To the Editor:
Since I disagree with Robert S. Wistrich’s approach to anti-Semitism and make my disagreements known in the opening pages of my book, Esau’s Tears, I hardly expected to get a favorable review from him [Books in Review, January]. I did hope for an effort at scholarly balance in this inevitably emotional arena, and some recognition that we are both striving to understand the blight of Jew-hatred. Instead, I found my book violently attacked as “deeply pernicious,” “profoundly biased,” and “ignominious.” His review grossly misrepresents and caricatures what is in my book, in ways that would take many pages to expose adequately.
I by no means argue that Jews are “largely responsible” for the hatreds they have so often encountered. I recognize that hatred of Jews emerges from the world view of the Jew-haters and that world view is to be understood as primarily responsible for it. My point—and it is hardly one that has not been suggested before by reputable scholars—is simply that real Jews, not fantasies about them, had something to do with the particular and quite diverse forms of hatred that developed in each country.
Since Jews differed so notably from country to country, they need to be carefully examined in each instance and over time, not assumed to be some facilely conceived entity or essence—so, too, with hatred of them. That Jews were “rising,” in the myriad and not easily summarized ways explored in my book, had something to do with the hatred expressed for them, but, again, I emphasize that there are no simple causal relationships; in some areas, such as Hungary, Italy, or the United States, rising Jews encountered relatively little hostility and relatively much acceptance. To state the obvious, one cannot blame the Jews for rising, but that rise helps to explain—though is not the primary cause of—the hostility they encountered.
Mr. Wistrich repeatedly wrenches out of context what I write, twists my meaning, and attributes to me the words of others. It is not Lindemann who says the Jews in Romania had “inferior morals” but Prince Carol. I did not write that the Romanians were “the most tolerant of all Christian peoples”; those were, again, the rather pathetic words of their isolated defenders. I set down my own conclusions—which Mr. Wistrich chose not to quote—after noting that many observers, believed the Jews of Romania and the native Romanians deserved one another (“each country gets the Jews it deserves”); I wrote that
a more justifiable and less cruel formulation would have been that when poor and oppressed people are thrown together under unfavorable circumstances, it should surprise no one that they do not get along or that they appear morally corrupt to those whose material circumstances are happier.
I repeatedly emphasize in my book that it is important not to demonize the Jews, but it is also important to avoid demonizing other peoples.
Mr. Wistrich quotes me as reporting that after the Kishinev pogrom “Jews exaggerated and falsified the numbers of their dead,” while my words were that “as even a friendly American reporter wrote, some of the atrocities reported did not occur” and the numbers of dead first reported were exaggerated (which was eventually recognized by all observers). But most of those atrocities were real enough, and I describe them, as well as the efforts of the czarist regime to deny or cover them up.
Mr. Wistrich quotes me as writing “that Jews were a power in the world.” He neglects to cite the many places where I emphasize that recognizing limited Jewish influence and power in given situations is not the same as agreeing with anti-Semitic fantasies about Jewish aspirations to control the world. The notion of the utter powerlessness of Jews, on the one hand, and a demonically conceived notion of great Jewish power, on the other, may be seen as two poles. There is much room in between for more realistic and complex assessments.
Mr. Wistrich brings his review to a close by describing it as “appalling” that Cambridge University Press (CUP) has put its “distinguished imprint on so biased and ignominious a work.” CUP did so after careful editorial examination of the text and consulting three recognized scholars. One of them (their comments were communicated to me but not their names) wrote that he was “very enthusiastic about this [manuscript], and [has] . . . no hesitation about recommending its publication.” He went on to praise its “nuanced and careful analysis,” its “sophisticated and plausible explanations.” Another described the manuscript as “beautifully written,” never “falling into the trap of ‘blaming the victim.’ ”
My university, similarly, in its recent career review of my work, asked five internationally distinguished scholars to comment on Esau’s Tears, as well as on The Jew Accused, my previous book (containing most of the interpretations that so offend Mr. Wistrich, and widely and positively reviewed in both scholarly and popular journals). All five reviewers (again, their names were not provided to me) were enthusiastic in support of both books.
Mr. Wistrich has sought, with poisonous extravagance, to discredit my book and defame me as a scholar. I make no apologies about writing a provocative book, one that questions many familiar interpretations and will raise hackles in some quarters—is this not what scholarship is supposed to be about? I hope potential readers will not be prejudiced against the book because of this wildly misleading review. It is a little sad to see a man of such talent and accomplishments so lose control of himself and of a sense of measure. I think he will find that he has succeeded in discrediting not my book but himself, his scholarly judgment, and his professional reputation.
Albert S. Lindemann
University of California
Santa Barbara, California
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To the Editor:
I am writing to register my amazement at the review by Robert Wistrich of Albert S. Lindemann’s Esau’s Tears, a book I read in manuscript and in its finished form. I cannot explain this renowned scholar’s consistent misreading of Lindemann’s motives and content or his intemperate language. The last rational thing the reviewer has to say appears in the third paragraph: “Jews have interacted with their persecutors in complicated ways.” This is the subject of Lindemann’s book, a subject which is treated respectfully, always knowledgeably, sometimes persuasively and sometimes not.
Lindemann, in the company of Hannah Arendt, Jacob Katz, and many others, does not accept the comforting but fallacious notion that Jews have had nothing to do with the generation of anti-Semitism. That he should have the anathema pronounced upon him for daring to ask questions that Mr. Wistrich finds “deeply pernicious” or arriving at answers that he deems “ignominious” is shameful arrogance in a reviewer. Attributing direct quotations from anti-Semites to Lindemann himself is unforgivable.
Was there ever such a book written by an established scholar and published by a prestigious press that had not a single saving grace, nothing to recommend it, no useful information despite its alleged interpretive shortcomings? When I read a review like this I suspect a vendetta, some personal grudge being settled in a most unseemly fashion. Even if it is nothing of the kind, a review this one-sided ought to awaken the darkest suspicions. And I hope it does so among readers in whom a sense of fair play still lives and who will now want to read the book before consigning it to the flames. Those who do will learn much.
Richard S. Levy
University of Illinois
Chicago, Illinois
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To the Editor:
Robert S. Wistrich’s review is a disgrace. He vilifies a respected and careful scholar because, along with many Jewish observers, he is unwilling to acknowledge the challenge posed by Jews and Judaism to Christian peoples.
Mr. Wistrich is unwilling to contend with facts like the following: Christians have perceived Jews as the mortal enemies of the Christian faith and have seen every development toward secularism, moral relativism, scientism, and irreligion as directly or indirectly the work of Jews, particularly secular Jews. The work of Marx and Freud is seen, not without some justification, as the secular continuation of the rabbinic assault on Christianity begun with the expulsion of Jewish-Christians from the synagogues at the end of the 1st century C.E. The emancipation of the Jews and their acquisition of citizenship, from 1789 on, was the most important cause of modern anti-Semitism. Christians doubted and some still doubt whether citizens can coexist who share no fundamental religious commonality. Even secular ex-Christian societies may still believe in the sacral, sacramental basis of the community. Instead of emphasizing the woes of Jews, why should we not stress that they survived as aliens and outcasts in Christendom only because of the sometimes but not always effective restraints of Christian faith?
In France, whose history I know best, Jews were identified with the separation of church and state, the purging of Catholics from the government of the Republic, the legalization of divorce, and the other accomplishments of the godless Republic. During the Restoration, Louis de Bonald held that Jews could not become French citizens without consequences, and he was probably right in the eyes of Catholic believers. Nonpracticing Catholic Frenchmen were still in some sense Catholic while nonpracticing Jews were still Jews, hence not Frenchmen.
If Mr. Wistrich were honest about these matters, he might shed light instead of heat on the troublesome history of anti-Semitism.
Norman Ravitch
University of California
Riverside, California
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To the Editor:
In his review of Albert S. Lindemann’s Esau’s Tears, Robert S. Wistrich tells the truth about a bad and even dangerous book. For that very reason, Mr. Wistrich should brace himself. If my own experience is any precedent, he is almost certain to be attacked by Lindemann and his henchmen. They will accuse him of “misrepresentation” and “distortion,” of being too “aggressive,” of not adopting a proper scholarly “tone.” All of these accusations were leveled against me when I publicly challenged several of Lindemann’s more outrageous claims.
Late last year, in an Internet discussion group dedicated to the history of anti-Semitism, Lindemann announced that “traditional, Talmud-based Judaism is vulnerable to the charge” of racism. According to Lindemann, “it is not only Nazis who have used the term ‘Mischling’ [mixed-race]; Orthodox Jewish commentary uses it, too.” Since Judaism “defines Jewishness in terms of physical descent, not belief,” he wrote, Orthodox commentators refer to “half-Jews” as “Mischlinge.” Although he cited no context whatsoever for this assertion, he warned that such dogmas are “easily confused with racist notions.”
On no fewer than four separate occasions, Lindemann was at pains to stipulate that he does not “equate Orthodox concepts of descent with Nazi or other racist concepts,” but, he went on, “many might conclude” that such a similarity exists. Since he did not cite a single person who draws this parallel, one must ask why he felt compelled to defend Judaism so passionately against a charge that only he was making. Lindemann’s characteristic technique here and elsewhere is to disavow an accusation and then make it anyway.
Lindemann also cautioned readers against “the emotional, at times almost Pavlovian response that any resemblance between racism and traditional Judaism must be the result of ‘ignorant fantasies.’ ” Here he was misquoting me. I had pointed out that, on the evidence of his remarks about Jewish law, he was appallingly ignorant of the Talmud, rabbinical Judaism, medieval commentaries, and modern Orthodox thinking outside of newspaper accounts.
In fact, Lindemann’s characterizations of Judaism are more like fantasies than historical accounts. He claims, for instance, that “[t]he Old Testament is replete with talk of capital punishment, and it would thus be natural to conclude that Jews have favored it.” When informed that the ancient rabbis hedged capital punishment with so many restrictions that it became a practical impossibility, Lindemann countered with more recent “evidence”: “Adolf Eichmann was put to death in Israel” and Baruch Goldstein gunned down Muslims at prayer in the Tomb of the Patriarchs “on the basis of his reading of Holy Writ and its interpretation by observant rabbis.” One need hardly point out that Eichmann, in a ruling unique in Israel’s history, was executed for crimes committed against the Jewish people, or that Baruch Goldstein’s act was not that of one dispensing capital punishment but of a murderer and a madman.
Although he hotly denies it, statements like these form a pattern of basic hostility to Orthodox Judaism on Lindemann’s part. Consider the following remarks he has made in the Internet debates on anti-Semitism:
[H]atred and vilification [between Lubavitcher and Satmar Hasidim typify] the contentiousness, the breathtaking hostility, the self-righteousness—and indeed the inability to view the Other sympathetically—of the many Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox sects in Israel and the United States.
[T]he words and actions of leading Orthodox Jewish spokesmen and organizations of Orthodox Jews have played a very important role in the escalation of hostility that Jews as a whole have encountered from black Americans. . . . It has not been ignorant fantasies about Orthodox Jews in the political arena but rather quite documentable realities, involving both content and style, that have played a significant role in worsening black-Jewish relations. Black anti-Semitism, to put it in plain words, is partly understandable in terms of words and actions by prominent Jewish spokesmen, above all those representing Orthodox Jews.
Mr. Wistrich concludes his review by lamenting that so distinguished a publisher as Cambridge University Press has lent its imprint to so undistinguished a book. The fact that Lindemann is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose courses include one entitled “Anti-Semite and Jew,” is perhaps even more troubling.
D.G. Myers
Texas A & M University
College Station, Texas
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Robert S. Wistrich writes:
Reading Albert S. Lindemann’s book was a painful experience. Replying to his letter is a no less thankless task.
First, let me note that I did not attribute to him the absurd remark of which he complains; I wrote that in his book Mr. Lindemann “cites one source testifying that the Romanians were ‘the most tolerant of all Christian peoples.’ ” That source is none other than the first king of Romania, Prince Carol.
In his letter, Mr. Lindemann grudgingly concedes that “hatred of Jews emerges from the world view of the Jew-haters,” but then quickly backtracks to his main thesis that “real Jews, and not fantasies about them, had something to do” with the hatred directed against them. So, too, the fact that Jews were “rising” had “something to do” with anti-Semitism—only Mr. Lindemann is not prepared to tell us precisely what that something might be. In his book, he is much less shy about all this, while at the same time covering himself by hiding behind the quotations of others in the manner tellingly described by D.G. Myers.
In his discussion in Esau’s Tears of modern German anti-Semitism, for example, Mr. Lindemann claims, without citing any evidence, that a “steady stream of insults and withering criticism [was] directed at Germans by Jews in their midst.” A prime culprit here, for him, was the great 19th-century Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz, whom Mr. Lindemann blasts for being “stunningly offensive to German sensibilities of the time” and for allegedly believing in Jewish racial superiority. (The poet Heinrich Heine is similarly charged, again without proof.) By contrast, Graetz’s antagonist, the Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke, has, according to Mr. Lindemann, been treated too harshly. This, of the man who coined the notorious slogan, “The Jews are our misfortune”—so beloved by the Nazis—and who exerted a baleful anti-Jewish influence on generations of professors and students. But never mind: even-handedness à la Lindemann demands that Treitschke be judged more “generous” than Graetz.
Wherever possible, Mr. Lindemann ignores or trivializes German racist anti-Semitism while highlighting so-called “Jewish racism,” from the Bible and the Talmud to modern Jewry and the state of Israel. Thus, major figures in pre-Nazi Germany like Richard Wagner, Eugen Dühring, Paul de Lagarde, and Theodor Fritsch are barely mentioned, but Benjamin Disraeli, the English Prime Minister, is discussed at length as a definitive racist and treated as if he were an authentic representative of Jews and Judaism, though he had been baptized as a child and was almost completely ignorant of the Jewish religion and of Jewish life generally. It is surely no accident that anti-Semitic and Nazi authors also cited the “evidence” provided by Disraeli’s writings to support their own racist delusions about the Jews.
Despite his denials, there is a clear pattern in Mr. Lindemann’s book of whitewashing or finding spurious justifications for anti-Semitic leaders in Central Europe who were, he implies, only responding to unseemly Jewish behavior or alleged Jewish “domination” of the economy, the press, politics, and culture. This pattern is evident in his discussion of such notorious anti-Semites as Adolf Stoecker, Karl von Vogelsang, and Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna who was the young Hitler’s first political role model. Lueger is presented in the best possible light, while the liberal Jewish-owned paper, the Neue Freie Presse, is depicted as having “mordantly mocked and derided the common man in Vienna and in Austria more generally.”
Even more troubling is Mr. Lindemann’s use of an ugly anti-Semitic term like “jewification” to describe the alleged Jewish preponderance over German-speaking culture in Central Europe. (“Leading German Jews in Vienna,” writes Mr. Lindemann, “look[ed] to a jewification of the non-Jewish world.”) When one juxtaposes this sort of thing with his startling assertion that before the mid-1930’s Hitler was a “moderate” on the “Jewish question,” one sees quite clearly what “balance” really means to Mr. Lindemann.
Things get no better when we come to France. By his own admission, in this section of his book (and in the Russian chapters as well) Mr. Lindemann has recycled substantial chunks of his earlier work, The Jew Accused. They do not improve on second reading: we get the same catalogue of false symmetries between Jews and anti-Semites, the same innuendoes, the same straw men, and the same game of provocation for its own sake. Thus, the myth of a world Jewish conspiracy is partly blamed on the “real” secretiveness of influential Jews, and Jewish culprits in French economic scandals of the late 19th century are singled out for attention while non-Jews, who were far more numerous in these scandals, are never mentioned. For example, according to Mr. Lindemann, the Panama Scandal of 1888-92 seemed to confirm that “the Republic was in the clutches of corrupt Jews who were bringing dishonor and disaster to France”—a belief certainly held by anti-Semites but lacking any factual basis whatsoever.
It is revealing that, when dealing with French anti-Semites like Alphonse de Toussenel, Edouard Drumont, and Maurice Barrès, Mr. Lindemann carefully removes the irrational and bigoted sting from their writings. Moreover, he manages to avoid any discussion of the virulent nationalist anti-Semitism of Charles Maurras and the Action Française—an amazing omission by any standard. No less significant is the minimal role he assigns to fin-de-siècle French Catholic anti-Semitism, recognized by virtually every serious historian as a major force at the time.
Typical of Mr. Lindemann’s “provocative” approach is his treatment of the Dreyfus case. Here, among other things, he describes Emile Zola, one of the most courageous French opponents of anti-Semitism, as having written “vicious things” about the Jews. Zola’s J’Accuse (whose centenary is currently being celebrated) is senselessly demeaned as a “reckless and false accusation.” As for Dreyfus, his unattractive character traits, rather than the fact of his Jewishness, are what is held by Mr. Lindemann to have been responsible for his arrest. Finally, to add icing to the cake, Mr. Lindemann charges that the impact of the Dreyfus case has been “exaggerated,” because it fits in with various “political agendas, particularly those Zionist interpretations of modern history that emphasize European decadence, ineradicable Jew-hatred, Jewish self-hatred, and the need for Jews to leave Europe.”
The only chapters in which Mr. Lindemann does show some balance are those devoted to Britain and America (with a side glance at Hungary). As he acknowledges in his letter, in these countries “rising Jews encountered relatively little hostility and relatively much acceptance.” What he fails to see is that these examples totally demolish his thesis that anti-Semitism is the response to a “real” threat posed by the “rise of the Jews.”
Rather than dealing with the arguments set forth in my review, Mr. Lindemann self-indulgently quotes anonymous referees of his book who praise it for its “sophistication” and describe it as “beautifully written.” (I confess that I could find no basis in his book or in his letter for either assertion.) At a loss for serious discussion, he is reduced to attributing my critique to obscure personal motives. In this he is seconded by Richard S. Levy, who suggests (without a shred of evidence) that there must be some kind of personal vendetta, secret grudge, or perhaps something more sinister behind my review. Whatever may have prompted Mr. Levy’s “darkest suspicions” is between him and his conscience. My own is clean. I do not know Mr. Lindemann personally, I have never previously clashed with him, and I did not seek out the dubious privilege of reviewing his book.
Mr. Levy has nothing of substance to say in his exercise in personal vilification. His comparison of Mr. Lindemann with Jacob Katz is an insult to that distinguished scholar of Jewish history. His mention of Hannah Arendt is slightly closer to the mark, given her propensity for using anti-Semitic sources and accepting negative Jewish stereotypes in an uncritical way. Hannah Arendt had a powerful mind, but few historians today accept her analysis of anti-Semitism.
Norman Ravitch’s letter is striking less for its abusive tone than for the way it unconsciously illustrates the arguments set forth in my review. Mr. Ravitch seems to be mainly preoccupied with rationalizing Christian prejudice against Jews, a subject on which Mr. Lindemann is deafeningly silent To neither of these scholars is the anti-Judaism of the church fathers, the bigotry of priests, or the popular anti-Jewish demonology of the Middle Ages of any relevance. Neither Mr. Lindemann nor Mr. Ravitch feels the need to discuss the entrenched Christian view of the Jews as a deicidal people, as agents of the devil, usurers, sorcerers, and blasphemers. Nor do they even so much as hint at the massive Christian defamation of the Jewish people over the centuries.
Instead, Mr. Ravitch ramblingly regurgitates a string of malignant clichés, drawing a straight line from “the rabbinic assault on Christianity” (whatever that may mean) to Marx and Freud; locating (in an echo of 19th-century Catholic reactionaries) the prime cause of modern anti-Semitism in the French revolutionary emancipation of the Jews; and holding the Jews responsible for all the evils of secularism, moral relativism, and atheism. Most shocking of all is Mr. Ravitch’s suggestion that Jews should forget their “woes” (a nice euphemism for being defamed, demonized, massacred, and expelled), gratefully recognize the “restraints” of Christian faith, thanks to which they “survived as aliens and outcasts in Christendom,” and face the truth that their otherness is invariably a provocation to the majority religion. If this were to constitute our idea of progress, one would shudder for the future of Jewish-Christian relations.
Albert S. Lindemann entitled his book Esau’s Tears in order to underline his obsessively reiterated point that Gentile enmity to the Jews is very tangibly connected to the misdeeds of Jacob/Israel. Presumably these Gentile tears will not stop flowing until the Jews reform themselves, stop complaining about the suffering they have endured, and instead apologize for the pain they have caused, or possibly disappear as a distinct entity with its own religious and cultural values. This is not a new or particularly original thesis, but rather a standard contention of anti-Semitic literature.
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