Is this anti-semitism?

that's in way of agreement with you btw :)

Yeah I just get a little uncomfortable with the whole "well just because you are Jewish doesn't mean you are pro-Israel" line because the implication seems to be "you COULD be ANTI-Israel."

also too close to "well there are some good jews," which refers to a very tiny minority of actual jews. moreover the implicit suggestion that to be a good person you have to be anti-israel whereas i reject that insinuation entirely. not saying that's what's happening here in this thread but often that's how i understand the use of certain jews (like judith butler) to excuse antisemitism. it can't be antisemitic, after all this jew agrees with me. jews are allowed to support the only jewish state in the world - it's very reasonable and there's nothing immoral about it. after all israel is not actually a settler colonial state, or imperialist, or genocidal etc. if it becomes verboten to support israel, or jews feel uncomfortable supporting it in their departments, that isn't really mitigated by saying that support of israel isn't integral to being jewish. they support israel bc they're jews (among possibly other reasons) so it is ultimately targeting a performance of their identity, and demanding their disaffiliation with coreligionists.

the anti-colonialism of the left is /very/ selective. i've noticed this since i was a teenager.

― wizzz! (amateurist)

this is true and it's very sadly seemingly the result of extremely superficial, violence-based (the centrality of Palestine vis-a-vis a ton of other situations where western allies are shitty to national/ethnic minorities in their territories is def based on the focus brought to palestinian plight by high-profile acts of terrorism), or public relations focused (isn't the dalai lama cute? the beastie boys support Tibet! what's an Uighur?) aspects of various anti-colonial movements

i also think the 'it's not antisemitic to disagree with israeli policies' is a red herring. i'm pretty sure i've made this point on ilx before but no one who is pro-israel is pro every israeli policy. it's impossible for that to be true - like every State there are a variety of govts. Likudniks don't support the elements of govt that aren't Likud. Settlers don't support the elements of the Israeli State that are hostile to the settlements. iirc the majority of israelis aren't fans of the settlements themselves, but they're still pro israel. sometimes the most "pro-israel" pov is the most antagonistic towards the state - ie v right-wing charedi jews who believe the secular state is an abomination that needs to be replaced w/ a theological govt. so what does being anti-israel mean if every pro-israel person disagrees with some israeli policies? presumably it means being against the ongoing existence of israel as a jewish state (as amateurist points out, something absurd to believe since israel is not going anywhere). in fact i haven't seen this mentioned anywhere but there is literally no pressure that can be exerted on israel to become a binational state; if at any time it becomes too difficult israeli govts always reserve the option to unilaterally leave the WB. so some pressure could be provided to end the occupation but anyone trying to end the jewish state of israel does not really understand the circumstances at play. (cf ppl who believe the arabs outlasted the crusaders so they can outwait the jews too)

i'm pretty sure i've made this point on ilx before but no one who is pro-israel is pro every israeli policy. it's impossible for that to be true

that's true but there are some baseline activities that almost every israeli gov't in recent decades has been party to to which a lot of people rightfully (or at least righteously) object.

but i agree with you about the uselessness and insidiously of the anti- / pro-israel dichotomy.

xpost

i mean in the same sense there have been different parties in control of the white house over the past 40 years but there are some baseline assumptions about the projection of american power that never seem to be altered in any fundamental way.

is that true tho? like sharon unilaterally withdrew from gaza as recently as 2005. olmert offered a deal in 2008, etc. i guess you could say that bibi + olmert + sharon all shared the same mission -to keep israel a jewish state - but had different strategies for going about doing it. but then the opposition is to the fact that israel is a jewish state and not just a disagreement w/ tactics.

maybe i'm just not sufficiently up on the intricacies of israeli politics

but haven't the jewish settlements in the west bank -- which seem to me a violation of good faith with the palestinians -- basically been countenanced (and mostly expanding) under all these various administrations?

this is what haaretz said:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the number of West Bank settlers has grown by about 120,000 since he took office in 2009.

But while the number is correct, the reason has little to do with the pace of construction in the settlements during his tenure. In fact, since Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, there has been less construction activity in the settlements than under any other prime minister since 1995.

Netanyahu made his statement during an internal meeting on Tuesday, in an effort to rebuff growing criticism from the right. A recording of his remarks was obtained later by Michal Shemesh, a reporter for Army Radio.

“The left accuses us that from 280,000 [settlers] we’ve risen to 400,000, and that was during years when we were told that official U.S. policy was not even one house,” Netanyahu can be heard to say. “Praise God, this isn’t far from the truth. It’s the biggest increase in our world.”

This increase, however, isn’t because Netanyahu has gone on a building spree. According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of his recent predecessors.

By comparison, the annual average was 1,881 under Ariel Sharon and 1,774 under Ehud Olmert. As for Ehud Barak, during his single full year as prime minister, in 2000, he built a whopping 5,000 homes in the settlements.

The current rate is also only about half the pace of settlement construction during Netanyahu’s first term of office, in 1996-99, when it averaged almost 3,000 homes a year.

So why has the number of settlers increased so sharply? Due to natural growth, especially in the two ultra-Orthodox towns of Betar Ilit and Modi’in Ilit. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the fertility rate in the settlements is 5.01 children per woman, which is far higher than anywhere else in Israel. In the northern district, which ranks second, the fertility rate is just 3.91 children per woman.

Thus in 2013, for instance, 12,129 children were born in the settlements and only 535 people died. This is also a very low death rate, which stems from the fact that the settler population is relatively young.

The statistics bureau’s data also shows that 74 percent of the growth in the number of settlers from 2009-2014 stemmed from natural increase. In 2014, for instance, the number of settlers rose by 14,200.

Of these, 11,800, or 83 percent of the growth, was a result of natural increase (births minus deaths) and only 2,400 the result of net migration to the settlements. In 2012, by contrast, natural increase accounted for only 68 percent of the total increase in the number of settlers.

in terms of new settlements (as opposed to housing in old ones) from what i understand there have been virtually no new ones (3 total?) approved in ~20+ years. nb that article is from 2014 so that figure might've changed. nb there are illegal non-govt sanctioned hill top settlements that do go up.

but you're kind of making my point, actually. under the center-left gov'ts, settlements were built. under netanyahu, they may not be built, but they are becoming more deeply entrenched.

so the point is that people rightfully object, not just to the policies of netanyahu and other rightists, but to what might be said to be the overall policy of the israeli government regardless of its position on the political spectrum -- which is to ensure that the the jewish settlements are deeply entrenched.

i hear, tho tbph i don't consider boycotts against the settlements to be remotely the same as boycotts against israel in toto (even tho i don't support either boycott personally)

sorry i forgot that i repeated that phrase!

the point is that israeli governments both 'left' and 'right' are complicit in something that many people (including many israelis!) view as evidence of bad faith vis-à-vis the palestinians (and vis-à-vis many international agreements as well).

xpost

but if you view israeli gov't as fundamentally complicit in the settlements then i can see how you could easily want to extend the boycott to israel as a whole

Ok I don't know anything about academic anthropology. in my area there are so many Jewish scholars that one of them once told me I was Jewish in an honorary way just by working in the area.

btw I'm writing this from Toulouse which feels ironically apt

anyway, the pt is that you can even oppose the settlements and still be "pro-israel" - the only issue is when you believe the entire israel is a settlement (aka the 1948 occupation pov) that needs to be dismantled xp

yup

I guess I also don't like saying "pro-Israel" because I'm not one of those people who goes to Israel day parades and waves flags. I don't buy Israel bonds or give money to the JNF or send pizza to IDF soldiers or whatever. In college I refused to go on a Birthright trip because I objected to the implications of the name. I also detest the current admin and the general direction Israeli politics has been going in. But I also would never use the term "anti-Israel" or "anti-Zionist" to describe myself, and I can't quite get comfortable with "post-Zionism" as a remotely realistic mode of approaching things. I would maybe say I'm zionist-sympathetic and even admittedly slightly biased toward Israel, but generally with a left-liberal slant. The rhetorical strategy of the Palestinian movement seems to be to try to put people like me in a bind -- choose a side, theirs or ours. You're either a good one or a bad one. TBF, right-wingers often do the same to liberal Jews from the other side.

Friend who spent her 20s in London and then moved back to Tel Aviv has commented recently that she is sick of seeing both sides in the conflict totally manipulated into endless warfare by international munitions companies, etc.

choose a side, theirs or ours. You're either a good one or a bad one. TBF, right-wingers often do the same to liberal Jews from the other side.

Speaking of which:

The president wrote back, admitting that he was embarrassed, to inform me that when he brought this to the shul committee concern unexpectedly arose. Trying to justify what he was about to tell me, he joked: “Because we are a synagogue … we have to be arguing about you coming to speak. The argument goes something like this … ”

Then he got to the point. Some people in the meeting, he explained, said that since “he appears on MSNBC and CNN, he is clearly J Street,”

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/195443/closing-american-jewish-mind

whoa, charles davis has found the nexus point between awesomeness fest burner culture and nationalist antisemitism:

https://twitter.com/charliearchy/status/675417537262301184

or it's just the latter dressed up in the former's clothing, but damn

wtf is this even for real?
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/151436/fourteen-members-paris-synagogue-poisoned

http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-jewish-politician-73-found-dead-in-home-near-paris/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/marseille-jews-warned-against-wearing-kippas-after-attack/

france-watch. guess we're gonna see if they can break 2015's record number of jewish emigrants.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYjYwiXWwAEdLxS.jpg

Joann Sfar cartoon.

I have always detested/hated religious signs. But now that in France I see that we're advising Jewish people to not wear a kippah 'for their security', I fancy wearing a kippah, bunches and to have the Rabbi Jacob at full blast on my walkman. Yes, I said walkman.

more in this article about french ppl wearing yarmulkes in solidarity w/ jews who have been cautioned to hide their identities:
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/calls-for-jewish-people-to-remove-their-skullcaps-provokes-brilliant-response-in-france--ZkKaqeTP2l

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.697721

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/26/israel-derangement-syndrome-envelops-the-far-left-six-examples/

Anti-Israel sentiment at that most progressive of colleges, Oberlin, is bleeding into anti-Semitism (or maybe anti-Israel sentiment is simply providing a cover for latent anti-Semitism). Professor William Jacobson has the details here, but even if you don’t read the whole post, read the end of it, where he quotes a lengthy Facebook post from a recent alumna about anti-Semitic incidents she experienced or witnessed as a left-wing, but pro-Israel Jewish student there. I won’t endorse the claim that every one of these incidents was anti-Semitic, as such, but, assuming they are all true, they paint a very disturbing picture. I was particularly struck by her claim that multiple times she heard Oberlin students dismiss the Holocaust as “white on white violence.”

not once but multiple times? jfc.

this is excellent:
https://libcom.org/library/antisemitism-modern-critique-capitalism

In Marx’s Jewish Question (1964) and the writings of the Frankfurt School, the category ‘Jew’ is a social metaphor that focuses anti-capitalist resentment from the standpoint of capitalism – an anti-capitalist capitalism. In contrast, however, to Anderson’s affirmative categorization, Marx and the Frankfurt School approached the ‘Jewish Question’ through the lens of the critique of the fetishism of bourgeois relations of production. Expanding on Marx’s critical question, ‘why does this content [human social relations] assume that form [the form of capital]’ (cf. Marx, 1962, p. 95), it asks why does the bourgeois critique of capitalism assume the form of antisemitism? In contrast, the affirmative use of the category ‘Jew’ rationalizes antisemitism as a manifestation of the hatred of capitalism, and through its rationalization, is complicit in the ‘rumour about Jews’. Such complicity partakes in the paradigmatic fascist gesture of an anti-capitalism that seeks a capitalism without capitalism.

written 24 years ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Socialism-Fools-Anti-Semitism-Left/dp/0935933050

acc to postone modern antisemitism on the left has its roots in soviet antisemitism so i know it has been around for a while but the most interesting thing for me is that is written by michael lerner who i wouldn't have expected to write such a polemic from other things i've read + know about him (i mean i'm pleasantly surprised, at least based on reading the summary).

one of the best things on the topic that i think i linked up to above is the steve cohen book bc he makes a critique i know v well from orthodox jewish upbringing but in the language of left-wing politics which is the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem. i was thinking about this recently when i was discussing the question of jews and privilege w/ someone and he mentioned that part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question. "well you can always take off your kipa and then no one will know" (which isn't 100% true either since jewish variety often encompasses non-white bodies - even among ashkenazim)

But the propaganda offensive continued with radio broadcasts from Ger- many and Italy and leaflets distributed by intelligence units in the armed forces and from diplomatic posts in Tunisia and Morocco. Between January 1 and February 18, in Tunis and Tangier alone, German intelligence agents and diplo- mats distributed approximately 400,000 Arabic-language leaflets and pam- phlets.2 Among these was “Facts,” 25,000 copies of which were divided equally between Tunis and Tangier. The pamphlet warned that the fate of Arabs in Palestine could be a harbinger of things to come in North Africa.

"The North Africans know that a large number of the Jews who live in Tunisia, Al- geria, and Morocco have acquired foreign citizenship, and they know the effects of this on the Arab-Jewish relationship. . . . [T]he North Africans understand that the Jews living in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco do not cultivate land, do not repair the roads, do not build houses, and pursue Jewish vocations. They special- ize in deception and grabbing money. So what will be the fate of North Africa if this situation continues? Will the Jews become the friends of the kings while the Arabs become servants? Something like this already happened in Palestine. . . . Will the children of the Jews go to school while the children of the Arabs are removed [so they can] polish shoes and pick up cigarette butts? Something re- sembling this happened in Palestine. Will Muslim girls become servants in the houses of Jews? That really happened in Palestine under the auspices of the English.3"

“Who Are the Arabs’ Real Allies?” (5,000 copies distributed in Tunis, 4,000 in Tangier) asserted that the English and the Americans were “attacking Islam in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco by means of their missionaries. Have you seen the Germans do something like this?” The English had interfered in the affairs of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq and opposed nationalist movements and killed their leaders.“Have you heard of the Germans trying something like this? And you’ve heard that the English and the Americans think about establishing an ethnic nation for the Jews in North Africa on the model of Palestine. Could you imagine the Germans doing something like this?” The English and Ameri- cans defended “the old system of colonialism,” but the Germans and their allies “call for a new system, a system of cooperation. So then who are the true allies of the Arabs?”4

I've moved on to Jeffrey Herf's "Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World"

the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem. i was thinking about this recently when i was discussing the question of jews and privilege w/ someone and he mentioned that part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question. "well you can always take off your kipa and then no one will know" (which isn't 100% true either since jewish variety often encompasses non-white bodies - even among ashkenazim)

Lots to unpack here. I'd like to hear what you mean by "the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem" -- if you mean that the left tends to idealize a kind of "judaism of 1965 philip roth" that foregrounds culture, food, linguistic idiosyncracy and suppresses religious observance, traditional sex roles, insularity, then yes, I think that's true -- I think 1965 philip roth is deeply ambivalent about jewish insularity and longs for assimilation in the sense of "I can go to Ohio State and feel like I belong there" but I don't think there's even a HINT of a wish for a future where there's no such thing as a jew because we've all melted into the blond bloodline.

What I think is true is that liberal Jews are uncomfortable encouraging our kids to marry other Jews, because prohibition against intermarriage has an ugly smell in just about every other American context. I'm comfortable with my discomfort about this! I'm going to do it and I'm going to maintain my discomfort about it, I think it's a discomfort worth having.

part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question.

Guess I don't see that. What's true is that it's less true that a Satmar dude carries privilege than it is that I do. But I feel like the people saying "we don't have privilege, we're not really white, we're Jews" are typically not Satmar dudes, they're people who look like me, and who pass without any effort, indeed who pass without even really wanting to. But I mean, to the Satmar dude, somebody like me, who's married to a Jew, who belongs to a shul, who has kids in Talmud Torah, but who doesn't keep kosher or wear a kipa, is assimilated almost to the point of annihilation. If they see an America where most Jews look and act like me as one where the "Jewish question" has been tragically resolved by assimilation, I can't stop them, but this is my parents' and my grandparents' Judaism, it's what I care about preserving, what can I do but live it and raise my kids in it?

In terms of the left's call upon jews to assimilate Cohen's chapter The Left's Advice to Jews—Assimilate and Stop Being Jewish is more comprehensive than I'll be here (and I found it very interesting) but ultimately there's a very strong tradition in Left that goes back to Marx that sees Jewishness as something to emancipate the Jews from - this is present in 18th century France as well (Clermont-Tonnerre who i feel certain we've discussed here before). here the argument is being made from the left itself (see his critique of this as an obliteration of cultural/peoplehood rights) but this argument is actually a dominant narrative in the orthodox community (or at least the orthodox communities to which i have belonged). you can understand why as they see the entire process of liberalism to be dangerous to their group conception (cynically u could say bc it opens a door for ppl to leave the community, but also there is a legitimate concern about hegemonic alternative cultures that is present as far back as the Maccabi narrative). there are many stories i have heard w/ variations about rabbis saying that they prefer the difficult life under the Czar than the liberation of France bc one is only dangerous to your body but the other can destroy your soul (this was also a big discourse in Europe pre-WW2 regarding the goldene medina). If your Jewish context is as part of this liberalizing movement from yr pov it might not feel as pressing and it sounds like in your case you have two values that are in total collision - this imperative to maintain peoplehood (however you understand that to be constituted) and these values of assimilation/intermarriage that are the hegemonic cultural force. I do feel like these are complicated questions and on some level I feel like talking across a divide bc with the religious component the tensions in values are immediately reconciled on the side of Jewish continuity and on the non-religious side I think it is probably more difficult to answer some of these questions.

there's a couple typos there ("ultimately there's a very strong tradition in the* Left" "I feel like I'm talking from* across a divide") and I'm sorry I should have put more paragraph breaks in there.

(I should add none of which is to suggest that you can't be Jewish and non-religious, or be Jewish and non-religious and secularized and have such a strong Jewish identity that you pass on your values of Jewish peoplehood to your children and their children. Just that I think it complicates things and forces you to ask why in a way that being religious or more traditional maybe does not. Sorry if anything I said here was offensive, I'm trying to articulate some thoughts that I know are provocative in a careful way.)

OK I understand better -- for one thing I understand now that by the left you mean the literal LEFT as in Marxist, not the "left" in the US-political-sense of "liberal Democrats."

it sounds like in your case you have two values that are in total collision - this imperative to maintain peoplehood (however you understand that to be constituted) and these values of assimilation/intermarriage that are the hegemonic cultural force.

I can only say that it doesn't feel as violent as having two values that are in total collision, it feels totally natural in normal in the way that all complicated things about life do. Maybe because I would never say that I have "assimilation/intermarriage" as a value; more accurate to say it's a kind of double negative, having "not having anti-assimilation / restricted marriage as a value" as a value! And yes, that does conflict with having Jewish continuity as a value. But that just seems baked in to the Judaism I grew up with, I wouldn't have it any other way. (It is also part of 1965 Philip Roth obv.)

[nothing you have said is even close to offensive btw]

Throughout most socialist literature about Jews there is a judgemental attitude which suggests that Jewish people should assimilate in order to avoid anti-semitism. For instance, Lenin quoted Kautsky with approval, in relation to Russian Jews:

"Hostility towards non-native sections of the population can only be eliminated when the non-native sections cease to be alien and blend with the general mass of the population. This is the only possible solution to the Jewish question" (The Position of the Bund in the Party).

The modern Left crudely repeats this. Nigel Ward in an article in Socialist Challenge gave as one explanation for the holocaust the fact that Jews in Western Europe were not "assimilated into the fabric of Western society" (2.10.82). Big Flame took this one step further when it claimed that Jews were attacked as they were "visibly different" (September 1982).

this is the kind of thing to which i'm referring - the idea that jews are responsible for marking themselves as visibly different and could or should simply assimilate and avoid this whole messy antisemitism business.

and yes, i meant the hard left. cohen says something else here i agree strongly with (i'm rereading it myself right now) when he says that lenin assumes that judaism has no anti-oppression elements of its own (and of course you and i know that such things can be found throughout judaism including one of the most formative/influential anti-oppression mythologies in history in the exodus narrative). i consider myself a part of the american "liberal Democrats" - for one America is practically sui generis in terms of acceptance of Jewish religious practice - some amazing combination of the US's insanely high rate of religious practice married to our foundational virtues of freedom of religion. and in liberal American Democrats i find an expression of many of the anti-oppression values i have learnt through being Jewish and my religious education. And it's really not unusual because so many religious Americans are also liberal Democrats. so it is certainly accommodating to groups with alternate sources of liberal values than just Marx.

also, and this is probably looking too directly into the sunlight, the left as is comprised currently is wildly inconsistent on issues of group continuity and who is obligated to marry whom but certainly the parts of the left that are associated with the privilege discourse (and read this however broadly or narrowly as u want i personally have no idea what percentage a given pov is represented on the Left - only that there exists some quantity of very loud people on the left) who say that jews have white privilege because they can pass as non-jews. and it's certainly true for a certain kind of jew and especially for a kind of jew that the left will most often meet - aka an Ashkenazi left-wing non-religious (or non-observant) Jew who is already passing! and even here it is complex as you note plenty of even socialist jews have identified themselves through their affiliations and communities, and the entire construct becomes absurd the moment you remember that a large proportion of Jews spent little to no diaspora time in European countries but instead in the Middle East or Uzbekistan or Ethiopia. and that jewish phrenology for the so-called white ashkenazi jews only recently in a historical sense stopped being a thing. (and let's be honest, in plenty of places it is still definitely a thing.)

one more thing i want to say (this post is already too long) is that jews do have a privilege in the united states. it really is, to my eyes, the goldene medina for the jews that was promised to my great-grandparents suffering in a shtetl near Kiev. for whatever reasons i think it has been an ahistoric welcoming home for Jews and whoever you are - Satmar or secular Jew - you have benefited tremendously from this country imho. and i see other groups and i see that they are clearly not doing as well and my historical memory is not so short that i don't realize how easily it could be me (and i will alway have a nagging question about whether the US could ever turn on the Jews). i know that there's a theory of race in america that is all inclusive - i think this is found in ta-nehisi coates's work - that the whole US only works bc some people are marginalized and punished and kept oppressed and plundered. and i think the story of Jews in America is more complicated than that, but to the extent that black oppression does allow the US to flourish and to the extent that does relate to the conditions for Jews in the US, i do feel that privilege. i just bristle against what seems to me to be an attempt to [literally] whitewash jewishness.

Mordy (which auto correctly to Lordy, lol), the article "Antisemitism and the (modern) critique of capitalism" you posted was really interesting!

I wanted to ask about two sentences in particular.

"The fetish of blood and soil is itself rooted in the capital fetish where the concrete in the form of use value obtains only in and through the abstract in the form of exchange value."

I think I understand what this "capital fetish" is, but I don't know Marxist terminology very well. Is the idea that one can identify certain means of production as having "use value", that is, producing goods that are usable by hand, like farming equipment, cars, weapons, and the like? Whereas other means of production don't have this use value, for instance banking, where the good produced is more money. Is this the idea?

I've been reading the Oxford Short Introduction to Fascism and the author distinguishes Weberian, anti-modernist accounts of fascism from, for instance, Marxist accounts, by noting that Weberian accounts single out the pre-industrial, feudal ruling class as the source of authority in fascist regimes. This class controls a means of production tied to the land and is mortally threatened by modernism, and fascism was a reaction to undermine modernism and thus to protect their status as a class. I am trying to puzzle over how the article posted here jibes with these accounts, but I think I can see, only dimly for now, how it does.

"Antisemitism urges the mob on to de-humanize, maim and kill the projected Other, suppressing the very possibility and idea of happiness and distinction through participation in the slaughter."

This is a different point. The Jew stands for a person happy without power, who thus threatens the dominant status hierarchy for which power is the goal (and thus happiness). Additionally the Jew, standing outside the mainstream community, has her own identity, in contrast with the Mob; and (I gather) the Mob resents the Jew for this, and thus wants to kill her. I find this point harder to grasp, though again I sense truth here. What does the Mob want? To be happy only through power, yes: but what of individualism vs. collectivity? Does members of the Mob want to be individuals but cannot (for a reason I cannot understand); or do they want to suppress those who are individuals because they threaten the power of the Mob (this doesn't seem right); or is it to do with resentment? I think the latter: but resentment for what end?

I do not know the theoretical literature being drawn upon here so these things may be clearer to others.

So use value is the practical value that the commodity has to you - food that feeds you, home that shelters you, fabric that clothes you. Exchange value is an abstract valuation of the item - what it is worth on the open market where it can be exchanged for other commodities. While use value is connected to "the physical properties of the commodity," "the exchange relation of commodities is characterized precisely by its abstraction from their use-values." This means that the value of the item comes from this exchange equivalence which is represented by money. For Marx money really obscures the true equivalence which is labor time: "As exchange-values, all commodities are merely definite quantities of congealed labour-time."

So antisemitism is really a type of equality project because it seeks to replace this abstract exploitation of labor with the concrete "blood and soil" of the volk. Based on the idea that Capitalism is the accumulation/exploitation of surplus labor (and this is Marx' primary "alienation" of the laborer from the goods he produces), this abstract exchange value becomes entirely projected onto the Jew who becomes a scapegoat for all of the alienating that Capitalism has been doing. The Jew is abstract, the German is "concrete immediacy."

This is the dichotomy Sombart (antisemitic German economist) sets out in The Jews and Modern Capitalism. There's an excellent explication of his ideology in Jeffrey Herf's Reactionary Modernism: Technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich that nakh recommended to me on Friday. He sought to reconcile the conflict between this fascist vision of the German people with the valuable production technology produces, without having to deal with the exploitations and excesses of Capitalism which he projected onto the Jews. This way antisemitism becomes a way of enjoying Capitalism without Capitalism. Herf writes:

Two points stand out. First, the circulation sphere is said to have already achieved predominance over industry and agriculture. Second, this victory is the product of a particular type of person, the merchant, who, [German historian Oswald] Spengler complains, is parasitic and unproductive. We are dealing here with documents of reification. Social processes, in this case, circulation, are said to emanate from individual types, here the merchant. "Anticapitalism" or "anti-money thinking" legitimates nationalist, and subsequently racial, programs that seek to do away with the individuals who are the bearers of capitalism, that is, "capitalist man" or "the Jew." Marx, in his analysis of commodity fetishism, argued that in capitalism the social relations between human beings appeared to be social relations between things. Spengler takes this process of reification one step further: The social aspect of relations between human beings disappears and they appear instead as emanations of different human souls. Then the revolt against abstraction takes on sinister, that is, racial, proportions. But in its German form this revolt was by no means necessarily an effort to stifle or hinder technological advances.

Sombart attempts to historicize this role of the Jews by recourse to "the Jews' social and historical experience in Europe, the nature of Judaism as a religion, and a special Jewish psychology that fostered an 'objective inclination' for capitalism." Subsequently all technology is either productive/useful German technology or Capitalism/exploitive Jewish technology. Horkheimer and Adorno in The Dialectic of Enlightenment assets that the Jew was useful for this bc of the transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism. As power shifted to corporations, the economic power of the Jews stayed in Finance. Herf: "As the circulation sphere declined in power and influence, the attacks on it as the source of Germany's problems grew... The truth was that this was an ideological mystification obscuring the realities of exploitation in the labor process. Attacks on the merchant, middleman, and banker and 'socially necessary pretenses' directed at the circulation sphere to obscure the real source of exploitation."

Herf prefers a second explanation for antisemitism - that it emerges from anticivilizational impulses but I mention this one here bc it relates to I think a broader idea about antisemitism which is the use of the Jew by the ruling class as a proxy for revolutionary violence against elite power. I wrote a bit about this here and I think it has to do with why Jewish victimization is so difficult to detect and Jewish power is always in assumption - that it's by design as a defense mechanism. David Schraub points out that the very nature of antisemitism v traditional racism is that the former is a conspiracy about hidden power as opposed to bigotry based on inferiority. Jews aren't hated for being inferior but for being superior - crafty, deceptive, cunning, etc.

It's clear how the second quote fits into this - that the mob is urged to kill the Jew in order to maintain the elite structure. I'm less sure about this idea that Adorno is saying that "the Jews as such may be like, their image, as that of the defeated people, has the features to which totalitarian domination must be completely hostile: happiness without power, wages without work, a home without frontiers, religion without myth. These characteristics are hated by the rulers because the ruled secretly long to possess them." I understand generally speaking this mechanic by which the absence of the things for which the ruled long (and which inflicts them under conditions of capitalism) must be addressed and is therefore projected onto the Jew. I'm not 100% sure about how the Jews, as a defeated people, have these features. That said, Adorno continues: "The rulers are only safe as long as the people they rule turn their longed-for goals into hated forms of evil. This they manage to do by pathological projection, since even hatred leads to unification with the object - in destruction. This is the negative aspect of reconciliation. Reconciliation is the highest notion of Judaism, and expectation is its whole meaning. The anti-Semites try to realize their negative absolute by their own power, and change the world into the hell which they always thought it was." Which maybe speaks to what exactly the thing is that the Jews possess and that the ruled desire and that's "reconciliation" by which I understand to mean the idea of reconciling God's creations with their creator as dramatized on Yom Kippur. But this is just speculation, I'm not 100% sure.

The Jew is abstract, the German is "concrete immediacy."

do you know an earlier (pref earliest) reference to this dichotomy? I'm guessing 19th century, in the wake of romanticism. obv by the 20th century it's common coin, but I'm interested in a paper trail.

you find that talk in mathematics by the way, where some German mathematicians brand Jewish mathematicians as the algebraists, abstract and calculating, as opposed to the intuitive and grounded German mathematicians, natural geometers. this will have real world consequences by the 1930s of course. by the way there are also at the time French mathematicians who say that German mathematicians are abstract and calculating while French mathematicians are the intuitive true geometers.

I understand generally speaking this mechanic by which the absence of the things for which the ruled long (and which inflicts them under conditions of capitalism) must be addressed and is therefore projected onto the Jew.

I don't quite get this mechanic. if the ruled long for these things (e.g. happiness without power), then why don't they just take them? move to the sticks, marry a wife, catch rainbow trout. I also don't understand your phrase "which inflicts them under conditions of capitalism").

and how does that jibe with

Adorno continues: "The rulers are only safe as long as the people they rule turn their longed-for goals into hated forms of evil.

"only safe"? why can't everyone be happy without power? I guess then the rulers wouldn't be the rulers? but then the rules don't want happiness without power, they want power!

anyway sorry for taking so long to reply, these things are deep & I need time to reflect

there are also at the time French mathematicians who say that German mathematicians are abstract and calculating while French mathematicians are the intuitive true geometers.

Which is funny given that it was the French who dragged geometry into the world of the ultra-algebraic and abstract once and for all in the 60s! But maybe they didn't see Grothendieck as "truly French."

yeah these French passages are from the late 19th century. & the role/status of Jewish mathematicians in France has been / continues to be profound, Grothendieck, Schwartz, and many others. in this way it's not so different from the USA.

I want to think more about your questions Euler, especially since I don't have a good intellectual history of the jews/germans dichotomy for you. When I was studying Grimm Fairy Tales I remember some scholars (Maria Tater most notably iirc) traced certain tropes in latter German + then Nazi antisemitism back to oral storytelling traditions and we've definitely talked about fairy tales like "The Jew in the Brambles" before on ILX. But I'm not sure that there an obvious antecedent for specifically this idea of abstract v. concrete. That said - there is an element even there of the Jew as rootless cosmopolitan which does fit into the broader curves of the dialectic (rootlessness being its own sort of abstraction v. the concrete man of the land).

I don't quite get this mechanic. if the ruled long for these things (e.g. happiness without power), then why don't they just take them? move to the sticks, marry a wife, catch rainbow trout. I also don't understand your phrase "which inflicts them under conditions of capitalism").

If I understand your question here you are asking why people don't just opt out of Capitalism by going off the grid? That's really its own discussion (I'm inclined to say that going off the grid is not a relevant decision for most people's lives) but I want to emphasize that this vision of the Jew who has what the proletariat wants is not true in reality - the Jew is not somehow liberated from Capitalism. It's just the image of the Jew - the rootless Jew who is not tied down, who maybe could go off the grid (or could emigrate), also the Jew who owns fluid capital (both bc this has some truth in reality like Adorno was quoted above regarding how "power shifted to corporations, the economic power of the Jews stayed in Finance," and because it fits the symbolic image of the Jew). The infliction of capitalism are all these elements that Marx had noted - the alienation from one's own surplus labor, the poor conditions of the factory-focused urban economy, fear + uncertainty etc. Someone suffering from this who looks at the antisemitic caricature of the Jew will not blame the Capitalist for the pain in their lives but will instead accuse the Jew who represents a kind of exposed obvious power (by contrast to the *real* hidden power of Capitalism). So these violent reactions to the exploitive system are channeled against the Jews instead thus preserving the true hegemonic forces in German society.

This particular phenomenon (using Jews as a firewall to protect the ruling classes) predates Capitalism and was an effective tool in feudal Europe. It also seems relevant to the Jewish State today which, I think is uncontroversial to say, is often used as a scapegoat in poorly performing Middle Eastern countries. Sometimes this appears as an explicit conspiracy ("The Jews are forcing the Shias and Sunnis to fight") sometimes as just a way of distracting the populace from poor leadership/stewardship through deflection.

oh sorry I screwed up (or autocorrect again): I meant, "if the RULERS long for those things..."

Oh, I don't think it's the rulers who long for them. Adorno writes: "These characteristics are hated by the rulers because the ruled secretly long to possess them." The ruled want to possess these freedoms. The rulers resent them because it makes it harder to keep a lid on the populace.

I read some texts on anti-semitism last year but it's only now opening up to me conceptually, so I'm happy to have this space to talk about it.

right now I'm reading the first volume of Richard Evans' trilogy on the third reich. it's a historical rather than philosophical text but it's pointing out to me some of the joints, where distinct ideas come together, in the Nazi mindset, so that I can push on those next. after these I'll read Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction, on the Nazi economy. I picked up the Herf book you mentioned above too. obv I am going to have read more Marx, but I really don't know where to start. & Goethe too I think.

re Marx : if I want to understand Marx's idea of "alienation from one's own surplus labor", what should I read? the word "alienation" in Marxist contexts confounds me, because alienation seems like a psychological term, but one's labor is not a psychological thing: so what kind of relation is alienation?