Antisemitisms: A History of Jew Hating

About the Book

A powerful rethinking of how antisemitic fantasies take shape and persist.

Why do Jews continue to serve as targets of hatred and how coherent is the idea of antisemitism itself? In Antisemitisms, Sander L. Gilman draws on decades of scholarship to argue that such hatreds are less stable and more opportunistic than often assumed. Tracing fantasies of Jewish difference from appearance and biology to citizenship, nationhood, and 'self-hatred' he reveals how contradictory ideas have been used to justify exclusion and violence. This book moves beyond the familiar frameworks of 'eternal hatred' or 'thinking with Jews' to show how antisemitic and even philosemitic attitudes shift to suit changing political needs. As violence against Jews is on the rise once more, Gilman offers a clear, sobering account of what's at stake.

About the Author :

Sander L. Gilman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as emeritus professor of psychiatry at Emory University. A cultural and literary historian, he is the author or editor of more than one hundred books, including Doc or Quack: Science and Anti-Science in Modern Medicine, also published by Reaktion Books.

Review :
"Antisemitism, that light sleeper, is on the rise again. In a period in which it is weaponised on many sides – by the Right wing, by the Left, by Israeli advocates and by anti-Zionists – it is also a real feature of the cultural and political field. In this book Sander L. Gilman, who has done more than any other scholar to unpick the history and character of antisemitism, shows how different “antisemitisms” have arisen and how they function. Through four lively and deeply researched “case histories” – visible difference (appearance), vulnerability (disease), belonging (rootedness) and boundary setting (self-hatred) – Gilman demonstrates the versatility and variability of antisemitic images (and self-images) of Jews, traced historically and conceptually. This is a vivid text that is a vital read for everyone concerned about antisemitic and racial hate." - Stephen Frosh, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London
"Antisemitisms rethinks the very nature of “Jew hatred” with remarkable concision and clarity. Rather than treating antisemitism as a static or “eternal” phenomenon, or trying to define or describe it, Sander L. Gilman illuminates the multi-faceted concept as an ever-changing, adaptive constellation of ideas, attitudes, and prejudices – each responsive to its own political and cultural moment. This pioneering study offers a nuanced, historically grounded understanding of not one antisemitism, but many antisemitisms: opportunistic, multifaceted, and shaped as responses to deeply rooted, longstanding xenophobia. With penetrating insight and elegant restraint, Gilman provides a vivid intellectual map that spans centuries – most powerfully including the time before the Holocaust – while speaking directly to the complexities of our present. Antisemitisms is an indispensable, lucid, and urgent book – essential reading for anyone interested in Israel and Palestine, the history of ideas, the rhetoric of racism and xenophobia, and the tangled legacies that define our contemporary world." - Agnes Mueller, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of South Carolina
"Antisemitisms: A History of Jew Hating is the fruit of decades of profound learning. Divided into five evocative parts – Making, Seeing, Healing, Wandering and Unmaking of Jews – Sander L. Gilman reveals the vast, unstable and inconsistent entanglements of Jewish history and antisemitism. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of examples from politics, art, science and culture, his work weaves together non-Jews, Jews and representations of Jews. Gilman introduces two groundbreaking claims that will transform the field: the use of “antisemitisms”, in the plural, and the development of the “wobbly” as a core category for understanding the phenomenon. This is, quite simply, Gilman’s definitive statement on the subject." - Amos Morris-Reich, The Geza Roth Chair of Modern Jewish History and Professor at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University