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Never Again?: The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism ―A History of Anti-Semitism and Urgent Call to Action from the Anti-Defamation League National Director
Anti-Semitism remains a pernicious form of ethnic and religious intolerance and an assault on the fundamentals of human dignity and human rights. Exploring the history of anti-Semitism and providing the first comprehensive examination of the new rampant anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, offers a crucial discussion of the steps that must be taken to prevent this century from witnessing a replay of the horrors of the last.
- GenresHistory
336 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 26, 2020
Outdated, but still includes a lot of important information, particularly about extremism on the far right. Foxman’s story about being a hidden child is particularly touching. However, the book is really problematic in lot of other areas.
It takes a very orientalist tone and attitude when discussing the Middle East. He’s very condescending when speaking about Palestinians in particular and balks at the idea that any of their difficulties could be due to the Israeli Occupation, placing the blame entirely on Palestinian political leaders and surrounding Arab countries instead. He was regularly praising the “war on terror” and America’s various exploits in the Middle East, while lamenting the supposed lack of a moderate Muslim voice. He painted the Middle East as a land completely taken over by Islamist extremists who hate America for our freedoms and for whom antisemitism is a central theological tenant.
The chapter about the relationship between the American Jewish community and Black Americans is especially problematic. He goes on a bit of a tirade against affirmative action programs and preaches a color-blind approach to racism. Additionally there is a strong assumption that Jewish = White and Black = Not Jewish. Aside from a few mentions in other chapters about the Ethiopian Jewish community being “rescued” and brought to Israel, there is no acknowledgement of the existence of Black Jews. There’s no mention of the incredible racial diversity within the Jewish community.
A big pattern I noticed in this book was that his discussions of white antisemitism carried a lot more nuance than his discussions of non-white antisemitism. As long as they weren’t outright neo-Nazis, he was much quicker to give white people and leaders the benefit of the doubt than he was people and leaders of color. Additionally, his willingness to hand wave the antisemitic end times theology in Christian Zionism because it also happens to support Israel was a bit infuriating.
All in all, it does have a lot of good information describing classic antisemitic tropes. It goes fairly deep into the history of antisemitism and its roots in Christianity, as well as warning of modern iterations. But the good information needs to be pulled out from some of the muck surrounding it. I worry about readers who would take everything this book says at face value and how it could increase anti-Black bigotry and islamophobia while trying to fight antisemitism. We desperately need good books about antisemitism. It’s a huge and scary problem. But we need to be a lot more mindful and intersectional in how we approach it.
It takes a very orientalist tone and attitude when discussing the Middle East. He’s very condescending when speaking about Palestinians in particular and balks at the idea that any of their difficulties could be due to the Israeli Occupation, placing the blame entirely on Palestinian political leaders and surrounding Arab countries instead. He was regularly praising the “war on terror” and America’s various exploits in the Middle East, while lamenting the supposed lack of a moderate Muslim voice. He painted the Middle East as a land completely taken over by Islamist extremists who hate America for our freedoms and for whom antisemitism is a central theological tenant.
The chapter about the relationship between the American Jewish community and Black Americans is especially problematic. He goes on a bit of a tirade against affirmative action programs and preaches a color-blind approach to racism. Additionally there is a strong assumption that Jewish = White and Black = Not Jewish. Aside from a few mentions in other chapters about the Ethiopian Jewish community being “rescued” and brought to Israel, there is no acknowledgement of the existence of Black Jews. There’s no mention of the incredible racial diversity within the Jewish community.
A big pattern I noticed in this book was that his discussions of white antisemitism carried a lot more nuance than his discussions of non-white antisemitism. As long as they weren’t outright neo-Nazis, he was much quicker to give white people and leaders the benefit of the doubt than he was people and leaders of color. Additionally, his willingness to hand wave the antisemitic end times theology in Christian Zionism because it also happens to support Israel was a bit infuriating.
All in all, it does have a lot of good information describing classic antisemitic tropes. It goes fairly deep into the history of antisemitism and its roots in Christianity, as well as warning of modern iterations. But the good information needs to be pulled out from some of the muck surrounding it. I worry about readers who would take everything this book says at face value and how it could increase anti-Black bigotry and islamophobia while trying to fight antisemitism. We desperately need good books about antisemitism. It’s a huge and scary problem. But we need to be a lot more mindful and intersectional in how we approach it.
July 30, 2014
Powerful, important but not perfect. Also - test yourself!
Summary of the book:
Foxman uses the common comment that the world has learned its lesson during World War II and will "never again" let hate do what it did to the Jews in World War II. He uses a question mark because he points to some rather depressing trends in this well-researched book that mark a rise of anti-semitism throughout the world, even in Japan. (reviewers note: How many Jews actually live in Japan? How many Japanese actually know what the Jewish religion is? I'm assuming this is just a nutball group that hates just about everybody and just threw the Jews in too).
Foxman is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a group based in New York City that monitors Anti-Semitic activity throughout the world.
My review:
Foxman is a bit too sensitive (something that he admits he is trying to avoid), but he's right,there are terribly disturbing anti-Semitic trends, especially in his chapter 7 concerning very popular Muslim beliefs concerning Jews (he quotes opinion polls and continuing attacks that come from mainstream Muslim newspapers. Unfortunately, from an editing standpoint, he ends up with Chapter 8 - a chapter about anti-Semitism in Hollywood and popular entertainment. It is by far his weakest chapter, a point he virtually concedes because this is where he makes his comments about not wanting to appear too sensitive.
Foxman has an anti-Semitism quiz developed by the Anti-Defamation League. He says you qualify as "most" Anti-Semitic if you agree with six or more of the following:
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2010/...
Summary of the book:
Foxman uses the common comment that the world has learned its lesson during World War II and will "never again" let hate do what it did to the Jews in World War II. He uses a question mark because he points to some rather depressing trends in this well-researched book that mark a rise of anti-semitism throughout the world, even in Japan. (reviewers note: How many Jews actually live in Japan? How many Japanese actually know what the Jewish religion is? I'm assuming this is just a nutball group that hates just about everybody and just threw the Jews in too).
Foxman is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a group based in New York City that monitors Anti-Semitic activity throughout the world.
My review:
Foxman is a bit too sensitive (something that he admits he is trying to avoid), but he's right,there are terribly disturbing anti-Semitic trends, especially in his chapter 7 concerning very popular Muslim beliefs concerning Jews (he quotes opinion polls and continuing attacks that come from mainstream Muslim newspapers. Unfortunately, from an editing standpoint, he ends up with Chapter 8 - a chapter about anti-Semitism in Hollywood and popular entertainment. It is by far his weakest chapter, a point he virtually concedes because this is where he makes his comments about not wanting to appear too sensitive.
Foxman has an anti-Semitism quiz developed by the Anti-Defamation League. He says you qualify as "most" Anti-Semitic if you agree with six or more of the following:
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2010/...
March 24, 2007
Foxman describes this book as not an academic piece, but more of an anecdotal telling of Foxman's personal views and experiences with the ADL. It makes some good points, but the little substantive analysis is slap-dash. His argumentation on hate crimes legislation is particularly uncompelling for me, but I'm biased.
June 14, 2010
Chock full of fascinating--and still very timely, seven years after it was written--info. A beautiful example of a well-crafted rhetorical argument, too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews