Shaping of Antisemitism

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

N/A - subject to change but need to discuss with CJC director first. Course Description: Antisemitism has been referred to as the world’s oldest and longest-lasting expression of hatred. Eighty years after the Holocaust destroyed more than six million Jews—falling short of Hitler’s ambitions to slaughter all of the eleven million residing throughout Europe and the Middle East—antisemitism has experienced a disturbing resurgence in many parts of the world, including the United States, and including astonishing successes for the far right across much of Europe. This course will seek to understand the basis for both the longevity and the recent resurgence of antisemitism against the background of history, geography, religion, anthropology, and sociology. We begin by considering the term itself and its linguistic and anthropological conceptual basis in the nineteenth century. We then turn back to the religion-based origins of what properly must be called anti-Judaism (as opposed, per se, to antisemitism), before following the development of the concept across history and geography, as expressed in words, visual art, and violent action. Tracing that history forward, we will arrive, inevitably, at the Holocaust as a consummately egregious exemplification of ideas and their implementation that have been well-honed over many centuries. We shall then trace the positive and negative consequences of the existence of the State of Israel for antisemitism in the past eight decades and the crescendo of ugliness that the world is experiencing at the present time—and ask where this might lead looking ahead into the future.