that many Jewish charities and non-profit institutions have been badly damaged by the collapse of Madoff’s empire will pass unnoticed.
In some ways, much of the rhetoric that we are currently seeing is reminiscent of the debate about Jews and capitalism in the first half of the twentieth century. True, our democracies are much more secure now in comparison to then, and the thought of a fascist or communist seizure of power seems outlandish. Yet it’s also clear that we are entering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (one leading economist, Nouriel Roubini, forecasts that unemployment in the US will rise to 9 per cent over the next year.) Many ordinary people are feeling cheated and angry.
In circumstances like these, the monocausal theories of antisemitism become very attractive. How, then, do we resist them?
Historically, this has been a question for the left. And the left has not always distinguished itself in its answer. To give one example, Karl Pfeifer notes in his recent Z Word essay on Austrian social democrats and antisemitism that, in the years leading up to the annexation by Nazi Germany, “…the party’s literature frequently identified Jews with banking, capitalist enterprise and profiteering. The SPÖ even went so far as to accuse the Christian Social Party and, incredibly, the Nazis themselves, of being ‘pseudo antisemites,’ conducting a ‘mock war against Jewish finance, designed to hoodwink the working masses’. When asked to fight antisemitism, the SPÖ leaders argued that they had no obligation to defend Jewish capital or to be a Judenschutztruppe (a bodyguard for the Jews) - this despite the fact that most Austrian Jews were not capitalists.”
The temptation to play the antisemitic game persists today; indeed, given the obsession with Israel on large parts of the left, and the linkage of Zionism with imperialism and militarism, one might even say that it is heightened.
That is why the the characterization of antisemitism as the “socialism of fools” by the German Social Democrat August Bebel is of special importance in our own time. We should not pretend that there is no rational basis for the anger around us: savings wiped out, workers struggling to make ends meet even as the US federal government bails out the banking sector to the tune of hundreds of billions, the inevitable prospect of further immiseration. But for too long, much of the left, in thrall as it is to identity politics and disillusioned by the political developments of the last thirty years, has shied away from a meaningful engagement with these issues, preferring stale slogans instead.
If the left does decide to reengage on economic questions, is it fanciful to hope that it will, at the same time, be reminded of why antisemitism is so pernicious? Will the left denounce the antisemitic account of the financial crisis? Will that include all of those - not just the Vanguard News Network but Hamas as well - who promote it? And will those individuals who dismiss talk of antisemitism as a trick to divert attention from Israel’s actions now wake up to the fact that it is a very real and, in the historic sense of the term, reactionary phenomenon?
“Will the left denounce the antisemitic account of the financial crisis?”
Wait! Time out! Let’s take a deep breath.
Before we take the plunge into a critique of the “left,” can we first try to unpack two things: first, why do many Jews “start peering nervously over their shoulders” upon revelations of financial scandal involving Jews? Is it different than how we react to other events having nothing to do with financial scandals (e.g. J.F.K)?
Second, while I am aware of the potential for problems, is there, in fact, “an antisemitic account of the financial crisis,” at least here in the United States? Maybe my skin is too thick, but do we really care what four guys write from their basements on the blog of “Dealbreaker?” The Lehman Bros. rumors, the old 9/11 rumors, and the inane comments from the other “usual suspects,” seem only to support the idea that every paranoid with access to a computer can get our attention.
Ever since the financial crisis erupted and I saw the public concerns about “antisemitism” from some prominent Jewish voices, I have thought we have gotten ahead of ourselves. I think here in the States we have a lot to celebrate, much as our parents and grandparents had reason to celebrate during the bad days of the 1930’s when the Coughlins and Lindbergs had the microphone. I think we should focus on the positives at the moment, and there are many.
Wait! Time out! Let’s take a deep breath.
Eh? Someone want to explain where that comes from?
More broadly, the left has not been immune from equating capitalism with Judaism, or from pandering to those who do. Karl Pfeifer gave us one example of that in his essay on Austria. I think the reluctance of many on the left to identify Hamas as antisemitic, even when they make claims straight out of the “Protocols,” demonstrates a similar mindset.
As to whether Jews have anything to celebrate or not, why is that point relevant? I am arguing that the left needs to get away from anti-imperialist dogma and its associated identity politics, because these approaches are flawed in themselves, and because they offer no answers to the mass of people, in the US and elsewhere, who are trying to understand the current financial crisis.
Incidentally, if you want examples of clear thinking on the left about these questions, I recommend going here (http://robertreich.blogspot.com/) and here (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?keyword=+Financial+Crisis)
Most finance criminals are hardly Jews and
in any case of Madoff’s financial victims have been Jews.
I am afraid it is a lot more than just four guys in their bedrooms putting this stuff out. I hear it all the time now, from people I’ve never expected to hear it from. It is on a lot of comment logs on web sites. Go read them. The bigger sites that edit posts delete or don’t publish them, but it has suddenly become acceptable to talk about “the Jews on Wall Street” stealing.
Even the popular press slides in their little coded words. The daily news mentions the Madoff was “the Jewish bond”. The WSJ runs a story on the decimation of “Jewish charity”. Everyone is finding a way to make the connection.
It’s a terrible and sad thing to see this. I’ve never believed that the US had this deep reseviour of anti-semitism but watching and reading now, I realize I was wrong.
Are you honestly trying to characterize the “left’s” conflation of capitalism with Judaism based on what was said in pre-WW2 Austria? Seriously? This is the country that Hitler annexed without firing a single shot, and it’s somehow noteworthy that a political party there didn’t like Jews? You might as well suggest that all automakers have anti-semitic tendencies based on the example of Henry Ford.
In pre-war Europe, you could find anti-semitic sentiments from parties on all sides of the political spectrum. And European anti-semites displayed a remarkable ability to accuse Jews of being both money-grubbing capitalists and freedom-hating communists at the same time!
Pfeifer’s essay provides a very interesting analysis of a political party that has remained in continuous power since its ugly pre-WW2 days, but it’s specious to use that analysis to generalize about the left’s association with anti-semitism. If you want to make the case that the left somehow has more of a tendency to link Jews and money than the right does, you’re going to have to do a much better job of finding supporting examples.
NadavT - since I am not making that argument, I have no reply to your point. All I will do is reiterate that, a) the financial crisis provides one more reason for those parts of the left who believe that antisemitism is a trick, designed to divert attention from Israel, to rethink that position, b) that those same parts of the left have refused to condemn Hamas for its antisemitism, on the grounds that they see such rhetoric as resistance. But now that Hamas is offering a standard antisemitic account of the financial crisis, will their western cheerleaders understand the truth about them?
If you want to make the case that the left somehow has more of a tendency to link Jews and money than the right does, you’re going to have to do a much better job of finding supporting examples.
I’m not saying that at all. I am saying that historically, it has been the place of the left to resist these antisemitic accounts, although they have not always done so honorably. Austria is just one of many examples.
Thank you for clarifying your point. Am I correct to understand that the example of Austria’s left-wing political rhetoric pre-WW2 was meant to illustrate a failure to respond adequately to anti-semitism, rather than an attempt to link Jews and capitalism? If so, then I believe it is an inconsequential distinction. Using pre-WW2 Austrian political rhetoric as in any attempt to illustrate a typical left-wing response to antisemitism is absurd on its face. Antisemitism was rampant in Austria at that time, and nothing any political party said there should be taken as a typical example of any political perspective, save the perspective of anti-semitism.
In response to your other points:
a) Surely it is possible for accusations of anti-semitism to be well-founded in one context and baseless in another, isn’t it? In other words, it’s certainly possible for anti-semites to grumble about Jews and money when the stock market tanks, while at the same time other individuals use the accusation of anti-semitism to stifle criticism of Israel’s policies. This is not to say some anti-Israel criticism isn’t anti-semitic, of course, but that much of it that is not is treated as if it were.
b) If you have specific examples of “parts of the left” who refuse to condemn Hamas, please provide them. I don’t doubt that they exist, but when you refer to them in vague terms as “part of the left,” you use them to characterize a much larger group, which is inappropriate.