Strange Bedfellows? Anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Fate of “the Jews”, by Scott Ury
2018 scholarly article by Scott Ury examining the dialectical relationship between anti-Semitism and Zionism
Strange Bedfellows? Anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Fate of “the Jews” is a 2018 peer-reviewed article by Israeli historian Scott Ury published in the American Historical Review as part of an AHR Roundtable. It argues that anti-Semitism and Zionism have developed in a longstanding, dialectical, and often problematic relationship since the late nineteenth century, with early Zionist thinkers viewing anti-Semitism as an indelible force that necessitated Jewish national self-emancipation, a paradigm that later scholars challenged but which has returned to dominate contemporary scholarship amid political debates over Israel.
The article traces how Zionist intellectuals such as Leon Pinsker and Theodor Herzl constructed anti-Semitism (or “Judeophobia”) as a “blind natural force” and “eternal” companion to the Jewish people, transforming it into the ideological motor for Jewish nationalism. Ury contrasts this with postwar American Jewish historians like Salo Wittmayer Baron and Hannah Arendt, who rejected the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history” and “eternal antisemitism.” He then shows how the paradigm reemerged in Israeli scholarship, notably through Shmuel Ettinger and Robert S. Wistrich, often in response to Soviet Jewry campaigns and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, resulting in a circular intellectual framework that conflates academic research with political advocacy.
Historical emergence and early Zionist paradigm
Ury locates the origins of the dialectical relationship in late-nineteenth-century Eastern and Central Europe. He highlights Leon Pinsker’s 1882 pamphlet Auto-Emancipation, written in response to the 1881–1882 pogroms shortly after Wilhelm Marr popularized “anti-Semitism.” Pinsker described Judeophobia as “a form of demonopathy” transformed into “a hereditary social disease” and a “blind natural force,” declaring that “Judaism and Anti-Semitism passed for centuries through history as inseparable companions.”[1]
Similarly, Theodor Herzl, reacting to the Dreyfus Affair and Viennese anti-Semitism, concluded that anti-Semitism was ineradicable and served as the “propelling force” for a Jewish state: “The misery of the Jews… is powerful enough to propel a large engine.” Herzl explicitly acknowledged the embarrassing affinity, noting that claiming Jews as “one people” might “giv[e] a handle to Anti-Semitism.”[1]
Postwar challenges and the return of the Zionist paradigm
Ury contrasts these foundational views with the postwar American Jewish historiographical turn. Salo Wittmayer Baron famously rejected the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” arguing that overemphasis on suffering distorted Jewish historical evolution and served neither scholarship nor a generation weary of persecution. Hannah Arendt derided the “eternal antisemitism” doctrine as “fallacious,” insisting anti-Semitism must be studied contextually within the development of the nation-state rather than as an immutable force.[1]
Nevertheless, Ury demonstrates how the traditional Zionist interpretation reasserted dominance through Israeli scholars. Shmuel Ettinger portrayed anti-Semitism as historically continuous and unique, a “unique phenomenon in the history of relations between national and religious communities,” and linked Soviet anti-Zionism directly to classical anti-Semitism. Robert S. Wistrich reinforced this in works such as Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred and A Lethal Obsession, describing anti-Semitism as “the longest hatred” with consistent patterns from antiquity to the present, now targeting Israel as “the collective Jew.”[1]
Contemporary implications and critique
Ury argues that this return has produced a circular scholarship entangled with politics, particularly debates over Israel, where warnings of a “new anti-Semitism” often serve as surrogates for contemporary conflicts. He calls for a contextual-comparative approach studying anti-Semitism alongside other forms of prejudice and racism (including Islamophobia) to break the cycle and reposition the field as autonomous academic inquiry rather than political advocacy.[1]
Ury concludes that anti-Semitism, Zionism, and “the Jews” remain “inseparable companions,” echoing Pinsker’s own words, and questions whether scholars can create frameworks free of contemporary political pressures.
External links
- Full text of the article (subscription required)