Dialectic of Enlightenment

Yesterday the Iranian government held an official conference for Holocaust deniers and skeptics, with 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries invited to take part. Featured speakers included David Duke, the American white supremacist, who, at least in Iran, is considered an authority on the subject.

Growing up in Kansas City in the 1960's there were random acts of anti-Semitism, and occasional gauche misunderstandings. But I grew up with the optimistic view that all this was gradually receding. The lesson of World War II, I believed, was that Anti-Semitism was a thing of the past, particularly in the West, but eventually throughout the world. Enlightenment and tolerance, I believed, were the wave of the future.

My views were naive, and altogether too sanguine. Anti-Semitism, like many other virulent strains, is never fully extinguished; it merely goes into dormancy, ready to be awakened once again when events permit it. Half a century of politics in the Middle East have made anti-Semitism fashionable again. Like a virus, it has successfully mutated, adapting itself to new environments and the post World War II discourse of human rights. Anti-Semitism today can easily meld itself with or disguise itself as criticism of the State of Israel; in this way it has found a respectable base of operations from which to spread.

Precisely because legitimate criticism of Israel, even when mistaken, is not anti-Semitic, it is sometimes difficult to tell when rhetoric disguises prejudice; but sometimes there are clear cases, when anti-Semitism reveals itself clearly in all of its ugliness. Iran's state-sponsored conference on Holocaust denial is not even a close case. The putative discourse of the conference is that of historical accuracy, freedom of thought, and anti-Zionism, but it is not too difficult to see the ancient disease rearing its ugly head again.

We had long since passed the time, I had thought, when a modern nation could hold such an event without shame. But those times are back again. Once again, there are powerful countries, and many people around the world, who despise the Jews with a deep and unreasoning hatred, and seek scientific justifications and academic respectability for their hate.

American Jewry is fortunate that we live in a country of remarkable tolerance. Jews in Iran, and in many other countries around the world, are not so fortunate. Indeed, Iran's boldness is possible because in many parts of the world deep distrust and even hatred of Jews is entirely acceptable. The ancient prejudice has made a starting comeback. Right now we in the United States are largely insulated from the effects of what has become a worldwide flood of anti-Semitism. It is not clear how long we will be so lucky.