Cambridge Univesity Press (sounds impressive to me) published a school text book with various nonsensical statements about Jews (not neccessarily Israel). Hard to imagine, isn't it: such a thing happening.
On the other hand, an e-mail I got this morning tells that the publisher has now recognized the problem and is pulling the book. It would not have been pulled, however, had the local Jews not been keeping their eyes peeled.
Except that fibbing about Jews is no longer a bug.
ReplyDeleteIt's a feature.
In fact, many previous "barriers" people felt against venting their antisemitic
ReplyDeletefeelings have fallen apart.
This seems to be a historical pattern.
In his outstanding book "Revolutionary antisemitism in Germany from Kant to
Wagner", Paul Lawrence Rose mentions a similar situation after the Damascus
Affair (a blood libel from 1840, which in many ways was a prelude to the Dreyfuss affair), which maybe explain the need felt by the likes of Marr to coin the word 'antisemitism' in place of the previous and clear 'juden-hass' (jew-hatred).
By now, even the shoah is easily dismissed by self-styled intelectuals, mainly left-leaning.
However, due to the current "anti-racist/multicuturar/PC" stance, there is
still a need to the inevitable cognitive dissonance, which explain the need to refer to Zionism/Israel, instead of "the jews"; though, due to
the highly emotional sources involved,
they frequently forget the trick.
By the way: this is an excelent blog!
Sorry, in the last paragraph above it
ReplyDeleteshould read "still a need to assuage
the inevitable cognitive dissonance"...
Regards,
I've noticed that the people who have the most bile for Jews and Zionism tend to be the least knowledgeable about either.
ReplyDeleteLisa