A richly informative, if highly problematic, overview of
anti-Jewish bigotry and violence between the 1870s, when the term
"anti-Semitism" was coined, and the Holocaust. Lindemann
(History/Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara), who has written
previously on Dreyfus and other anti-Semitic cases, here focuses
largely on Germany and France, with lesser attention to Russia,
Great Britain, the US, Italy, Hungary, and Romania. (Curiously, a
section on the inter, var years almost entirely omits Poland, a
country with a deep anti-Semitic tradition.) He correctly posits an
indirect line between the racist anti-Semitism that characterized
the beginning of the period and what Daniel Goldhagen calls the
"eliminationist" ethos that led to the Holocaust. Lindemann also
makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of both
long-term socioeconomic and short-term political contingencies
behind the expression of anti-Semitism. He reveals the "comparative
quality and texture in expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment" by
demonstrating that most major anti-Semites and philo-Semites were
more complex than their labels would indicate. However, Lindemann's
penchant for nuance ultimately takes its toll. While there is an
indisputable correlation between the rise of Jewish power and
influence during the 19th and 20th centuries and the
intensification of political and intellectual anti-Semitism, the
author comes very close to suggesting that there is a clear-cut
causal relationship between the two. Thus, he refers to modern
anti-Semitism as "transparently an ideology of revenge" and alludes
to the supposed "Jewish sense of superiority (including certain
kinds of measurable Jewish superiority) and the envy/hatred it has
engendered." Finally, Lindemann, who calls for scholars to engage
in a nonpolemical study of anti-Semitism, himself lapses into
highly charged statements and rhetorical questions in an odd,
rambling conclusion. There's much provocative, compelling material
here, but the author's conclusions are too often contradictory or
unpersuasive. (Kirkus Reviews)
Esau's Tears explores the rise of modern racial-political anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States. Previous histories have been more concerned with description than analysis and most have lacked balance. The evidence presented in this volume suggests that anti-Semitism in these years was more ambiguous than usually presented, less pervasive and central to the lives of both Jews and non-Jews, and by no means clearly pointed to a rising hatred of Jews everywhere, even less to the likelihood of mass murder. Hatred of Jews was not as mysterious or incomprehensible as often presented, but may be related to the differing perceptions of the rise of the Jews in modern times.
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