If one thing is clear from a hopelessly lopsided (social) media war against Israel in the past 3 years, it’s that “antisemitism” as a rhetorical weapon to counter the onslaught has become utterly useless.
The inadequacy of the term is unsurprising: by sheer overuse, it has lost both its discursive sway and its analytical power. It has become an empty slogan. If Wittgenstein is right that the meaning of a word is its use in language, then “antisemitism” has lost its meaning as denominator for the hatred of Jews, and with it, of everything the Jews (allegedly or truly) stand for: the oldest cultural civilization in the world with universalist values, founded in the texts of Torah and Talmud; survival in the face of eliminatory polities; and, in modernity, capitalist liberal democracy. “Antisemitism” has also lost its meaning as designating a relatively novel ideological phenomenon tied to the crisis of the nation-state, imperialism, racism and mass politics—all that Hannah Arendt explicitly meant in her use of “antisemitism” in The Origins of Totalitarianism.
“Antisemitism” has lost its meaning as denominator for the hatred of Jews, and with it, of everything the Jews (allegedly or truly) stand for.
None of these characterizations still resonate with “antisemitism” as used today, a term one rather associates with a technocratic state apparatus that, for example in Germany, announces “antisemitism officers” in charge of “Jewish life”.
The term “antisemitism” has become a mystification of Jew hatred. It is more than high time to put it in its grave.
Instead, we should call the hatred of Jews what it is—precisely that.
Several advantages would result from replacing “antisemitism” with its immediate meaning:
- We’d finally discard a term for Jew hatred that an explicit Jew hater introduced into the intellectual landscape: Wilhelm Marr (1819-1904) was the man who popularized the term “antisemitism” in 1879 and brought it into political discourse. In the same year, he founded the Antisemitenliga (“League of Antisemites”), the first explicitly antisemitic political organization in the German Empire. His exclusive aim was to give Jew hatred a more respectable, academic name that would appeal to the intellectuals, and he wore the term as a badge of honor.
- Jew hatred is a vile, base, primitive affect that is directed, as Sartre correctly said, at the “death of the Jew”. This meaning gets entirely lost in the respectable term “antisemitism”, a vague concept that intentionally obscures the object of its resentment (more on this below). “Hatred” brings back the affect-laden dimension of the phenomenon, while “Jew” concretely names the object of the death-wish.
- The argument—more often used than you’d perhaps imagine from your corner of the internet (and unsurprisingly, since it is an invention of Edward Said himself) —that “antisemitism” targets both Jews and Arabs, as Arabs are by linguistic definition “semites” as well, would no longer hold. Neither would the term “Islamic antisemitism” palliate one particular form of Jew hatred. Again, using “Jew hatred” or “hatred of Jews” de-mystifies the object of hostility.
- The argument that Jew hatred and “antisemitism” denounce two different and essentially discrete phenomena—the first, a traditional, religiously motivated anti-Jewish hostility, and the second, its modern form, which is rooted in racial and Social Darwinist ideas, would no longer be tenable. I call this an advantage, because it would further demystify the phenomenon: by interrupting the continuity between religiously motivated Jew hatred by Christians in the Middle Ages and early modern era, Nazi eliminatory ideology (“Die Juden sind unser Unglück”), and modern Israel-specific Jew hatred (“antizionism”), one squanders the recognition of the common motivation of very different types of anti-Jewish hostility (think of Tucker Carlson’s “Christian” rejection of Judaism and the DSA’s antizionist policies, which both intend the elimination of Jewish life).
- “Jew hatred” would therefore also be much more suitable than “antisemitism” to include antizionism as one of its subforms. Antizionism is an ideology of hate. It is neither an “analytical” nor a “critical” category. Criticism assumes that the object in question may grow to become a better version of itself. Antizionists do not want a “better Israel”. They want the end of Israel. They share their convictions, political aims, and social means with every other Jew hater.
More must said at this point about antizionism. Antizionism is a “permission slip” (Joshua Dabelstein) to label Jews who do not denounce Israel as supporters of genocide, apartheid or colonialism, and make them into fair, “justified” game for violence (which is the actual aim). It is also entirely disinterested in the history or political-economic landscape of the Israel-Palestine conflict, including the fate of Palestinians.
Antizionism is entirely disinterested in the history or political-economic landscape of the Israel-Palestine conflict, including the fate of Palestinians.
Young men like Adam Louis-Klein in the US and Dabelstein in Australia have recently gained momentum with their movements against antizionism—a breath of fresh air in the stale “the civilian-combatant death ratio in the Gaza war was the most humane in history”— argumentative strategy. While Louis-Klein and Dabelstein differ in some aspects, their strategy is “Don’t Debate: Name the Libels and Their Function”. Their work contributes to what I think would be the same aim as mine: making Jew hatred despicable again.
When the managing director of the German Cultural Council (Deutscher Kulturrat) told media on June 7, regarding the 2022 documenta art exhibition scandal, that “antisemitism cannot be prevented as a matter of principle”, this was supposed to mean that “artistic freedom” would not be prevented. The statement was not particularly controversial, given that “artistic freedom” is a good in itself, and “antisemitism” no longer serves any potent “warning”, never mind critical function.
What, though, if he had said “hatred of Jews cannot be prevented” among the exhibition’s works of art? Wouldn’t that have struck a different tone, even in the near-soulless art world?
“Antisemites” and “antizionists” do not want to be called Jew haters. It’s time to take off their masks.
