Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present (review)

In this highly readable book, Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer explore the demonization of Jews during the past 2,000 years by examining a long list of myths alleging conspiracy. Among them are those depicting Jews as Christ-killers, the Antichrist, desecrators of the Host, poisoners, agents of Satan, economic exploiters, atheistic revolutionaries, fabricators of an inauthentic Holocaust, and chief perpetrators of the African slave trade to the Americas. The authors' central argument is that antisemitism, rather than emanating from Jews' actual behavior, is a product of hallucinatory perceptions. They posit that antisemitism "affords a striking example of the perennial appeal, power, and danger of mythical thinking—of elevating to the level of objective truth beliefs that have little or no basis in fact but provide all-encompassing, emotionally satisfying explanations of life and history" (p. 3). As demonstrated by the widespread appeal, between 1879 and World War II, of the myth of a world Jewish conspiracy, the authors remind us that not even the highly-educated stratum of any population is immune to groundless myths that provide simplistic and gratifying explanations for the problems confronting the world.

The authors present in roughly chronological order a detailed account of the principal antisemitic myths. Chapter 1 examines the deicide charge derived from the supposed Jewish role in the trial and death of Jesus. Perry and Schweitzer contend that the power of the allegation that the Jews murdered the god of another religion affords the deicide charge a unique position within the repertoire of antisemitic myths—one that serves as the foundation for virtually all other anti-Jewish myths in Christian societies. The authors masterfully provide the historical and political context for the "longest lie"—that is, that Jews shouted for Jesus' crucifixion while Pontius Pilate declared his innocence. Situating events within their proper historical context, Perry and Schweitzer proceed like skillful prosecutors tearing apart piece by piece the gospel allegation of the Jewish role in the trial, conviction, and crucifixion of Christ. It was indeed, the authors recall for us, a Roman affair.

The second chapter recounts the history of the ritual murder charge leveled against the Jews, reaching back to twelfth-century England. Perry and Schweitzer remind us that the ritual murder accusation persisted into the twentieth century, playing center stage in a number of well-publicized trials in Europe. In this chapter we also encounter the related antisemitic allegation that the Jews stole and desecrated the communion wafer of the sacrament of the Eucharist to harm the "body of Christ," symbolically.

In chapters 3-5 the authors concentrate on more modern antisemitic motifs—that Jews strive to control the world economy and polity. Perry and Schweitzer call special attention to the emergence of racial, economic, and political antisemitism in central Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The authors point to the successful efforts of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century antisemites, from Wilhelm Marr to Adolf Hitler, to recast Christian myths to fit the outlook of a post-Christian secular age. Such propagandists suggested that "the children of Satan who conspired against Christendom were transmuted into capitalist plutocrats or red revolutionaries who aspired to world domination" (pp. 83-84).

The authors cite the myth of "Judeo-Bolshevism," which links antisemitism and anti-Bolshevism, as one of the greatest hoaxes of the twentieth century. Yet the authors miss a golden opportunity here to distinguish between antisemitic narratives based on the supernatural or on fictitious persons, events, and ideas and those antisemitic narratives founded on half-truths. Post-Enlightenment-era myths claiming that Jews murdered Christian children for their blood to make matzah and that Jews are the children of Satan belong to the first type and are unlikely to have much appeal beyond the margins of society. Allegations that Jews were purveyors of communism/bolshevism and that Jews controlled the major banks and financial houses fit the second type and have attracted a...