What do you think?
Rate this book
Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism in the Contemporary World
Can a common denominator be found between the antisemitism that has existed through the ages and came to is horrible climax in the twentieth century and more contemporary forms of anti-Zionism? Has the intensity of antagonism to Israel and Zionism generated by the Middle East conflict and its repercussions generated a new kind of antisemitism? This book presents a collection of essays by leading scholoars of the subject which addresses these highly topical questions in their broadest international context. The spectrum of views examined includes those of right- and left-wing extremists, Palestinian and Arab nationalists, Muslim fundamentalists, Soviet communists, third-world ideologists, Christian theologians, black radicals and also people of the center whose antipathy to Zionism has become more visible in recent years. This book is an important contribution to one of the most controversial issues of our time.
1 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1990
About the author
Robert S. Wistrich
49 books12 followersSee Robert Wistrich
Robert Solomon Wistrich (Hebrew: רוברט ויסטריך) was a scholar of antisemitism, considered one of the world's foremost authorities on antisemitism.
The Erich Neuberger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he was also the head of the university's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA). Wistrich considered antisemitism "the longest hatred" and viewed anti-Zionism as its latest incarnation.
Robert Wistrich was born in Lenger, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic on April 7, 1945. His parents were leftist Polish Jews who had moved to Lviv in 1940 in order to escape from the Germans; however, they discovered that Soviet-style totalitarianism was little better than Nazism. In 1942 they moved to Kazakhstan, where Wistrich's father was imprisoned twice by the NKVD. After World War II, the Wistrichs returned to Poland. Later, finding the post-war environment in Poland to be dangerously anti-Semitic, the family moved to France and then to England. Wistrich grew up in England, where he went to Kilburn Grammar School, where in Wistrich's words, he was taught by "Walter Isaacson, a refugee from Nazi Germany who first taught me how to think independently" His parents later returned to Poland under a repatriation agreement between Stalin and the Polish government-in-exile.
In December 1962, aged 17, Wistrich won an Open Scholarship to study history at Queens' College, Cambridge. In 1966 he graduated with a BA (Hons) from the University of Cambridge, which was raised to a MA degree in 1969. At Cambridge, he founded Circuit, a literary and arts magazine that he co-edited between 1966 and 1969. Between 1969 and 1970, during a study year in Israel, he became the youngest ever literary editor of New Outlook, a left-wing monthly in Tel Aviv, founded by Martin Buber. Wistrich received his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1974.
Robert Solomon Wistrich (Hebrew: רוברט ויסטריך) was a scholar of antisemitism, considered one of the world's foremost authorities on antisemitism.
The Erich Neuberger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he was also the head of the university's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA). Wistrich considered antisemitism "the longest hatred" and viewed anti-Zionism as its latest incarnation.
Robert Wistrich was born in Lenger, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic on April 7, 1945. His parents were leftist Polish Jews who had moved to Lviv in 1940 in order to escape from the Germans; however, they discovered that Soviet-style totalitarianism was little better than Nazism. In 1942 they moved to Kazakhstan, where Wistrich's father was imprisoned twice by the NKVD. After World War II, the Wistrichs returned to Poland. Later, finding the post-war environment in Poland to be dangerously anti-Semitic, the family moved to France and then to England. Wistrich grew up in England, where he went to Kilburn Grammar School, where in Wistrich's words, he was taught by "Walter Isaacson, a refugee from Nazi Germany who first taught me how to think independently" His parents later returned to Poland under a repatriation agreement between Stalin and the Polish government-in-exile.
In December 1962, aged 17, Wistrich won an Open Scholarship to study history at Queens' College, Cambridge. In 1966 he graduated with a BA (Hons) from the University of Cambridge, which was raised to a MA degree in 1969. At Cambridge, he founded Circuit, a literary and arts magazine that he co-edited between 1966 and 1969. Between 1969 and 1970, during a study year in Israel, he became the youngest ever literary editor of New Outlook, a left-wing monthly in Tel Aviv, founded by Martin Buber. Wistrich received his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1974.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 20, 2026
From 2015 through 2024, the UN General Assembly has adopted 173 resolutions against Israel and 80 against all other countries on earth combined. Read that again.
Since 2006 the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 112 resolutions against Israel, 45 against Syria, 16 against Iran, 11 against Russia, and 4 against Venezuela.
In 2025, the UNGA adopted 15 resolutions on Israel alone and only 11 resolutions on the entire rest of the world combined.
And you’re telling me it’s all the Jews fault? You are telling me that a country of 7 million Jews is more evil than the rest of the 7 billion people on earth combined??? Seems like an imbalance to me. Wonder where that comes from………………………………………
Essential reading for everyone whose prefrontal cortices have been lobotomized in the last two years by Hamas propaganda and the Wikipedia pages for Said or Fanon.
Pleasant reminder that MLK Jr and WEB DuBois, the only two American civil rights scholars to produce any serious work of intellectual rigor, identified as proud Zionists and defended the Jewish state; and that in fact, most average Americans do not want Jews to die or the Jewish state to disappear. I need more of that affirmation in my life!!!
Radicals merging Soviet propaganda, ancient Christian antisemitism, Islamic fundamentalism, Arab nationalism, pan-third-worldism, and Nazi propaganda have begun to convince the world that Jews are the only people on earth not deserving of human rights and self-determination.
In a world of 20 to 30 theocratic Muslim dictatorships, untold numbers of Christian states, and constitutionally defined ethnostates in Belgium, Armenia, Egypt, Bosnia, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, China, Japan, Korea, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Azerbaijan, Finland, and Albania, somehow it is only the Jews who are undeserving of a country! A country which is more pluralistic and diverse than any of the above-mentioned, and which has caused infinitely less harm or death than but a handful of the above-mentioned.
I’ve read Said, I’ve read Fanon, I’ve read Mamdani Sr., I’ve read Khalidi, I’ve read Finklestein. I don’t believe any of those people have honestly read a single text on Zionism without the ghost of Arafat on their shoulders scolding them for treating the Jews who were illegally expelled from Europe, Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Oman, Ethiopia, and Syria like humans deserving of self-determination.
Since 2006 the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 112 resolutions against Israel, 45 against Syria, 16 against Iran, 11 against Russia, and 4 against Venezuela.
In 2025, the UNGA adopted 15 resolutions on Israel alone and only 11 resolutions on the entire rest of the world combined.
And you’re telling me it’s all the Jews fault? You are telling me that a country of 7 million Jews is more evil than the rest of the 7 billion people on earth combined??? Seems like an imbalance to me. Wonder where that comes from………………………………………
Essential reading for everyone whose prefrontal cortices have been lobotomized in the last two years by Hamas propaganda and the Wikipedia pages for Said or Fanon.
Pleasant reminder that MLK Jr and WEB DuBois, the only two American civil rights scholars to produce any serious work of intellectual rigor, identified as proud Zionists and defended the Jewish state; and that in fact, most average Americans do not want Jews to die or the Jewish state to disappear. I need more of that affirmation in my life!!!
Radicals merging Soviet propaganda, ancient Christian antisemitism, Islamic fundamentalism, Arab nationalism, pan-third-worldism, and Nazi propaganda have begun to convince the world that Jews are the only people on earth not deserving of human rights and self-determination.
In a world of 20 to 30 theocratic Muslim dictatorships, untold numbers of Christian states, and constitutionally defined ethnostates in Belgium, Armenia, Egypt, Bosnia, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, China, Japan, Korea, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Azerbaijan, Finland, and Albania, somehow it is only the Jews who are undeserving of a country! A country which is more pluralistic and diverse than any of the above-mentioned, and which has caused infinitely less harm or death than but a handful of the above-mentioned.
I’ve read Said, I’ve read Fanon, I’ve read Mamdani Sr., I’ve read Khalidi, I’ve read Finklestein. I don’t believe any of those people have honestly read a single text on Zionism without the ghost of Arafat on their shoulders scolding them for treating the Jews who were illegally expelled from Europe, Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Oman, Ethiopia, and Syria like humans deserving of self-determination.
Displaying 1 of 1 review