-
Semites, Antisemites, and Bernard Lewis: The Life and Afterlife of a Seminal Book
- Antisemitism Studies
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2024
- pp. 255-271
- 10.2979/ast.00018
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
In 1986, Bernard Lewis published a highly influential book, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. For Lewis, who was then the pre-eminent British-American historian of the Islamic world, the book represented a departure from his prior research agenda. Although Lewis was Jewish, his scholarly work had touched little on Jews. In this book (and its companion, The Jews of Islam), Lewis portrayed the legacy of Islam as one of broad toleration of Jews, tinged with contempt but void of hatred. He traced the outbreak of virulent antisemitism among Arabs not to the tradition of Islam, but to the influence of European and especially Nazi antisemitism. This interpretation may have been inspired and reinforced by Lewis's own personal exposure to Arab antisemitism during the Second World War and in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.