Walter Laqueur, The Changing Face of Antisemitism

Summary

Walter Ze’ev Laqueur was a prolific historian, journalist, and observer of international relations in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he lived for many years in Israel, finally settling on a life divided between London and Washington DC. Laquer wrote close to one hundred books and was still publishing when he died in 2018 at 97.

This book, published in 2008, presents the topic of antisemitism, organized around one of its more bizarre characteristics. Laqueur shows how Jew-hatred changed its justification and internal logic numerous times over the millennia of recorded history. Sometimes, as in Roman-occupied Egypt, it seems to be one example of xenophobia. At other times, for example in the era of the Church Fathers or of early Islam, it functioned powerfully as a tool for organizing key definitions of broadly held religious beliefs and worldviews. It continues to fill that function to this day, as extreme groups on the Right and Left deploy it. While he wrote some years before the British Labour Party fell into a major crisis over antisemitism, his presentation of the issues already apparent on the Left appears prescient.

Context

Writing in the first decade of the 21st Century, the rise in antisemitic utterances and actions in Western democracies that seemed inconceivable in the decades following the Shoah drove his work on this topic.

Style

One of the joys of Laqueur’s writing is his style. He is straightforward, readable, and concise. He is also judicious and remarkably fair toward all of the people about whom he writes. Nevertheless, he never suspends judgment or gives a free pass in the face of bigoted behavior.

Classroom

This book can form the ideational spine of a curriculum on antisemitism. Combined with readings from David Nirenberg’s book Anti-Judaism, it can provide a solid base for understanding the often counter-intuitive nature of antisemitism. It is not easy to teach about a deeply embedded conspiracy theory without being pulled into that kind of thinking, even if only to disparage it. Laqueur’s and Nirenberg’s books together provide a solid foundation for teaching that avoids that kind of educational dysfunction.

Bibliographic Information

Laqueur, Walter, The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. (New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2008)
ISBN 10: 0195304292  ISBN 13: 9780195304299