89-684: John Mordecai Podhoretz ( / p ɒ d ˈ h ɒr ɛ t s / ; born April 18, 1961) is an American writer. He is the editor of Commentary magazine, a columnist for the New York Post , the author of several books on politics, and a former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and worked in the administration of George H. W. Bush . Podhoretz was born in a Jewish family in New York City, to conservative journalists Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter . He has two older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage. He grew up on
178-478: A liberal Democrat to neoconservatism in the 1970s and 1980s, he moved the magazine with him to the right and toward the Republican Party . Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other Commentary was the successor to
267-403: A "vision of a walled-off America primarily under threat from border-crossing immigrants." Podhoretz attempted to connect Krikorian's stance on immigration to an isolationist foreign policy. In response, Krikorian called Podhoretz a "pedantic bore" who had no "actual arguments" against Krikorian's position on immigration. On March 30, 2006, Podhoretz was criticized by various bloggers for posting
356-500: A Jew upon baptism ." From the perspective of racial antisemitism, however, "the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism.[...] From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews[...] Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews,
445-554: A Semitic language. Though 'antisemitism' could be construed as prejudice against people who speak other Semitic languages, this is not how the term is commonly used. The term may be spelled with or without a hyphen (antisemitism or anti-Semitism). Many scholars and institutions favor the unhyphenated form. Shmuel Almog argued, "If you use the hyphenated form, you consider the words 'Semitism', 'Semite', 'Semitic' as meaningful ... [I]n antisemitic parlance, 'Semites' really stands for Jews, just that." Emil Fackenheim supported
534-624: A blanket policy of immigration restriction because of what happened to the Jewish people after 1924 and the unwillingness of the United States to take Jews in." Podhoretz was generally supportive of President Bush's proposals for a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants in the U.S. In November 2007, comments on Commentary's blog "Contentions", Podhoretz attacked his former colleague at National Review Online , Mark Krikorian , for what Podhoretz called
623-712: A collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence—which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews." Elaborating on Fein's definition, Dietz Bering of the University of Cologne writes that, to antisemites, "Jews are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Jews have to be seen not as individuals but as
712-442: A collective. (2) Jews remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Jews bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the anti-Semites feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Jewish character." For Swiss historian Sonja Weinberg , as distinct from economic and religious anti-Judaism , antisemitism in its specifically modern form shows conceptual innovation,
801-583: A misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy ) that it refers to racist hatred directed at " Semitic people " in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept . Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a " scientific-sounding term " for Judenhass ( lit. ' Jew-hatred ' ), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone. The word "Semitic"
890-564: A misnomer. The word Judeophobia first appeared in his pamphlet " Auto-Emancipation ", published anonymously in German in September 1882, where it was described as an irrational fear or hatred of Jews. According to Pinsker, this irrational fear was an inherited predisposition. Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind, not merely to certain races... Judeophobia
979-414: A non-religious perspective ) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "Jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit). He accused the Jews of a worldwide conspiracy against non-Jews, called for resistance against "this foreign power", and claimed that "there will be absolutely no public office, even
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#17327980230441068-419: A people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism . In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism , a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism ,
1157-412: A person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions . The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by
1246-438: A refuge. Most Zionists do not believe that antisemitism can be combatted with education or other means. The contextual approach treats antisemitism as a type of racism and focuses on the historical context in which hatred of Jews emerges. Some contextualists restrict the use of "antisemitism" to refer exclusively to the era of modern racism, treating anti-Judaism as a separate phenomenon. Historian David Engel has challenged
1335-481: A resort to "science" to defend itself, new functional forms, and organisational differences. It was anti-liberal, racialist and nationalist. It promoted the myth that Jews conspired to 'judaise' the world ; it served to consolidate social identity; it channeled dissatisfactions among victims of the capitalist system; and it was used as a conservative cultural code to fight emancipation and liberalism. In 2003, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky developed what he called
1424-528: A son. Podhoretz's sister, Rachel Abrams , was married to the diplomat, lawyer, political scientist, and Iran-Contra convict Elliott Abrams . Commentary (magazine) Commentary is a monthly American magazine on religion, Judaism , Israel and politics, as well as social and cultural issues. Founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945 under Elliot E. Cohen , editor from 1945 to 1959, Commentary magazine developed into
1513-410: A standard different from that applied to others, and they are accused of "cosmic evil". Thus, "it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic" unless this hatred or persecution displays one of the two features specific to antisemitism. There have been a number of efforts by international and governmental bodies to define antisemitism formally. In 2005,
1602-539: A state of Israel is a racist endeavor, can be a manifestation of antisemitism—as can applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. The EUMC working definition was adopted by the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism in 2010, by
1691-411: Is a Jewish state , expressions of anti-Zionist positions could harbour antisemitic sentiments. Natan Sharansky describes the "3D" test to determine the existence of such antisemitism: demonizing Israel, the double standard of criticizing Israel disproportionately to other countries, and delegitimizing Israel's right to exist . Due to the root word Semite , the term is prone to being invoked as
1780-423: Is a psychic disorder. As a psychic disorder, it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable... Thus have Judaism and Jew-hatred passed through history for centuries as inseparable companions... Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and represented Jew-hatred as based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw
1869-491: Is now this: We didn't have a plan, and now everything is in chaos... This is entirely wrong. We did have a plan—the problem is that the plan didn't work... We thought a political process inside Iraq would make a military push toward victory against a tripartite foe—Saddamist remnants, foreign terrorists and anti-American Shiites—unnecessary... The only plan that will work is a plan to face the tripartite enemy—the Saddamists,
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#17327980230441958-636: The Miami Herald , once said that at the Times , Podhoretz "constantly complained that his brilliance wasn't appreciated." On January 1, 2009, Podhoretz became editor of Commentary , succeeding Neal Kozodoy . Podhoretz was a staunch supporter of President George W. Bush . His 2004 book Bush Country: How George W. Bush Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century---While Driving Liberals Insane called Bush "the first great leader of
2047-666: The 2006 Lebanon War "un-Christian", Podhoretz wrote: "You want to know what anti-Semitism is? When Pat Buchanan calls Israel's military action 'un-Christian.' That's anti-Semitism." Podhoretz has supported the Iraq War from its inception until the present. In a July 25, 2006 column for the New York Post that discussed the Israel-Lebanon conflict, Podhoretz advocated a more Machiavellian policy in Iraq, writing: "What if
2136-512: The ABC sitcom Anything but Love , stand-up comedian Richard Lewis was often shown holding or reading a copy of Commentary . American-Israeli journalist Benjamin Balint and former editor at Commentary described the magazine as the "contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the neoconservative right". Historian and literary critic Richard Pells said that "no other journal of
2225-578: The Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest. In the period before World War II , when animosity towards Jews was far more commonplace, it was not uncommon for a person, an organization, or a political party to self-identify as an antisemite or antisemitic. The early Zionist pioneer Leon Pinsker , a professional physician, preferred the clinical-sounding term Judeophobia to antisemitism, which he regarded as
2314-584: The Contemporary Jewish Record , which was published by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and ran from 1938 to 1945, when its editor, AJC executive secretary Morris Waldman , retired. In 1944, with the Record ' s editor retiring, the AJC consulted with New York City intellectuals including Daniel Bell and Lionel Trilling , who recommended that AJC hire Elliot Cohen , who had been
2403-616: The Fundamental Rights Agency ), an agency of the European Union , developed a more detailed working definition , which stated: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." It also adds that "such manifestations could also target
2492-599: The New Left , which was bitterly hostile to Johnson, to capitalism and to universities, angered Podhoretz for what he perceived as its shallowness and hostility to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War . Articles attacked the New Left on questions ranging from crime, the nature of art, drugs, poverty, to the new egalitarianism; Commentary said that the New Left was a dangerous anti-American, anti-liberal, and anti-Semitic force. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used Commentary to attack
2581-890: The Spanish Inquisition , and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine , between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire , between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair , between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II ; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies . Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe . However, since
2670-868: The United States Department of State in 2017, in the Operational Hate Crime Guidance of the UK College of Policing in 2014 and by the UK's Campaign Against Antisemitism . In 2016, the working definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance . IHRA's Working definition of antisemitism is among the most controversial documents related to opposition to antisemitism, and critics argue that it has been used to censor criticism of Israel. In response to
2759-542: The United States Department of State stated that "while there is no universally accepted definition, there is a generally clear understanding of what the term encompasses." For the purposes of its 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism, the term was considered to mean "hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity." In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now
John Podhoretz - Misplaced Pages Continue
2848-494: The Upper West Side in New York City. He attended Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School and he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1982. In 1987, he became a five-time champion on the game show Jeopardy! Podhoretz was a speechwriter for former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush . He was special assistant to White House Drug Czar William Bennett . He co-founded
2937-470: The Virginia Tech massacre should have been more forceful in defending themselves, Podhoretz wrote: "The notion that a human being or group of human beings holding no weapon whatever should somehow 'fight back' against someone calmly executing other people right in front of their eyes is ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason. 'Why didn't anyone rush
3026-611: The Watts riots and liberals who defended it as a just revolution. In 2007, the magazine ended its affiliation with AJC when Commentary, Inc., an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit enterprise, took over as publisher. In 2011, the journal donated its archives from 1945 to 1995 to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin . These included letters and essay revisions. Commentary has been referred to three Woody Allen films: Between 1989 and 1992, in
3115-723: The " Semites " as a race ]." Psychologist Avner Falk similarly writes: "The German word antisemitisch was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan's false ideas about how ' Semitic races ' were inferior to ' Aryan races ' ". Pseudoscientific theories concerning race , civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in Europe in
3204-431: The "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country. So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte , and Wilhelm Scherer used
3293-467: The "origins of anti-Semitic prejudices are rooted in different historical periods." König asserts that differences in the chronology of different antisemitic prejudices and the irregular distribution of such prejudices over different segments of the population create "serious difficulties in the definition of the different kinds of anti-Semitism." These difficulties may contribute to the existence of different taxonomies that have been developed to categorize
3382-450: The "three D" test to distinguish antisemitism from criticism of Israel, giving delegitimization , demonization, and double standards as a litmus test for the former. Bernard Lewis , writing in 2006, defined antisemitism as a special case of prejudice, hatred, or persecution directed against people who are in some way different from the rest. According to Lewis, antisemitism is marked by two distinct features: Jews are judged according to
3471-464: The 21st century". When some conservatives denounced Bush's immigration plan, Podhoretz wrote that Bush's "efforts on behalf of conservative causes—from faith-based policies to stem-cell research to a strict-constructionist judiciary to entitlement reform and massive tax cuts—have all fallen down the memory hole". Podhoretz is emphatic in his defense of Israel in its conflicts with its Arab neighbors. When pundit Pat Buchanan called Israel's actions in
3560-470: The Christian foundation on which the modern antisemitic edifice rests and invoke political antisemitism, cultural antisemitism, racism or racial antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and the like." William Nicholls draws a distinction between religious antisemitism and modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds: "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion [...] a Jew ceased to be
3649-436: The Holocaust. Hannah Arendt criticized this approach, writing that it provoked "the uncomfortable question: 'Why the Jews of all people?' ... with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility." Zionist thinkers and antisemites draw different conclusions from what they perceive as the eternal hatred of Jews; according to antisemites, it proves the inferiority of Jews, while for Zionists it means that Jews need their own state as
John Podhoretz - Misplaced Pages Continue
3738-507: The Jewish race." After 1945 victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany , and particularly after the full extent of the Nazi genocide against the Jews became known, the term antisemitism acquired pejorative connotations. This marked a full circle shift in usage, from an era just decades earlier when "Jew" was used as a pejorative term. Yehuda Bauer wrote in 1984: "There are no anti-Semites in
3827-505: The Jews for an encyclopedia of sins . The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus ; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity . In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease . Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism ; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan ; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood
3916-635: The Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection. Jeffrey Goldberg , 2015. Louis Harap , writing in the 1980s, separated "economic antisemitism" and merges "political" and "nationalistic" antisemitism into "ideological antisemitism". Harap also adds a category of "social antisemitism". Religious antisemitism , also known as anti-Judaism, is antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs. In theory, antisemitism and attacks against individual Jews would stop if Jews stopped practicing Judaism or changed their public faith, especially by conversion to
4005-536: The News , and U.S. News & World Report . Podhoretz was a contributor to The Corner, a group blog run by National Review . At The Weekly Standard , one staff member said, Podhoretz's "arrogance and egotism had a psychological effect people can't quite believe." At The Washington Times a colleague reported, he was "permanently frozen in juvenilia." Glenn Garvin, the Central American bureau chief of
4094-610: The White House Writers Group, a public-relations firm in Washington, D.C. Podhoretz was a consultant for the popular television series The West Wing , including the controversial episode " Gaza " in season five, first broadcast on May 12, 2004. Podhoretz has contributed to a number of conservative publications, including National Review and the Weekly Standard , where he was a movie critic and
4183-400: The actions of an individual Jewish person or group; denying the Holocaust or accusing Jews or Israel of exaggerating it; and accusing Jews of dual loyalty or a greater allegiance to Israel than their own country. It also lists ways in which attacking Israel could be antisemitic, and states that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of
4272-607: The bipolarity that is at the heart of the problem of antisemitism". The Associated Press and its accompanying AP Stylebook adopted the unhyphenated spelling in 2021. Style guides for other news organizations such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal later adopted this spelling as well. It has also been adopted by many Holocaust museums , such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem . Though
4361-621: The coming days." Within days of Carroll's release, a video of Carroll slamming the "occupation" of Iraq and praising the insurgents as "good people fighting an honorable fight" appeared on an Islamist website. However, Carroll subsequently released a statement through The Christian Science Monitor 's website stating that she participated in the video only because she feared for her life and because her captors said they would let her go if she participated to their satisfaction. Carroll called her captors "criminals, at best" and said she remained "deeply angry" with them. On April 1, 2006, Podhoretz wrote
4450-462: The concept of anti-Judaism , which is distinct from antisemitism itself. There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution . On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide , which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although
4539-527: The downfall of Judaism, a phenomenon that negates everything purely human and noble." This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of " Antisemitismus " which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow
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#17327980230444628-547: The early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world , largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories , which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories . In recent times, the idea that there is a variation of antisemitism known as " new antisemitism " has emerged on several occasions. According to this view, since Israel
4717-586: The editor of a Jewish cultural magazine and was then a fundraiser, to start a new journal. Cohen designed Commentary to reconnect assimilated Jews and Jewish intellectuals with the broader, more traditional, and very liberal Jewish community. At the same time, the magazine was designed to bring ideas of the young Jewish New York intellectuals to a wider audience. It demonstrated that Jewish intellectuals, and by extension all American Jews, had turned away from their past political radicalism to embrace mainstream U.S. culture and values. Cohen stated his grand design in
4806-437: The financial canards: Abraham Foxman describes six facets of the financial canards: Gerald Krefetz summarizes the myth as "[Jews] control the banks, the money supply, the economy, and businesses—of the community, of the country, of the world". Krefetz gives, as illustrations, many slurs and proverbs (in several different languages) which suggest that Jews are stingy, or greedy, or miserly, or aggressive bargainers. During
4895-405: The first issue: With Europe devastated, there falls upon us here in the United States a far greater share of the responsibility for carrying forward, in a creative way, our common Jewish cultural and spiritual heritage...to harmonize heritage and country into a true sense of at-home-ness. Although many or even most of the editors and writers had been socialists , Trotskyites , or Stalinists in
4984-467: The following comment on National Review Online approximately three hours after hostage Jill Carroll 's release from her captors: "It's wonderful that she's free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn't beaten or killed—while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is—I expect there will be some Stockholm syndrome talk in
5073-410: The following on National Review Online : "For writing these predictive words, which were entirely accurate, I've been pilloried all over the blogosphere. Weird, especially in light of Jill Carroll's statement today, which was an effort to address and quiet precisely the kind of talk I predicted would take place." In response to assertions by National Review writer John Derbyshire that the victims of
5162-480: The foreign terrorists and the Shiite sectarians—and bring them to heel. Kill as many bad guys as we can, with as many troops as we can muster." In disagreement with several writers at National Review and conservatives in general, Podhoretz has aggressively favored a more open immigration policy for the United States. He wrote: "I said merely what I feel deeply—which is that, as a Jew, I have great difficulty supporting
5251-509: The forms of antisemitism. The forms identified are substantially the same; it is primarily the number of forms and their definitions that differ. Bernard Lazare , writing in the 1890s, identified three forms of antisemitism: Christian antisemitism , economic antisemitism, and ethnologic antisemitism. William Brustein names four categories: religious, racial, economic, and political. The Roman Catholic historian Edward Flannery distinguished four varieties of antisemitism: Europe has blamed
5340-420: The general definition of antisemitism is hostility or prejudice against Jews, and, according to Olaf Blaschke , has become an "umbrella term for negative stereotypes about Jews", a number of authorities have developed more formal definitions. Writing in 1987, Holocaust scholar and City University of New York professor Helen Fein defined it as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as
5429-471: The guy?' Derb asks. Gee, I don't know. Because he was executing people? Because if you rush a guy with a gun, he shoots you in the head the way he executed the teachers in each classroom?" Podhoretz went on to ridicule Derbyshire's claim that he was touching a " third rail " by raising a subject nobody else wanted to discuss. Podhoretz has frequently clashed with Derbyshire on immigration policy and other issues. Podhoretz often writes about popular culture, and
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#17327980230445518-489: The height of the controversy that "there is one thing that the American people know about Senator McCarthy: he, like them, is unequivocally anti-Communist. About the spokesmen for American liberalism, they feel they know no such thing." In the late 1950s, the magazine quality sagged, as Cohen suffered from mental illness and committed suicide . A protégé of Lionel Trilling , Norman Podhoretz took over in 1960, running
5607-591: The highest one, which the Jews will not have usurped". This followed his 1862 book Die Judenspiegel ( A Mirror to the Jews ) in which he argued that "Judaism must cease to exist if humanity is to commence", demanding both that Judaism be dissolved as a "religious-denominational sect" but also subject to criticism "as a race, a civil and social entity". In the introductions to the first through fourth editions of Der Judenspiegel, Marr denied that he intended to preach Jew-hatred, but instead to help "the Jews reach their full human potential" which could happen only "through
5696-466: The important conclusion, that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses, just as we give up contending against every other inherited predisposition. In the aftermath of the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, German propaganda minister Goebbels announced: "The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of
5785-681: The late 19th century. For example, Karl Lueger , the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna , skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage. In its 1910 obituary of Lueger, The New York Times notes that Lueger was "Chairman of the Christian Social Union of the Parliament and of the Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. In 1895, A. C. Cuza organized
5874-570: The leading post- World War II journal of Jewish affairs. The periodical strove to construct a new American Jewish identity while processing the events of the Holocaust , the formation of the State of Israel , and the Cold War . Norman Podhoretz edited the magazine from 1960 to 1995. Besides its coverage of cultural issues, Commentary provided a voice for the anti-Stalinist left . As Podhoretz shifted from his original ideological beliefs as
5963-575: The magazine with an iron hand until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz said, Commentary was founded to lead the Jewish intellectuals "out of the desert of alienation...and into the promised land of democratic, pluralistic, and prosperous America". Cohen brought on board strong editors who themselves wrote important essays, including Irving Kristol ; art critic Clement Greenberg ; film and cultural critic Robert Warshow ; and sociologist Nathan Glazer . Commentary published Hannah Arendt , Daniel Bell , Sidney Hook , and Irving Howe . The emergence of
6052-668: The most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France . The underlying premise of economic antisemitism is that Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews. Linking Jews and money underpins the most damaging and lasting antisemitic canards . Antisemites claim that Jews control
6141-626: The new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear." Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin , who published the first French translation of the Protocols , combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont , one of
6230-601: The official or right religion. However, in some cases, discrimination continues after conversion, as in the case of Marranos (Christianized Jews in Spain and Portugal) in the late 15th century and 16th century, who were suspected of secretly practising Judaism or Jewish customs. Although the origins of antisemitism are rooted in the Judeo-Christian conflict, other forms of antisemitism have developed in modern times. Frederick Schweitzer asserts that "most scholars ignore
6319-475: The outset the term "anti-Semitism" bore special racial connotations and meant specifically prejudice against Jews . The term has been described as confusing, for in modern usage 'Semitic' designates a language group, not a race. In this sense, the term is a misnomer, since there are many speakers of Semitic languages (e.g., Arabs , Ethiopians , and Arameans ) who are not the objects of antisemitic prejudices, while there are many Jews who do not speak Hebrew ,
6408-495: The past half century has been so consistently influential, or so central to the major debates that have transformed the political and intellectual life of the United States." Anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews . This sentiment is a form of racism , and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite . Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as
6497-702: The past, that was no longer tolerated. Commentary articles were anti- Communist and also anti- McCarthyite ; it identified and attacked any perceived weakness among liberals on Cold War issues, backing President Harry Truman 's policies such as the Truman Doctrine , the Marshall Plan , and NATO . The "soft-on-Communism" position of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and Henry A. Wallace came under steady attack. Liberals who hated Joseph McCarthy were annoyed when Irving Kristol wrote at
6586-695: The perceived lack of clarity in the IHRA definition, two new definitions of antisemitism were published in 2021, the Nexus Document in February 2021 and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in March 2021. In 1879, Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (Anti-Semitic League). Identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe during
6675-591: The project to define antisemitism, arguing that it essentializes Jewish history as one of persecution and discrimination. Engel argues that the term "antisemitism" is not useful in historical analysis because it implies that there are links between anti-Jewish prejudices expressed in different contexts, without evidence of such a connection. Antisemitism manifests itself in a variety of ways. René König mentions social antisemitism, economic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and political antisemitism as examples. König points out that these different forms demonstrate that
6764-498: The second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase "the Jews are our misfortune" which would later be widely used by Nazis . According to Falk, Treitschke uses the term "Semitic" almost synonymously with "Jewish", in contrast to Renan's use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria. According to philologist Jonathan M. Hess ,
6853-421: The state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity," but that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It provided contemporary examples of ways in which antisemitism may manifest itself, including promoting the harming of Jews in the name of an ideology or religion; promoting negative stereotypes of Jews; holding Jews collectively responsible for
6942-410: The tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?" In a December 2006 column, he wrote, "The most common cliché about the war in Iraq
7031-550: The term Antisemiten in the January issue of Neue Freie Presse . The Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old. ' " The word "antisemitism"
7120-625: The term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death , between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of
7209-542: The term was originally used by its authors to "stress the radical difference between their own 'antisemitism' and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism." In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet ( The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from
7298-743: The unhyphenated spelling, in order to "[dispel] the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes." Others endorsing an unhyphenated term for the same reason include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance , historian Deborah Lipstadt , Padraic O'Hare, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College ; and historians Yehuda Bauer and James Carroll . According to Carroll, who first cites O'Hare and Bauer on "the existence of something called 'Semitism ' ", "the hyphenated word thus reflects
7387-508: The world finances, a theory promoted in the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and later repeated by Henry Ford and his The Dearborn Independent . In the modern era, such myths continue to be spread in books such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews published by the Nation of Islam and on the internet. Derek Penslar writes that there are two components to
7476-581: The world ... Nobody says, 'I am anti-Semitic.' You cannot, after Hitler. The word has gone out of fashion." The study of antisemitism has become politically controversial because of differing interpretations of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. There are two competing views of antisemitism, eternalism, and contextualism. The eternalist view sees antisemitism as separate from other forms of racism and prejudice and an exceptionalist, transhistorical force teleologically culminating in
7565-477: Was borrowed into English from German in 1881. Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!" The related term " philosemitism " was used by 1881. From
7654-455: Was called the "resident pop culture expert" at National Review Online by Jonah Goldberg . Dennis Miller has called Podhoretz his "favorite movie reviewer." Podhoretz has written that "it doesn't make sense to judge pop culture by its politics." In 1999 a column he wrote for The New York Post , "A Conversation in Hell", which featured a conversation between Satan and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. ,
7743-641: Was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages — Aramaic , Arabic , Hebrew and others—allegedly spoken by the descendants of Biblical figure Sem , son of Noah . The origin of "antisemitic" terminologies is found in the responses of orientalist Moritz Steinschneider to the views of orientalist Ernest Renan . Historian Alex Bein writes: "The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his 'anti-Semitic prejudices' [i.e., his derogation of
7832-528: Was killed because of its controversial nature. Jonathan Chait has criticized Podhoretz's use of social media, accusing him of "spew[ing] forth abuse upon various adversaries, especially by lobbing spurious charges of antisemitism." Podhoretz's first marriage, to Elisabeth Marie Hickey, in 1997, ended in divorce after less than three months. In 2002, he married Ayala Rae Cohen, a former co-producer for Saturday Night Live , who works for International Creative Management ( ICM Partners ). They have two daughters and
7921-551: Was the magazine's deputy editor. He was also a consulting editor at ReganBooks , a former imprint of HarperCollins . Podhoretz has a regular column at the New York Post . He has also appeared on television, including Fox News , CNN 's Reliable Sources , MSNBC, and The McLaughlin Group (in the chair usually occupied by conservative Tony Blankley ). He has also worked at Time , the Washington Times , Insight on
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