Times of Israel – by Jonathan Sarna
America is experiencing a social and cultural crisis. Anti-Semitism is one of its symptoms.
Years ago, the Israeli historian Shulamit Volkov concluded that anti-Semitism is best understood as a “cultural code.” Although anti-Semitism victimizes Jews, it actually reveals far less about them than it does about the culture that surrounds and stigmatizes them. Volkov drew her evidence from late 19th-century Germany, where, she showed, anti-Semitism “served as a code, a signal for a much larger and more important political and cultural phenomenon.” But her argument applies equal well to contemporary America, where the resurgence of anti-Semitism likewise reflects deep social and cultural tensions. Continue reading “Anti-Semitism is a symptom”