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Jewish Security & Jewish Interests
- Abstract
Six decades after the Holocaust, a new wave of anti-Semitism has swept the globe, spearheaded by radical Muslims in the Middle East and Europe but taken up with gusto in democratic Western society not only by right-wing nationalists and neo-Nazis but by liberal and left-wing “anti-Zionists.” With frightening regularity, Jews have been assaulted either physically or in venomous words, synagogues and community centers have been bombed or incinerated in places as far-flung as Turkey, Tunisia, Argentina, England, and France, anti-Zionist rallies on American college campuses have deteriorated into anti-Jewish harangues, and Jews and Israelis have been blamed for everything from using the blood of Palestinian children for baking matzah to masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Surveying this situation, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has concluded that Jews “currently face as great a threat to the[ir] safety and security . . . as the one . . . faced in the 1930’s—if not a greater one.”
About the Author
Jack Wertheimer is professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Among his contributions to COMMENTARY are “Judaism Without Limits” (July 1997), “The Orthodox Moment” (February 1999), and “The Perplexities of Conservative Judaism” (September 2007).
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