American Historical Review Roundtable: Rethinking Anti-Semitism

The 'striking' cover of issue of AHR featuring the American Historical Review Roundtable: Rethinking Anti-Semitism, 2018.

AHR Roundtable: Rethinking Anti-Semitism was a special section of the American Historical Review Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018.

The Journal summarises the Roundtable thus:

As the striking caricature on the front cover indicates, the October issue features an AHR Roundtable on the vexed history of anti-Semitism. Initiated by Jonathan Judaken (Rhodes College) in partnership with the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism (ICRAR) at Birkbeck, University of London, the eight-part roundtable reflects ICRAR’s ongoing effort to overcome the isolation and politicization of the study of anti-Semitism. This is necessarily a controversial topic, and some of the essays are sure to generate heated debate; given recent developments in the U.S., Eastern Europe, and of course the Middle East, the task of historicizing anti-Semitism seems even more relevant now than it did when first initiated several years ago. The roundtable offered the occasion to confine our four featured reviews to recent monographs in Jewish history.

Here is the abstract for the Introduction by Jonathan Judaken which introduces the argument that the term 'anti-Semitism' should be replaced by 'Judeophobia':

In his introduction, Jonathan Judaken surveys theories and debates about anti-Semitism. He makes three salient observations about what hampers the field. First, it lacks agreed-upon definitions of its central concepts and terms. Second, how anti-Semitism compares to Islamophobia, anti-black racism, and other forms of oppression is unresolved. Third, periodization of anti-Semitism remains vague. In particular, he underscores and counters eternalist and teleological narratives, claims about uniqueness, and apologetics. He argues that these impediments are in part a product of the shadow of the Holocaust and the continuing conflict over Israel/Palestine. To move out of these theoretical impasses, Judaken makes two recommendations. First, he suggests replacing the term “anti-Semitism.” He argues that as a term for the fear and fascination about Jews and Judaism, “Judeophobia” better lends itself to conceptual clarity, periodization, and comparability. Second, he calls for more meta-level considerations, drawing from work in critical social and literary theory, postcolonialism, and studies of racism and gender. Congruent with this conceptual groundwork, Judaken suggests that Judeophobic discourses and practices encompass five modes — stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, racialization, and murder — and five periods — ancient, early Christian, high medieval, modern, and post-Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism Requires Rethinking. Unlike anti-black racism, nationalism, postcolonialism, or feminism, anti-Semitism remains under-theorized. Fundamental questions remain unresolved: How does one define anti-Semitism? Should the word be hyphenated? Can a term that was coined in order to distinguish racialized and politicized Judeophobia from religious anti-Judaism stand for the whole history of Jew hatred? Is hatred the emotion propelling anti-Semitism? Or is Judeophobia—the term I will defend using as an overarching category for the field—better understood in terms of ambivalence: a volatile combination of both fear and fascination? Is anti-Judaism a leitmotif for understanding the Western tradition? If so, were ancient Judeophobia and medieval anti-Judaism animated by the same impulses as Nazi anti-Semitism, and how do these map onto anti-Zionism? How should one periodize Judeophobia?

It is notable that Judaken writes of 'Anti-Semitism' that it was a: 'term that was coined in order to distinguish racialized and politicized Judeophobia from religious anti-Judaism'. In other words, he is saying that the term never included any other 'Semites' than the Jews.

Contents

• Jonathan Judaken Introduction The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1122–1138, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy024
• David Feldman Toward a History of the Term “Anti-Semitism” The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1139–1150, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy029
• Scott Ury Strange Bedfellows? Anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Fate of “the Jews” The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1151–1171, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy030
• Daniel J. Schroeter “Islamic Anti-Semitism” in Historical Discourse The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1172–1189, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy026
• Ethan B. Katz An Imperial Entanglement: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Colonialism The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1190–1209, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy022
• Stefanie Schüler-Springorum Gender and the Politics of Anti-Semitism The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1210–1222, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy020
• Maurice Samuels Literature and the Study of Anti-Semitism The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1223–1233, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy031
• Bryan Cheyette Postcolonialism and the Study of Anti-Semitism The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 4, October 2018, Pages 1234–1245, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy028