"How to Think About Antisemitism," Why? Radio episode with guest Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

4:09AM Dec 12, 2022

Speakers:

Announcer

Jack Russell Weinstein

Daniel Goldhagen

Keywords:

jews

anti semitism

prejudice

israel

world

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holocaust

semitic

people

talk

anti semitic

point

views

genocide

listeners

country

philosophical discussions

palestinians

anti

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The original episode can be found here: https://wp.me/p8pYQY-eg

Hello, everybody, welcome to Why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host Jeff Russell Weinstein. Today we're asking Daniel, Jonah Goldhagen about how we should talk about anti semitism. And before we begin, I'd like to offer a special thanks to Stanley Kelly for his generous support of this episode. People think that prejudice is simple that it involves lack of thought. The most common response to someone's bigotry is that the offender just doesn't know any better and that he or she simply needs to get out more, meet new people, be open minded. While it's true, that lack of experience can make prejudice worse. This kind of ignorance is anything but simple. It's built on history attached to our common texts, and supported by all aspects of our lives. Most of what justifies our prejudices is so familiar that it is invisible to us. This is particularly true about anti semitism. I am no doubt the first Jew that most of my North Dakota students will meet. Most of them will not even discover my background until midway through the semester when it comes up in discussion. When I taught on the east coast in the West Coast, my students recognized Weinstein is a common Jewish name, but not here. Most have no idea. But these young men and women who've never knowingly interacted with a Jew before, feel they have a strong understanding of what Jews believe, of what our place in history is of what's wrong with us. Most have been learning about Jews since they were old enough to understand what Christmas is, and all regularly encountered jokes and slights about us on the internet. Almost everyone has seen who we are framed as incompetent, neurotic and dominated in almost any Ben Stiller movie, meet the parents. There's Something About Mary, both lessons on how Jews simply don't operate properly in the world. Talking about anti semitism is made more difficult by the Greatest Hits aspects of the discussion. When we talk about prejudice against Jews, we invariably discuss Israel in the Holocaust. Israel is a fraught topic because people pretend that it is a nation of one religious belief and a singular political opinion in one unified community. Yet they also falsely claimed that anytime they criticize Israel, they're accused of anti semitism. All Jews are the same. They tell us and no Jew is open to critique or public challenge. The Holocaust is even more complex because people regularly assert that it was an anomaly and that this one guy forced otherwise innocent people to do unique and despicable things. In modern discussion, the Holocaust is the only event in history that has no causes. That's not the case. Of course, the Holocaust has many antecedents. But I'm reminded of Alan blooms comment that Hitler was the worst thing to happen to ethics classes, because now anytime students are asked to give an example of evil, they name him, they no longer have to use their imaginations in class. Blooms comments are particularly astute because any discussion of anti semitism is really about the power of the imagination in human life. We've all been taught that the literary idea of the Jew is the real Jew, that the character that is crafted for blame in the Bible, Shakespeare in art, music and academic scholarship is real and roaming the streets that he's talking to you now. The imagination attaches false causes to events, it sees patterns where there are none. And it persuades us that our expectations have been realized when in actuality, all we're doing is projecting false interpretations on the world. anti semitism does an outstanding job of illustrating how persuasive the imagination can actually be. All of this is to say that prejudice is not simple, and that anti semitism has had almost two millennia to create a framework that describes Jews as everything people fear and despise. Even though most people have never known one. It's a point of view that declares the Jews are in complete control of the world. Even though in human history, there's really only been one Jewish nation, and it's been under constant attack since its founding in 1948. In any other context, this nonsense would be dismissed as incoherent. But with anti semitism, our imaginations are primed. So it all makes sense. And even when the extreme versions are dismissed as paranoia, many if not most people still think there's some truth to them. Extremists attack the US because Israel occupies Gaza. The Jewish Lobby has tremendous influence over American Foreign Affairs. Jews control Hollywood. Bizarrely, these are not extremist claims. They're the moderate ones we see in the media all the time. How if they weren't true, Mel Gibson would still be making movies, right? Right. Today's episode is about anti semitism and the ways the past repeats itself. All I can do in preparation is to emphasize that it will not be a simple conversation, and that prejudice in any form is complicated and deserves the same Phyllis Safco investigation as all other topics, bigotry against Jews cannot be dismissed as ignorance because it isn't simply a lack of knowledge. It is instead of deep kinship with a worldview, that, while deeply wrong, permeates most of the modern world. Truly understanding anti semitism involves getting to the core of history itself, because, frankly, the two are inseparable. That may seem like hyperbole, but it's not. It's simply depressing. So now we turn to our guest, Daniel Goldhagen, is a tremendously influential scholar and author of numerous books on the Holocaust genocide, and the history that supports these horrors. His most recent book, The devil that never dies, outlines the theory and practice of anti semitism and document its current rise around the world. Danny, thanks for joining us on why.

Thanks for having me. And I must say that was the most intelligent and penetrating introduction I've ever had on a radio or television or any other platform. Well, thank you. So

maybe we should end it here. And we both walk away winners?

Well, we don't want to because we want to keep you going so that your listeners can benefit about in hearing you about other topics as well.

Oh, well, thank you so much. We are pre recording the show. So if our listeners want to send comments, we can accept emails, but our chat rooms open at why radio show.org post on our Facebook page at why radio show and as always tweet at at why radio show also, by the way, a special thanks to the radio Foundation in New York nonprofit group who's hosting dandy tonight. So So Danny, I want to start by asking what actually amounts to a psychological instead of philosophical question. I've talked about a lot of controversial topics on the show, many of which have seem overwhelming. But I don't know, I was never scared before this. This topic terrifies me. I feel anxious. And I don't know if for lack of a better word, I feel exposed. Is this a normal reaction for a discussion about anti semitism? And and where does it come from

anti semitism, excited so many emotions and passionate emotions, and no matter what you say, will produce attacks from one side or the other. But as you say, it's not a simple phenomenon. So it's not just one side or the other. There are many different avenue angles from which the attacks can come. And so, in know, since you know about anti semitism, you know, I presume that this is likely, it's likely to inflame your some of your listeners. And there are reasons why it is such a incendiary topic with wipers, such volcanic reactions, and I'll just mention a few of them. We're talking about a prejudice that a lot of people hold, as you yourself mentioned. And so when you start talking in a serious way about it, laying out its fundamentals, explaining its causes, and also giving the value judgments that it deserves and pointing out the dangers that it poses, your listeners, some of them are implicated in this, whether they want to be or not. When you add to that, that anti semitism is a discussion of him, particularly in its most extreme forms today, inevitably links back to the Holocaust, deemed by many to be the greatest evil of the 20th century of modern times of all time, it seems to put any anti Semite in the dark together with those who perpetrate the Holocaust. And I'm not saying it does, but that's how its interpreted. And it's not just people who are themselves harvest some anti semitism, religious may mean even just a mild dislike for Jews, nothing profound. But when you turn from them to Jews, who all who have I'm sure, listen to NPR broadcast, as well, you find that many of them are made extremely uncomfortable by the topic because they want it to go away. They know some of their neighbors or friends and colleagues harbor some of these views. It creates an existential, it existentially troubling moment for them, and forces them to confront something that is unpleasant, often repressed, sometimes denied, and sometimes vehemently denied. And they too, will sometimes take it out on the people who want to talk about it.

You know, I was gonna bring this up later in the show, but but since you mentioned it, I asked our listeners because we were pre recording for questions in advance. And I had a whole bunch. We'll talk about many of them later on. But I was putting I'm putting a place where some of the questions the way they're framed, the words they use, the comparisons they use. They make me really uncomfortable. And so as a host of a show, with loyal listeners, whom I like and whom I respect, I'm now in a position where I may have to call some of them out or criticize them. And maybe that's also why I'm terrified because there is that personal connection with people who, you know, no one wants to think they're anti semitic and no one wants to call anyone anti semitic. But if we're being honest It's, it's pervasive.

And if I may add no one in this country or few people in this country want to be called anti semitic or be recognized as such, around the world there, many people are happy to be known as anti semitic and who parade their hatred of Jews, and who no treat it as normative. And they preach it, and they try to spread it. And they're unabashed in every way about it. So this, again, points to what you discussed at the beginning of the complexity of the phenomenon. So much about how people respond to anti semitism, or talk about it will depend upon the social and political contexts of their communities or their countries. And getting back to some of the questions that you receive, which I of course, I haven't seen, and I don't know. But one of the striking things that you find in discussions of anti semitism, which are absent from discussions of other forms of prejudice, is a frequent calling out of the people who are the victims. Well, why don't you tell us about when you talk about what the Jews have done? Aren't you going to talk about the Jews genocide, as people often say, against the Palestinians? Aren't you going to talk about what they did historically, in this country in that country? Why aren't you doing that? If you were doing a show on prejudice against Italian Americans or against African Americans, or against Turks or against anybody, you would not get anything close to the volume of questions along these lines, or the intensity of the passions that are behind them that you find when you talk about anti semitism.

You bring up Italian Americans, and one of the wonders of reading such an expansive book, like the devil that never dies, is both seeing the broad brushstrokes, but also the little subtle things that we never notice. And very early on. You point out, first, implicitly, and then later on explicitly, that, you know, we refer to Italian Americans, as Italian Americans, and African Americans, as African Americans, you call Jews, Jewish Americans, but most people in the media and in the public call them American Jews. And that suggests a lack of loyalty, that they're Jews first and American second, whereas Jewish Americans suggests that they're Americans first, and Jews. Second, is that is that a common experience that Jews are just implicitly by identification declared inherently disloyal, by the language by the attitude by the pictures of how they're just understood in in the most casual conversation?

You know, it's worth pointing out here that all though all your questions are right on the point, and raise important issues about the extent and character of anti semitism in this country. And I'll return to your question in a moment. anti semitism, this country is far milder and far less extensive than it is anywhere else in the world. So when we move beyond the shores of America, these questions become that much more acute. So everyone should keep that in mind. Now, with regard to Jewish Americans or American Jews, I don't know if it actually means American Jews, that they're just loyal. What it does mean is that the Jewish part of their identity is the is the primary one. So Italian Americans, African Americans, and so on. There are Americans firsts, and there are, these are the kinds of Americans they are among the other identities they may have. If you call them American Jews, they're also Americans, but they're first Jews. And then there, what kind of Jews there are American Jews, it's not necessarily saying they're disloyal, I don't think that that is how it's received. But it does have a subtle effect of, of marking Jews as being different from other minority groups, and different in a way that highlights their particular the particular aspect of their identity rather than the common when they have with all people in the United States who are citizens, and even many who are not citizens. So I think we should change this linguistic usage. I mean, you know, language is not going to free us. I mean, some people make the mistake of thinking that if you just change language, everything will be fine in one way or another. But nevertheless, but language is nonetheless very important in shaping how people view other people understand frameworks of understanding. And so there a variety of ways you've just mentioned, one in which we need to rethink what the language we use with regard to analyzing anti semitism or discussing Jews

following up on a language question, and before we get to the big picture, I really wanted to talk about the sort of more mundane experience of thinking about this and writing about this. And also we got a question from a listener Heidi who wanted have an explanation of basic terms like Jewish and Judaism, Israeli Zionist, and Semitic. And one of the things that I noticed when I was writing down my monologue is that Microsoft Word kept wanting to change the word anti semitism, which I tend to think of as one word and you too, and you write as one word, it wants to change it to a hyphenated word anti hyphen, capital S Semitic. And there's a huge debate on the internet about what this does. And what this doesn't is, is Microsoft Word taking a position on what Jews are or aren't by insisting that I use anti hyphen Semitic as opposed to anti semitic.

Well, we can be critical or even condemn lots of people and institutions. For their attitudes and treatment of Jews. I happen to think that Microsoft word should be let off the hook. You might

be the only one there just making a mistake.

The proper the proper term is one word anti semitism lowercase. It is. The word was a neologism that was coined in 1979, by German anti Semite, who wanted to differentiate what he considered to be modern scientific, race based hatred or antipathy towards Jews from the old religious hatred, which they call Jew hatred. So he coined the term anti semitism, this was based upon notions about different races and languages, and so on language trees, and so on. The simple fact is that it should be one word, because there's no such thing as a Semite, there is there are Semitic languages, this is a bit more technical than we really need to go into, but I'll just finish it. There are Semitic languages, but you're not against the language against the people. There's no such thing as a Semitic person or Semitic people. So anti semitism is not against Semitism is simply is what it is. It's the name for modern hatred of Jews. And in fact, if you want to go back to the source and the original German, there's no hyphen. So there's no need, there's no justification whatsoever in English for being hyphenated except for customer usage, which should be dispensed with, as it often is, with many things.

It it's very interesting to hear the history of words and how many words are created by the people who we don't want to associate with. In North Dakota, of course, one of the big issues historically has been the use of the term Sue or university for a long time had the, our team was called the fighting Sue. But Sue, what isn't the name of the tribe, the tribe is Lakota and Sue was the name by their enemies. And so it's interesting that now, we refer to anti semitism, which was coined by an anti Semite, in order to talk about the thing that we're trying to despise. But now we have to as philosophers, we have to take step back. And I want to ask the very basic and of course, not at all simple question, what is anti semitism? And Mike actually wrote in and wants to know, is it unique? Is is anti semitism, a different kind of prejudice, than other kinds of prejudice? What do we mean when we talk about this term?

Well, these two simple questions could certainly take up the rest of our time in answering them, but I'll try to be a pithier. And to the point. anti semitism is simple and complex, as many prejudices are, but it has its own distinctive features. It's simple insofar as you can say its hatred or negative beliefs about Jews, simple, but it's not that simple, because it doesn't really encompass everything, and it doesn't delimit everything and, and there are, and there's far more profound set of views which constitute anti semitism, in the book of the devil never dies, identify what can be called the foundational anti semitic paradigm, and that is the paradigm that has existed through the ages, since ancient times. That that is the foundation or an at the core of all higher level charges and elaborations against Jews, a higher level charged elaboration may be that Jews are guilty for the death of Jesus, they killed Christ as as it has been said, or that they have too much power in business, or that or that they are engaged in conspiracies against their neighbors and so on. And this foundational anti semitic paradigm has five elements. The first is that Jews are fundamentally different from non Jews. Again, American Yeah, more like American Jews and Jewish Americans, but really just plain Jews, that they are fundamentally noxious in some way that they willfully do harm to non Jews, that they are powerful and that they are dangerous. This is the current of anti semitism. And that has been carried through the ages, and exists today around the world in powerful form and elaborated in very different ways. And so when you look at the the anti semitism that is common in the Middle East and the Arab and Islamic world, and you look at the anti semitism that exists, let's say in English, Protestant churches, they can look quite different in the charges they make against Jews or the antipathies, they have, but they share this common core. And so this is what anti semitism is, it's not exactly a definition, but it is the paradigm of thought. And the paradigm of emotion is well, that people who dislike or hate or have negative beliefs about Jews hold. Now with regard to anti semitism, distinctiveness, all prejudices have certain things in common and one thing that in the future, you know, if your listeners can take away one thing on this program, it's a general thing about prejudice, which is, you study prejudice, by studying prejudice, you learn nothing about the people it describes, and everything or rather a lot about the people who hold the beliefs. Prejudice is a property of the people who hate or have negative views of other groups of people, that it's not a property of the people that are being described. And so in this sense, anti semitism is like other prejudices. And it has other common features. But it also has many distinctive features. And it is, in some sense, the all time leading prejudice in the world. Just to give a few examples, there is no other prejudice that I know of, with the exception was in the field unless you want to include misogyny that is a prejudice or hatred of women. But there's no other ethnic prejudice that has existed for so long, is such a stable form for 2000 years now, that has been so tenacious, that it has survived through all manner of social and political and economic change through revolutions, and so on, unscathed, still powerful. There is no other prejudice, that that has aroused such obsessiveness, and such powerful emotions, not just locally, but the worldwide the accusations of anti Semite of anti Semites have no parallel what other people have been accused of killing the Son of God, and of being in league with the devil, or of in the Islamic world of trying to poison Muhammad, and to kill and having killed the prophets. What other prejudice is as widespread as anti semitism? Now, this is really a remarkable fact. There are not many Jews in the world, Jews form far, far less than 1% of the world's population. And yet, around the world, people a prejudice against choose this insignificant, numerically insignificant people. There is no other people against whom there is such a an internationally, farflung and powerfully existing prejudice.

You you've anticipated three questions from our listeners, initially, starting with Jay's first question, asking why there's bigotry, which of course is I'm sure a complicated answer question. But I'm curious. But He then asks, Does bigotry rise when people have lower expectations for their children's Susan? And a related question asks about isn't anti semitism really about economic inequality in the world? And the impression she doesn't say whether she believes it or not, that Jews run the banks and that people now see the system is rigged. Then Joyce asks, you know, given the tiny percentage of Jews in the world, why is anti semitism so persuasive even in and you start to address this non Christian countries? And then she asks that, why would a book like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion a classic, late 19th century tract alleging that that Jews could have a conspiracy around the world? Why is that now she read anyway? And I think you mentioned in the book a best seller in Japan. So really, the question that I have, and when you read your book, and you and you read the it's like a 1520 page discussion of all of the things that anti semitism has outlived, you know, all of the cultures that it has permeated all the times in history in the enlightenment and an end just everywhere. Why, and, and, and why is it so powerful and so resilient and why when people ask about it? Do they ask some version of what is it that the Jews are doing? That people hate them so much? I ask a lot of questions. Yeah,

that's fine. Its power and allows me to get back to the listing I was making a moment ago because I needed to say I need to say one other thing. And then I'll link back to your question, which is, not only is anti semitism so tenacious and long lived and powerfully present and widespread, but it also was issued in violence, persecution and mass murder. In in a variety of in in varieties and frequencies. And in colossal Cuttack, catastrophic sizes, that has no parallel of in other prejudices. Jews have been subjected to mass murderers assault through the ages culminating in the Holocaust, the attempt to wipe out really all the Jews of the world and the slaughter of 6 million of them. This is also part of the prejudice, most prejudices, do not issue in routine calls to violence, routines, calls to murder Jews to annihilate them to gas and which we've been seeing in the streets of Europe over the last couple of months. So this is also makes it distinctive. So the question is not only why the Jews or whatever Jews done, but what have they done? That is deemed to be so heinous, that people who may have otherwise be of good heart and good mind and sound mind when it comes to Jews lose their minds and say we got to kill them? And the answer to the question is Jews have done nothing except for been in the way, the answer to the question is, that in the conflict, that war that anti semitism originates, in the conflict that early Christians had with Jews, over the custodianship of their tradition, and over the divinity of Jesus, and the Christian Bible commonly called the New Testament. So deprecates and demonizes Jews, that, that an image of Jews found an image of Jews founded on this foundational anti semitic paradigm, which I describe became part and parcel of Western culture became integral to what it meant to be a Christian so that by medieval times, in Europe, virtually everyone in Europe was an anti Semite, it was not because of economic hardship. It was not because of poor people who didn't raise their children well had low expectations was not because of personality defects. It was because this was deemed to be a way to understand the story of Jesus, His life, His death, and meaning on Earth in in a Christian world. And the Jews became identify with the devil, it was reflexive, and this was spread by preacher by priest after priest preach after preacher and community after community, it was the common sense of the European continent. And most of your listeners probably don't know that at one time or another. In medieval times, the Jews were expelled from virtually all parts of Europe that were foreign, and there was a 14 year period when Jews were not allowed in England at all. And so once it became part of the dominant culture of Europe, which was the dominant culture, the world in which spawned in Islam, a parallel kind of anti semitism, with the Jews deemed to be the great enemy of Muhammad, and a threat to the well being of his followers. anti semitism, in a sense, infected it was a virus that infected virtually everyone, which like many viruses, are very hard to overcome or dispense with or to cure people from. So this is the reason if you grew up in a community where people say things you mentioned where you are in North Dakota, if you grew up in a community, where people say, juicer, this and you to that, and juicer this, and they do this, and they've done that, and they've killed Jesus, and they're oppressing the Palestinians, and they're doing whatever. And they're so influential on Wall Street and they do harm. What are children supposed to believe that we know a great deal about how people acquire their beliefs. And when they grew up in communities where there's a consensus view about another people, a prejudicial one, they will themselves be prejudiced. That was true against African Americans, or blacks, as they were typically called, prior to the Civil Rights era in this country, and certainly prior to the Civil War. And when new beliefs replace them, when a new cultural understanding of African Americans became dominant, the United States, many fewer people grew up in a prejudice way. So this is the source of prejudice against Jews, the initial Christian demonization of Jews, the way it spread, and the way it and all that has been built upon it today. Most anti semitism is not Christian based, but nevertheless, the paradigm the Christianity put in place, the foundational anti semitic paradigm has morphed It has morphed, has updated itself to be in keeping with the times and has taken on new idiom, indeed, today a global idiom. And we have. And because of that we've entered a new era, which can be called Global anti semitism,

we're going to have to take a break in a minute. And when we get back, I want to talk about this phrase that you use that I think is really important called a plausibility structure, which is part of what you're talking about. Now, I also want to go to help us talk about Israel. But before I do you, just a comment. And then And then something for folks to think about. You're talking about the religious and the cultural description of Jews in connection with the devil, and the demonology that gets associated with Jews. And just very briefly, when I first read the title of the book, I thought the devil that never dies, referred to anti semitism. But of course, it also refers to Jews, because the Jews become classified as the devil. And no matter how many people have tried to kill them, they never die, they keep coming back, when people say that the Jews are the devil in religious texts, is it supposed to be taken literally,

it seems very much to be meant literally and what whether it was supposed to be taken literally it was taken literally and it became a Pan European notion. And what we should say is that it is incumbent upon Christians today to to interpret their tax and in as non or anti anti semitic ways as they can, there is much that can be done by interpreting these texts in a more humanistic, less literal way. And there many Protestant church churches and indeed even in the Catholic Church, there are people who are doing that today.

When we come back, we're gonna follow up on a lot of the stuff and talk about the Holocaust and Israel and global anti semitism. Right now you're listening to Daniel Goldhagen, and Jack Russell Weinstein on why philosophical discussion about everyday life, we'll be back right after this.

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you're back with why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host, Jack Russell wants to know, we're talking with Daniel Goldhagen, about anti semitism and asking how to think about anti semitism. You know, I, my longtime listeners know that I lived in Vienna, Austria for a while in my in my 20s. I go back frequently, it's a it's a city I love, actually going back tomorrow for about two weeks. And it is in some senses, one of the bellies of the beast, if I can use that, that metaphor. So I'm 25 years old, I'm actually I'm probably 24 at this point. I'm just starting to learn German, I have some very, very minimal conversational skills. And I'm on a train going from Vienna to Salzburg. And I'm in one of these little booths in in European trains that Americans know from from the Harry Potter movies, and and there's a group of septuagenarian octogenarian folks in there talking German. And I'm not saying anything I don't you know, I'm just sort of sitting there minding my own business and struggling to listen to the conversation because I hear the word Israel. And as best as I can figure out at the time, there's one older man who's saying, you know, it was 50 years ago, why can't they let us forget it? Just let's move on, all this sort of thing. And everyone leaves, but this guy, and I strike up a conversation with him. And it's obvious to him that I'm an American, and then I'm struggling with Germany's very, very nice man. And we talk and it turns out that he is an ex officer in the Austrian army, he was a Nazi. And he starts talking to me about his experiences. And in one of the great disappointments of my life, I can't really understand him. I am in a train with an actual Nazi officer who's talking to me honestly about stuff, and I can't understand it. And he says this word, he starts talking about the camps. And he says this word, and I don't know what the word means. And I say to him, I don't understand what you mean. And he Mr. misinterprets it and he doesn't realize that I'm saying a vocabulary question. He thinks what I said was, I don't understand what you're talking about. And it was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. His entire body language changes, his entire tone changes, and he starts to recount what is clearly the party line. And I don't mean the Nazi Party of, here's what we did. Here's what we did wrong. Here's what the Holocaust is. And it was perfectly clear that I was never ever, ever going to get anything honest from him again. And I don't mean that the the story that he told wasn't honest. I mean, I couldn't talk to him as a human being anymore. And so I guess, Danny, the the first question that I have for you, as we start to transition into the other subjects, is, how do we know that when we're talking about these things, that we're talking about what people really believe? And what people want to believe? Or what people want people to think they believe, how can you have honesty, in a conversation about a subject that is so awful and complicated and filled with hate? And filled with history? How do you get access to real people in the real conversation?

If you time a conversation in this country, it's quite difficult. One of the features of precious of all kinds of in that is when the precious exists in environments and in public spheres that to cry them is that people hide their views. How many people we know there's a great fair amount of prejudice against African Americans in this country among whites, how many people openly make racist comments in your presence? Not nearly as many as who harbored these views. This is even more true, or at least his true will, I'll say about anti semitism. And we know this to be the case because the because the American public sphere and until recently, the European public sphere was pretty much denuded of anti semitism, and yet a survey research. That's how we know what people believe. Several research shows that anti semitism exists in, in, among large, large numbers of people with the most peripheral who have the most profoundly anti semitic views about Jews. It's fair to say that on something like 250 million Europeans are anti semitic, they say yes, to classic anti semitic charges. They say they believe them. They put them forward. They affirm them in surveys. Can you give us some examples of what those charges are? That Jews are more loyal to Israel? This is not a classic charge. But the dual loyalty chart part of it is but not the Israel part, Jews are more loyal to Israel than they are to their own countries. Why would people think that they choose to live in Germany and France and Italy, they are members of their community, they were American or Jewish Americans live in the highest states? I mean, what does it even mean that they're willing to sell out their countries for Israel, that they're there? What is as a fifth columnists? It makes no sense. Yep. This is a very widespread belief in Europe, Jews have too much power in business. One of the interesting things about these beliefs is it's easy to gloss over them say, oh, too much power in business. Okay, well, that sounds pretty bad. Or maybe it doesn't sound that bad to you. But think about what it actually means. What does it mean to say that Jews have too much power on business? It obviously means if you say they have too much power, that they're going to do something nefarious with that so called Power Otherwise, you wouldn't say that you might say Jews are prominent business or they do well in business or something. So what is the underlying belief that makes that statement as ominous as it is and allows people to say, yes, they have too much power, meaning they should have less power, because of the power they have. They either would do misuse or will misuse. Same a lot of questions about Jews in the financial markets, Jews having too much power, Jews being guilty for the death of Jesus. This is a firm depending on which country you ask by 2535 40% of the people in Catholic countries. And and it's of course, the most damaging prejudicial charge of all time and to anticipate perhaps something that's coming up. This and the other charges except for the dual loyalty charges, this will have nothing to do with Israel. They're not caused the views and are caused by Israel. They are classical anti semitic beliefs caught us through the ages in this these forms and other forms to demean Jews to spread hatred against Jews to justify discriminatory measures and even violence and even the mass murdering of Jews. I'm not saying anybody's in Europe going to kill Jews today. I'm not saying that at all. So these beliefs we know exists because survey, research, unveil some and which is different from finding out from someone, as you said, How do you know when you're talking to someone what he or she really believes, you know, if you're listen to media in Arab and Islamic countries and more and more in Europe, where they're quite open about what they believe, one can presume that if someone says, The Jews are bacteria, they ferment all the wars in the world. They're responsible for all the revolutions, they destroy you sacred values and, and, and weaken peoples wherever they go, and that they ought to be destroyed, you can presume that the person means that if he says such a thing. Now, you may think such a thing as somewhat outlandish, but it's not these are the common sense, or the commonly intoned kinds of things that you find in country after country in the Middle East, and even in other parts of the world. Let me just, I'll just briefly read one very short passage that came from Hamas, Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs, so the Hamas leader in 2010, and it was broadcast on their television station. So obviously, they thought this was fine. And he said, The Jews suffer from a mental disorder because they are thieves and aggressors. They want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but in fact, they are foreign bacteria, a microbe unparalleled in the world. It's not me who says this, the Quran, the Quran itself says that they have no parallel, you shall find the strongest man in enmity to the believers, to be the Jews. And then he goes on to say, he draws the conclusion of what should be done making annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion or conscience, he says more, and he and he, towards the end, he says, they are not human beings, they are not people. So we know what a lot of people believe, because they're quite open about it. And the more we talk about the what I probably are, by and large, rather mild prejudices of the people that you've encountered, or the students have told you about North Dakota, you know, kind of garden variety, stereotypes, or maybe words, the more we talk about that the less we lose sight, the more we lose sight of the most virulent forms of anti semitism that of course around the globe, and that actually threatened the will physical safety and well being of Jews, not just in Israel, but across the world and even in Europe.

It is it, it has certainly been horrifying to watch. The implicit attitudes become explicit and the violence, Passover, and then I don't know if you're on social networks or not, but if but, but my Facebook feed is filled with some people hateful stuff about Israel, and other posts, hateful stuff about people who are posting hateful stuff about Israel, and none of it. None of it. I mean, I don't know how to make sense of any of it. And so then I asked my listeners for questions and and all the questions I got, probably about 65 70% Were about Israel. And so the first sort of most neutral question is from Heidi. And she asks, Can you critique Israel without being anti semitic, but then I get others. And so James asks, Why are references to the Nazi regime when criticizing Israel, such as when Holocaust survivors use the term genocide to describe the Palestine people? Why are they so dismissed outright? And then Rick, who actually wrote about six or seven paragraphs, which I can't read, talks about how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group works incredibly hard to make. People think that Israel and Jews are the same thing. But that when he criticizes Israel, he's criticizing the government, not the people. And then he refers to and this is what James is actually talking about is different question, the open air concentration camps that Israel keeps Palestine Palestinians in. So how do I make sense of people who asked questions and are genuinely and I'm super happy that my listeners are so honest, and so open with their questions. But how do I make sense of questions that ask implicitly, probably a few different things first, how come whenever I criticize Israel, people call me anti semitic? Second, how can people want acknowledge that Israel is acting just like the Nazis? And third, how come a lot the Jewish lobbying group in the United States is so powerful that they've made us think that when we criticize Israel, we criticize Jews making? How do I make sense of all those questions? And how do we talk about Israel? And how do we talk about Israel in a way that isn't anti semitic or Do people ever and is even asking that question itself, anti semitic.

Of course, you can criticize Israel Israeli policies without being anti semitic. You can take lots of positions as people in Israel and when I say people here I mean Jews. Israelis and also Palestinian Israelis, you can take many positions visa vie the current government, its strategy or its orientation towards the Palestinian Authority or Hamas and the rightness or wrongness of this policy whenever it's perfectly legitimate when it crosses over into anti semitism. And this is part of the issue of how you identify anti semitism or prejudice in general, when the empirical statements that are made to support the criticism, or that are the foundation of the criticism or that are asserted, and then being criticized, when they are so out of this world, and have so little to do, indeed, nothing to do with reality. It's crossed the line from being a criticism to being a form of prejudice, in this case, anti semitism. So you can be very critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. And I won't go into the ways I mean, there are lots of legitimate ways to be critical of it. And but if you say something like Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinian people, a war of extermination, which is one of the survey questions asked in Europe, or that has been asked in Europe, and you find that 50% of people in the European Union say they are, then you have to say this is a form of anti semitism, because by no reasonable understanding of what a war of extermination means, can it be said that Israel is conducting one. In fact, just to give you a couple of facts, and I'll end, and this gets to a second point that prejudice and including prejudice in discussion of Israel shows itself to be resistant to facts. So in other words, when someone says Israel is doing X, and you say, and you show the person that it was actually not doing X, and the person continues to say it, despite the evidence, that's a form of prejudice. So during a 10 year stretch in the early 2000s, the Palestinian population under the during a toolkit, decade period, excuse me, the Palestinian population under Israeli control doubled, hardly a war of extermination. And during a 10 year period, the Palestinians had the highest birth rate in the world, hardly a war of extermination. I don't know what the final figures are for the current for the for the recent Gaza war, incursion, or battle, whatever you want to call it. But until then, over the course of the previous, I may not have the numbers quite right, I haven't looked them up lately. Over the previous decade, Israel had killed something on the order of 10,000 Palestinians, or maybe over two decades, it the timeframe doesn't really matter that much, even though of course, every life lost is is is to be lamented. But because there's no way that in a conflict, this is in the in the matrix of an of armed conflict, often there's no way that this can be called a war of extermination. And by the way, 1500 Israelis also died, were killed by Palestinians during this time. So that's an example of how you have criticizing Israel, easily can be said to be anti semitic.

Now, now I'm gonna have listeners, and I know that this has come up on social networks, who will say, Well, look, you you said over 10,000 Palestinians were killed, and only 1500 Palestinian Israelis were killed. And so since Israel is so much stronger than Palestine, isn't Israel inherently wrong, and in all of the ways that they're treating you,

if you want to say that, that shows that Israel is using too much force, and that somehow they're and that it makes a culpable, you can make that argument. But I'm merely saying this is not a war of extermination. And, and that half the Europeans, despite all the knowledge, and all the evidence, say it is shows that they're anti semitic. And so, so yes, criticize Israel. And we can have very, you know, another program, a discussion about Israeli policies, if you want, but there are so many ways in which it's anti semitic. And which goes to another thing, let's say you want to make the point that you just made on behalf of one of your hypothetical listeners, that the imbalance of the numbers of the number of people killed is already sufficient to say Israel as must be in the wrong or something. Well, why then isn't the same principle applied to other countries and other peoples and other conflicts or maybe not even in conflicts who are killing even larger numbers of people? And yet the same people who are so hyper concerned with the with Israel's suppression, oppression, violence against call it whatever they will against the Palestinians? Why are they so unconcerned about other similar conflicts are similar or even much, much worse conflicts going on. Take, for example, the how the Turks have treated the Kurds over to over in the 1970s and 80s. They killed 30,000 Kurds. They expelled 300,000. From their home, they raised 3000 villages or 1000 villages. I don't remember the exact number. Yep. And barely anyone makes a peep about this. Turkey invaded a country Cyprus and cut it in half and took control the country in the 1970s. barely anybody makes a peep about this. So this is another hallmark of prejudice to have principles, which you allegedly, are legit principles that you're applying to condemn one people. And yet you don't apply in anything remotely fair in any remotely fair and dispassionate way to other conflicts. Now, we don't ask everyone to be philosophers only you jack and the people in your field. So we can't expect absolute fidelity to principles and to fairness and so on. But the disparity between the application of the principle of the of the alleged principles that is that are so high minded, the disparity between how they're applying to Israel and apply to every other conflict in the world suggests that something else is at work here other than pure humanitarian concern, and that's something else is anti semitism.

And that's, that's how you describe it in the book, which I thought was a tremendously useful way of saying it, which is that that one way of looking at anti semitism in this context is holding Jews accountable by principles or for things that you don't hold anyone else accountable for. So I actually asked someone once. Imagine what the Israel Gaza conflict would look like if George W. Bush were in charge, that with the carpet bombing that America is prone to do whenever it engages in shock and awe. All of Palestine would be wiped off the map. But Israel has actually been from a certain point of view, fairly restrained in their response. Now, they may be unjust, they may be wrong, those are different questions. But if you use that standard that you articulated, which is holding Jews to a standard that you don't hold other people to, then I think you get to see what's going on. Now. What about the language of the Holocaust, the language of the Nazis, the language of concentration camps, the language of genocide has become so common and so mundane. In today's language? Is there any time when one can use that language for rhetorical effect, without completely dismantling everything that they want to do and say, if you want to if you want to compare Israelis to Nazis and call the refugee camps, concentration camps, if you want to call this genocide, if you want to call anything? Genocide, that isn't genocide, if you want to call anything, a death camp, you make the point and Hitler's willing executioners, which is tremendously important that that that that the death camps didn't create anything, there was no product that you can't call them work camps, because there was no work. Nothing came from it. If you use the language of the Holocaust, outside of the context of a very narrow description of genocide, which you in another book called worse than war. Is that are you doing? I don't want to ask if you're being anti semitic, because that's not what I mean. Is it wrong to use the language of Holocaust and genocide in anything other than the context of really specific Holocaust and genocide? Events? I mean, I know that I feel like that was a little incoherent, but hopefully you understand what I'm asking.

There are several questions here. One is Why is it so reflexively used to describe Israel and Israelis in their policies and so on? And it's quite obvious that people look at Jews who were the victims of the, of the Holocaust, the greatest evil, I don't necessarily say that it is the greatest evil, it's certainly unsurpassed, but there are other equivalent evils in the world that have been perpetrated. And so they look at the Jews and the Jews say, we have to protect ourselves. We can't let this happen again, they say, Aha, not only did you were not only were you not the victims of the Holocaust, as some say not, but not everyone does. But in fact, you're committing the Holocaust. Now you're like the Nazis. Right? It's, I think you mentioned Allan bloom at the beginning. Allan Bloom is right in another way, which is that the use of Hitler and the Nazi comparison is such a such a nuclear weapon in terms of moral discourse, that it shuts down, that it is reflexively used because of its power, and it shuts down thinking and it prevents relevant distinctions and it prevents a more nuanced, not just nuanced, but even minimally accurate account of things. So it is to, to call Israel. Let us just be clear, and I don't mean to go into a long defense of Israel here, Israel is the longest standing functioning one of the longest standing continuous democracies in the world, older than Germany, older than France, older the most of the countries in the world. It has had an unthreatened democratic, domestic dispensation, and that includes with Palestinian citizens, even though it's been under existential threat and been in essentially a war footing, because its neighbors want to destroy it ever since its inception. It's a remarkably non Nazi place. And it has shown ultimately, a great deal of restraint, given the endless endless provocations and attacks upon it in dealing with its neighbors now, whether Israel should be occupying the continuing to occupy the West Bank, it no longer occupies Gaza, and so on. That is an open question and how to resolve this this conflict over territory, you have two peoples fighting over territory, it's a tough situation, there's a lot of blame to go around. Even though I think that Israel is ultimately the ultimately has the most difficult thing to do, which is a deal with an antagonist and indeed an enemy that calls for its elimination and calls for the extreme often for the extermination of its people. It's very hard to negotiate anything with such people. So the use of these terms for Israel of what it was doing is totally illegitimate. I would say it is, at best a form of rank ignorance. But But I don't think the best situation obtains most of the time it is it is indeed an expression of anti semitism. Which, which, if you let me go on for another moment, Jack, sure. To get back to something else that you said, how do we know when criticism of as well as anti semitic because it's so often used as classical, anti semitic tropes. And so often the people criticize Israel talking about Jews, and not just Jews in Israel, but Jews in general. This is what it has so horrified people in the United States and, and politicians and good hearted and well thought people in Europe as well, to see these protests across European canon calling for the death of Jews, blaming Jews attacking Jews, Israel, as well, but focusing to a great extent on Jews, and to the point where those countries and even institutions such as newspapers, which deny that their anti semitism was a problem in the country now say, we're talking about the enormous upsurge and expression of anti semitism and how it's a huge problem. Classical anti semitic tropes come into play in discussing Israel or as a consequence of Israel's actions. That's another reason we know that anti semitism is so rude.

I want to I want to go back to something that I promised talking about because of course, one of the questions that anyone who's listening, this is going to ask is, why would anybody believe this stuff? Right? Now, if now there may be people who believe it and they wouldn't ask that. But if someone is not sympathetic to the more extreme points of view, and when I first read Hitler's willing executioners, the your first book, the book that made your name, one of the things that that was so impressive to me, is that you articulated and I'm going to be a philosopher for a second, you articulated what I thought was the rationality of the Holocaust and the rationality of anti semitism. And what I mean by that is, there's a philosopher named Alistair McIntyre, who talks about the fact that, that rational judgments that inferences that the logical judgments we make are contained within a tradition and a context and a history and texts. And so you can have different inferences, different judgments from different traditions in different contexts. And what I thought you did incredibly well, was show how people look rational in an anti semitic context and anti semitic tradition, you refer to that process in the devil that never dies as a plausibility structure. I think this is an incredibly important idea. I wonder if you would explain to our listeners for a minute, what a plausibility structure is, and why this allows people to appear rational and appear, and beliefs to appear legitimate and persuasive, even when empirically they clearly aren't. What is the plausibility structure and why is it so important to these questions?

A plausibility structure is the wider or broader set of belief of beliefs, the framework of understanding that makes certain specific beliefs and certain views of the world plus possible. And so in a take a simple example, in a pre literate, pre technological time, it was plausible to believe, you know, just give a there any number of examples, it's plausible to believe that sacrificing people and ripping out the hearts as the Aztecs did was necessary and causative for the earth for the sun to come up every day. Or that if you danced appropriately, and pray to the gods, that you would bring rain, these beliefs are no longer plausible people don't maintain them, because we have scientific knowledge about the world. Just as if we had actually asserted our scientifically based notions that we have today, back then to the Aztecs or to others, they would have thought we were crazy. Now, when it comes to anti semitism, or for that matter, other prejudices, there are plausibility structures that allow for these beliefs to be held and transmitted. And also that are important for explaining why they take on the character, they take wine a religious time, you'll have more of a religious demonology, about Jews, and in a modern, more secular, social, Darwinian race based understanding of the world, as you had in the 20th century, you will have more of a racist, contemporary understanding of the nature of Jews and of their malfeasance. So understanding the plausibility structure is important both for understanding why people will become anti semitic in the first place, why makes sense to them, and then why the specific charges that are made, that is why anti semitism, transforms is transformed by the anti Semites through the ages to take on different forms, because it has to be made more plausible. I'll get back, get back, get back to that in a moment. But I'll just turn the question back on you disbelieving Jack as you are, which is what if I asked you? Do you understand why people in the South and in 1840, or 1850, that is white people were prejudiced, were racist against African Americans. I presume else answer for

why was my wife a southern and so I'm using all of my skills to respond to the question. But of course, you know, I know that. That there were all of these social, political, literary structures that people used to justify and believe all of these things. So there's actually in the the epigraph to my most recent book, actually, I think the epigraph to the second part, I talked about a judge who ended up working on one of the Civil Rights landmark decisions, and he's, he's, he grew up in the South. And he was raised in this incredibly, you know, racist structure. And he was, he's white. And one day in college, he saw Louis Armstrong, play, and he and he says that it was the first true genius he had ever seen. And the act of seeing absolute genius, come from a black man was so incredibly powerful, that it forced him to reconsider all of his racist ideas. And then he became an incredibly influential pro civil rights judge. And I think that what you're suggesting, in the plausibility structure is that if you are raised as a child to find black inferiority plausible, then you're going to make judgments, assuming that. But if you encounter something that challenges that, what do you do? Do you challenge everything you've been taught so far? Or do you deny what you're seeing and call it something else? Is that a fair interpretation of some of what you're talking about?

That that is a fair interpretation. But I also wanted to ask the question, somewhat rhetorically, because I also wanted to make the point that when you say to Americans, you know, do you understand why people why people believe these things about blacks in 1840? And you know, everybody's common sense. Yeah, sure. Of course, that's what the whole culture was. That's what they were taught. And let's not forget what they believe was that the people of sub Saharan African descent, people with dark skin were sort of on the cusp of humanity. They were somewhere between primates. They were sub humans, somewhere between primates and full human beings. So these were radical views, different from anti semitic views, but nonetheless, radical and utterly dehumanizing views. And so when you wonder, I'm getting back to your question a few questions ago, when you wonder, how can people believe this stuff? Well, then answer your question by saying, well, they believe this stuff about African Americans. Hmm. People can believe this if they're reared in cultures where this is the common sense and where, where, where, where, what they hear what they're exposed to what is institutionally supported what is paraded as truth by by leading figures that have their communities in their countries, it's very easy for people to kind of believe it. The question is, how would we expect for them not to believe it?

So then the philosopher in me, again, is asking, Okay, where's the free will? How much freedom do we have in the face of our cultures in the face of our histories, in the face of our plausibility structures? To say, No, I have been taught this. And I put my foot down, and I say, No, how much room do we have? How much room to people reared and antiSemitism? How much room do people have to to disbelieve it? And where does that disbelief come from? That's the flip side of initially, Jay had asked the question, Where does bigotry come from? But the flip side of that question is, how does one stop the bigotry, especially when it is so powerful and such a long history? Whereas the free will? How do we? How do we say no in the face of such horrors?

Well, there there are two kinds of answers to it, or I'll turn it into two different questions. First, is that it depends on what the anti semitic complex is in the culture in which a person has been reared or lives. We live in the United States with their alternative, alternative views of Jews available. We have pluralistic notions about Jews, as we do about many other groups of Americans or peoples around the world. And so people are exposed to other ways of thinking. And so there and, and so then you're asking the question, why, why does it come to beliefs? Why do some people come to believe X and Y and other people become come to believe a and b? And that's, of course, a different and also complex question. But we, but in the contemporary world, certainly in the non Islamic, non Arabic countries, in the West, people have many other views of Jews that they're exposed to, and even some of them, and in many countries, they have the opportunity to know Jews as well. And so in those circumstances, then the issue of free will becomes the then the problem of freewill is not the same. It's not the problem of how can you say someone can choose if he doesn't know that there's a choice, which is a situation growing up in Germany in 1935, where all you were taught was that Jews are race apart and set out and bent upon destroying humanity. And our second Devil's and secular form, which is a situation more or less in Arab and Islamic countries, and which was a situation in medieval Europe and also medieval in medieval Islamic countries. And then there is the problem of Free Will are the problem of how can you expect for people to believe something about another people, when everything they've ever learned or been taught by their cultures in their societies is the opposite of what we know, we you and I know to be true? You know, you can't I mean, that their their free, free will in this matter, ceases to exist in the form that we often think about it. Not that people can choose not that there won't be idiosyncratic voices that say, just this is just nonsense. But you can't expect that of most people. But the second form of the question, which I want to answer is, what can we do, we can have programs like this. And I say that not in a joking way, but as illustrative of what can be done, which is the way to fight prejudice of any kind. And anti semitism in particular, since that's what we're talking about, is for powerful and influential people in the public sphere, in the media, radio, television and newspapers, political leaders, very, very crucial religious leaders very quickly, to speak out against it. Not to just be quiet or not to say, Oh, yes, it's bad, but to affirmatively say, why it's wrong, and here is a critical point for all your listeners for all of us. anti semitism, though it directly threatens Jews by creating a culture of hatred, and the basis for discrimination and for political mobilization and the foundation of violence, particularly in other countries. anti semitism most directly threatens Jews, but it is a threat to everyone. A society which is animated by anti semitism is not a society dealing with reality. And if you are going to describe the world in the way the anti Semites described Jews, you are doing injury to everyone and you implicitly threaten everyone because once you start this kind of thinking, it can morph and include other people as well. So anti Semite Islam must be fought by our Christian and Muslim religious leaders as well as our Jewish ones, by our politicians. And what we've succeeded in doing and this is why the United States is different is we have succeeded in making anti semitic statements in the public sphere, taboo, not that a taboo isn't broken occasionally, but when it is a ferocity rains down upon the people who break the taboo who other anti semitic statements oppose fair this is not true in any other country, with possible exceptions, partial exceptions in some of the English speaking countries, but it's not true in Europe. And, and so everyone in the European leaders must realize that they have to re establish and when I say taboo, I don't mean to forbid something that shouldn't be forbidden. Sometimes taboos are important and real unnecessary justice. We have taboos against racist remarks against African Americans, or against one hopes, homophobic remarks, we hope they come in place, there should be one against anti semitism about anti semitism throughout the western world. With regard to other parts of the world, we have little capacity to influence the Arab and Islamic world. It's a huge problem there. And I wish there were more we could do, or there was much of anything we can do. But right now we have to take care of our home.

I want to I want to highlight two things that you said. And then I and then I think I have two more questions, although one is a slightly longer one. I want to highlight that first, throughout all of this discussion, that you have never advocated throwing the baby with the bathwater. And what I mean by that is, while you are talking about the anti semitic history of Islam, or Christianity, or even a secular, scientific, enlightened points of view, at no point, have you ever suggested that Christianity or that Islam, or that all Christians, or that all Muslims are inherently bad, that the traditions have to be thrown out. And what you just said now is that these traditions can be used to solve the problem as well that through interpretation and through leadership and through care, that, that these traditions can be part of the solution, not just part of the problem. And additionally, you alluded to something else you talk about in the book, which is, I'm not a huge fan of sort of the American exceptionalist point of view, but you make the very compelling case that at least an issue, at least in the case of the Jews, America is exceptional, and that there hasn't been a place where Jews are as safe and have thrived as much and in which the popular attitude is a complete intolerance released a public political intolerance for open anti semitic comments. And so with those said, the first of all of the last two questions is you you talk about the myth post World War Two. And you say, well, people thought and prominent thinkers thought, well, the Holocaust has ended all anti semitism. And the first thing you do is you show that anti semitism is fairly present. But the other thing that you do is you portray a picture of Germany, that goes from incredibly anti semitic summit Semitic, to less anti semitic, and then rising again, more recently. And I wonder if you would talk just a little bit about how in the face of something like World War Two, how Germany successfully moderated the attitudes, and then what went wrong and why the defense seems to be less effective than it used to be.

The German story has an American analog, which is quite well understood here. But before I mentioned, I just want to add one thing to what you said about the American exceptionalism, which is, the United States is a country where Jews are deemed to be members of the national community. This is not true in European countries. They're all the we can say Jewish Americans, but the whole and you might say, it's not such a common term, though, PBS had a series called called the Jewish Americans and it's becoming more and more a new such as opposed to American Jews, the notion of saying Jewish Germans, Jewish, French Jewish breads, it has no linguistic resonance. They're simply Jews. And until they are seen and come to be seen as members of the National communities and European countries, we will continue to have the foundation of of seeing Jews as different and potentially dangerous throughout those countries. Now, the German story, I said is analogous to has an analogue in the American in American history, which is of course well understood, and it's helpful. It gets back to this question what we can do about it. And what however much prejudice that remains in this country against African Americans and has plenty of it. It is there's far, far less than there was then there was in 1940, or 50, or 1960, and particularly the American South, in 1960. Segregation was not only social practice and a political and in the law, but segregation could be said to have been the central political institution of the American South. It was the defining political institution and all of politics was pointed towards keeping it in place. In 15, short years, I would say by 9075, but certainly by 1980, you would have very few white Southerners who would say, Okay, let's turn the clock back, reinstitute segregation with all its legal and political disabilities placed on blacks, the kind of apartheid that existed there, let's turn it back. And that would be an acceptable form of social and political practice. You whatever precious remains, in a short period of time, you had a radical change in sensibilities about what was possible, talk about changing plausibility structures. And what happened in the South was, among other things, that southerners really got to see how the rest of Americans viewed them, how the government of Washington viewed them, how the rest of the country said, You are committing a grievous, Grievous injury and essentially crime and, and horrible transgression of, of a moral and political and also religious kind against innocent people. And they began to look at themselves through the eyes of the rest of the country, and things shifted with violence with resistance, but actually extremely rapidly historically. This is what happened in Germany, in 1940, all of Germany, first of all, anti semitism existed, racist and exempt Semitism existed long before the Nazis came to power and was the common sense of German society. Lumby, long before Hitler ever saw the light of political day. Under the Nazis, it became, of course intensified, and it was trumpeted from every organ of society. And what was the person supposed to believe at that point that is a non Jewish, German about Jews. Jews are misfortune and so on and so forth. Jews have to be eliminated, Jews have to be exterminated. And one of the things I showed Hitler's war executions, is how ordinary Germans willingly slaughtered and tortured and brutalized Jews, and which was part of the process of killing them. And they did so because they're anti Semites. What happened in 1945, is the world came crashing down. And suddenly, Germany, particularly in the West, under benign American occupation, began to see itself through the eyes of the rest of world that they've committed the greatest crime in human history, democratic institutions were installed, enlightenment based education was instituted. And slowly and gradually, the though the scales came, fell from the eyes of Germans, and they started to understand what they had done. And, and with generation replacement and new education, Germans have come to see the Holocaust with the same horror that the rest of the world looks at it, and have it and even though there's a great deal of anti semitism, Germany, it's no longer the demon illogical kind where they think Jews are set to destroy the world or devils in human form. And so it's another hopeful case of social transformation through change plausibility, structure, and political transformation.

We're at a time and so what I would urge people to do is, is to get the book, because it also talks about how some of that starts to break down and why there's anti semitism on the right, and why there's anti semitism on the left, and how that has to do with Germany and Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union. But I have to ask you one very short question, which is, you know, I read Hitler willing executioners, probably 15 years ago, maybe longer. And there are, in addition to the intellectual challenge of it, there are images that have never escaped me. They're stories that you tell one in particular, which I will not repeat, which haunts me. And then I read the stuff on genocide, and I read the devil that never dies. And it seems so overwhelming and so horrible. And I know this seems sort of a silly question to end it. But do you ever get depressed? Your your your research life and so much of your literary life and so much of your profession is built on talking about this? How do you face the horrors of history and humanity and the present without just being profoundly despondent and giving up?

You know, I haven't read a sunny disposition and maybe I came out that way. And my wife and my friends will tell you that if they don't ask me what I'm working on, I don't talk about it. And my wife writes a about architecture, she's architecture critic for the New Republic, among other things, and art and we travel, we look at architecture and art, that's what I spent much of my discretionary time thinking about, as well as literature. And, you know, there's, there are many joys in life. And so it is depressing the time when it really got to me. And I'll just mention this is making the documentary based on the based on the book worse than war, which is streaming on YouTube, you just type in genocide, it's the first thing that comes up a two hour documentary on the nature of genocide is for PBS. And having to do that and to go around the world and to talk to people until talk to the murderers to we have murderers on tape on on video. It's just incredible stuff. That was that got to me more than any of the more bookish research that I've done. Being in in location, sitting across from victims of all, all varieties, listening to their stories, empathizing with the horrors that they that they that they endured, that that was that was a probably the toughest thing I've done. But I'm I move because this work, I need to Holly say is critical to understand Semitism today and much of the book that talks about the nature of global anti semitism, which we didn't really get to why it's different today, from how it's been at any time in history, and what's new about it, and why it is embedded in the substructure of prejudice in the world. And so if your readers or your listeners are interested in that the book offers that as well. It's absolutely critical stuff. And just as you were afraid in as you said, to have this program, and I hope your fears have not been borne out. We people are afraid to speak the plain truth about many of these horrors, anti semitism genocide, who's complicit including a lot of political leaders in a lot of countries, what to do about it, and I have the knowledge and I have the skill to do so. And so it's my duty as I see it, to take on these subjects and to do my best to try to bring in linemen and to make produce change. Well, I

I am so grateful that you took the time to share it with us. I learned a tremendous amount. And I really I encourage everyone to get the books and obviously send your feedback to Danny and to me via the show. Daniel Goldhagen. It has been my pleasure and my honor to have you on why thank you so much. I thank you. I'll be back with some more comments right after this.

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You're back with why philosophical discussion about everyday life. I'm your host, Jack Russell Weinstein, we've been talking with Daniel Goldhagen, about anti semitism and asking how to think about it. And in the process, we have taken not only a global discussion, but also an overwhelmingly historical discussion, there was so much and I don't know how we can all sort it out without thinking about it for a very, very long time. What I will point out is the thing that he says, sort of early on, which is the thing that he wants us to understand more than anything else is that when you learn about prejudice, you don't learn about the people who are being described, you are the people who are prejudiced. That is key. When I asked people up for their questions of anti semitism, when I talk about it with my students, over and over again, people say what have the Jews done to deserve this? What has Israel done to deserve this? Why are the Jews recipients of this surely where there's smoke, there's fire? And what Danny wants us to understand is no, that's not the case. The Jews, Crime Was Being there. They were in the way as he said, or as others will say, they existed when we hear the stories of the demonology when we hear the stories about the Jews killing Christ, when we hear the stories about Israel's genocide, when we hear the stories about Jews covered, you know, engaging in the banking, control. These are just not true. They're lies and they don't tell us anything about the Jews. Just like if someone said Jack has foreheads doesn't tell you anything about me because I don't have foreheads. What it does tell us is that the questions that we ask, hide or I should say actually reveal our true notions of The questions that I got, they were all interesting. They were all powerful. They were all challenging, but so many of them assumed that the people being described were the guilty ones. And so by revealing those questions, we can reveal what we believe. And we don't really know that we believe. And all of this is to point out that history matters. How we got here matters. Our culture matters, our plausibility structure matters, our sacred texts, how we read them, how we interpret them, how we describe them, how we teach them to our children, this matters, and we can teach all of our sacred texts, whether we're Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, whether we're atheists and have different kinds of tax that we teach our children, we can teach them caring, loving, egalitarian, open minded ways, or we can teach them in bigoted, artificial ways. Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't anti semitism in some of those texts. It doesn't mean there isn't racism, or misogyny in those texts. It means, however, that we can emphasize some things and de emphasize others and use the new learning that we have to make the world a better place. We can change our understanding, we can change our perspective. But in order to see where we're going, we have to know where we have been. And this conversation no matter how frustrating and no matter how accusatory we are to ourselves now, Danny was not accusing to anybody. No matter how we feel after this, we have to look at what we've done and where we've been. Because if we don't, we don't know the things we have to change whether they're anti semitic or anything else. I want to thank you for listening to why philosophical discussions about everyday life. As always, it's an honor to be with you.

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