Anti-Semitism is not inevitable

Holocaust Remembrance Day has just been commemorated in Israel. In Europe, Holocaust Memorial Day is held earlier in the year and is, for many reasons, an extraordinary annual event of reflection that is led primarily by representatives of the Jewish faith – done so with a courteous and noble spirit of inclusion and sympathy for the other victimised groups — amongst them homosexuals, Russians, Catholic Poles, the disabled, the Roma and Communist dissidents.

Yet through circumstance and not conspiracy, it is the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people in particular, the Shoah, which has infested the nightmares of our psyches, ever since the Second World War ended. Who didn’t, after hearing of the Cambodian or Rwandan genocides for the first time, think of the Jewish people? They are a people we associate, even subconsciously, with genocide. As such, fear of anti-Semitism, above many other prejudices, has taken a special place in European hearts, to be fended off at every possible juncture. Holocaust Remembrance Day is a part of this commitment.

This year’s Holocaust remembrance came amid fears of a resurgence of European anti-Semitism. It also comes as Zionism becomes an increasingly unpopular and perhaps discredited ideology. The confluence of both phenomena is complex, not totally understood and highly politicised. In the days after the killings of Parisian Jews earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — in the run-up to the general election – urged French Jews to move to Israel, a fundamentally Zionist solution to what he claimed was a rising tide of hate. Only in Israel would they be safe, he insisted.

There are two fundamental issues with Netanyahu’s call for “aaliyah”. The first is that it is unclear whether anti-Semitism is actually increasing. Organisations like the Institute for Jewish Policy Research or Pew Research Centre have questioned this through their own data, either implicitly or explicitly. The IJPR pointed out that “most credible scholars of the Holocaust utterly refute” that current levels of European anti-Semitism are comparable to the levels Europe experienced in the 1930s.

This point to one side, there is a second premise contained within Netanyahu’s appeal that is offensively awry; that anti-Semitism is an unavoidable fact of life. It will always be there, according to him and other Zionists, and so for Jews the only logical move is to migrate to Israel. The European people should show Netanyahu that he is wrong; that anti-Semitism in Europe is far from inevitable.

One lesser-known champion from Europe’s dark times who would today be at the forefront of beating back anti-Semites, was Aristides de Sousa Mendes, born in Portugal in1885. He was later appointed Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, when it was occupied by Hitler’s Germany. His is also a fine example for us to follow.

While in office, de Sousa Mendes issued visas to some thirty thousand refugees fleeing from the Nazis. Ten thousand of them were Jews. He signed the necessary documents even as direct orders to leave the Jews to their fate arrived regularly from his bosses in Lisbon.

He was a moral man; de Sousa Mendes ignored every one of the nastily-worded and increasingly threatening cables, knowing full well that he was in for a rough ride when he returned home. This hero died jobless, penniless and estranged from his family in 1954, after quiet but insistent persecution by the Fascist regime as punishment for saving Jews. He had been forced to stand trial as a traitor, and his career was ruined deliberately. It was a sign that institutional anti-Semitism in Portugal did not die for many years after the full horror of the Holocaust had revealed itself.

A historical precedent in Portugal, other than its despicable conduct during the Second World War, is ancient but still carries menace. In April 1506, a worshipper in a Dominican convent chapel claimed to have seen golden stars emanating from a wooden crucifix. Two days later, a Portuguese Jew questioned the veracity of the alleged miracle. He was beaten, dragged out of the chapel and killed on the spot. His brother was also killed as he tried to rescue him.

Led by Dominican priests, crazed Portuguese citizens went on a three-day killing spree. Men, women and children were murdered and burnt at the stake, and there were reports of babies having their heads smashed against walls. When all the Jews were dead, those who were believed to look like Jews were chased to their deaths too. The atrocity was part of a wider scheme against Portugal’s large Jewish community conducted by the Catholic Church and endorsed by the royal family. Around seven hundred thousand Jews were targeted over the following years, either for forced conversion to Christianity or death. In 1560, the tentacles of the Catholic Inquisition reached even to Goa in India, where a special branch was set up to persecute Portuguese Jews based there.

Yet anti-Semitism has been far from a constant phenomenon in Portugal, despite all that happened there at that time, especially if you take the long view. One observer in the mid-nineteenth century captured the spirit of the era by writing, “The vast majority of rightists, monarchists and anti-liberal circles [have] marginalised racist anti-Semitism, and pointed to intellectuals, liberals, and Freemasons as the new enemies.” Hatred of Jews had faded away. Though Portugal is seeing a revival of anti-Semitism now, from democracy’s arrival in 1973 to the early 2000s, reported anti-Jewish hate attacks perpetrated by Portuguese citizens are thought to be extremely low.

The transience of anti-Semitic prejudice can be observed in most countries. Approximately sixty per cent of American respondents would have labelled Jews “greedy”, “dishonest” and “pushy” according to an extraordinary survey conducted just a year before the Second World War broke out. Yale and Harvard Universities, amongst others, had in the decade preceding Hitler’s rise to power imposed quotas on the number of places available to Jewish students. Jewish Americans endured a range of restrictive government policies and civil practices. In pre-war Britain, Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, an institution of considerable influence, famously supported German Fascism. It is still debated whether Winston Churchill privately harboured mild anti-Semitic tendencies, a historian’s argument attractive to radicals, which was reprised last week on the front page of The Times of Israel.

Yet after World War Two ended, and the horror of the Holocaust became more widely known, all such British and American prejudice against the Jews dissipated. Anti-Semitism, it appears, was far from inevitable, far from inert.

Calls for massive Jewish emigration to Israel are over-stated, cynically so, usually by people or organisations who have a strong self-interest in over-reporting anti-Semitism. That said, the people of Europe must own this debate and beat back even the slightest whiff of prejudice. It is not becoming of our continent’s new character and we should be ashamed that even a modicum of anti-Jewish hatred remains. Something must be done.

We know that it is possible to reverse the racist trend, even in circumstances where anti-Semitism really is at boiling point. Portugal has been at times anti-Semitic, and at other times not. The same goes for the United Kingdom and the United States. The levels of prejudice, varying greatly over time, have depended on complex geo-strategic, economic, political and personal factors, many of which are entirely within our, or our leaders’, control. Anti-Semitism, like any prejudice, is by no means inevitable, whatever Netanyahu might tell us. It can be fought, and it will be beaten, especially in Europe, a continent which, aside from a handful of despicable extremists, really should know better.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.