Clemens Heni: Antisemitism and Germany: Anti-Jewish Images from 1602 to 9/11

About Ahasver (the »eternal Jew«), anti-capitalist antisemitism (»Mammon«) and blood libel (»Moloch«)
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http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/ahasver-mammon-and-moloch-anti-jewish-images-1602-to-911/

Prologue

As early as 20 years ago, Henryk M. Broder, one of the most prominent German journalists and authors, characterized the ways German society deals with anti-Semitism as follows[1]:

“There were and are three ways in which one may deal with the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic: in a scientific way, in a historicizing way and in a defensive way. In the first case, one has to collect data, as if the issue at hand were drunk driving or working-class children at secondary schools. But one must make sure not to draw conclusions from the data. In the second case, it is recommended to select topics such as ‘Anti-Semitism in the late Tsarist period’ or ‘Christians and Jews in the time of the first crusade,’ which are surely important subjects, but whose greatest virtue is, of course, that everybody involved has been dead for a long time and one need not reckon with angry responses. Finally, in the third case, it is advisable to declare anti-Semitism a marginal phenomenon accompanying the otherwise fruitful German-Jewish symbiosis, to describe the Third Reich as a kind of natural catastrophe or accident, and to rehabilitate figures of contemporary history with a reputation of being anti-Semitic and to prove that they have been misunderstood. If indeed all three conditions are fulfilled, then the work will be considered high-level and will enjoy public funding.”[2]

Introduction

I consider this paper as part of a theoretical approach to the study of anti-Semitism. The paper examines the anti-Jewish images of Ahasver, Mammon and Moloch and contributes to research on anti-Semitism, or to criticism of anti-Semitism, a criticism of both ideology and at the level of political economy. This is in contrast to many a dictum of desiring specifically “not to point out literary anti-Semitism” when dealing with Ahasver[3]. Analysis of anti-Semitism must include an examination of the society or context made it possible to think up and write down precisely a legend about Jews. For this reason, this working paper attempts to examine analogously three of the most important anti-Jewish images which are intertwined with one another: Ahasver, Moloch and Mammon. In doing so, it goes without saying that the historical point of departure is not to be regarded in isolation, but in its relationship to the contemporary manifestation of such images. In addition, it is imperative to inquire about specifically German patterns of this anti-Jewish triad.

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Dr. Clemens Heni is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), YALE University

Clemens Heni: Antisemitism and Germany: Anti-Jewish Images from 1602 to 9/11

About Ahasver (the »eternal Jew«), anti-capitalist antisemitism (»Mammon«) and blood libel (»Moloch«)
  • 0
AUTHOR

Dr. Clemens Heni


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