152 - Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred

Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred
By Robert S. Wistrich
New York, Pantheon Books, 1991. 341 pp. $25.00

Upon finishing this book one night, I turned on the late night television news for an update of the day's headlines. The lead story was about German neo-Nazis committing acts of violence and outrage against refugees. The neo-Nazis made ample use of the symbol of the swastika and marched about yelling "Sieg Heil!" at the top of their voices. Members of the incredibly small Jewish community in Berlin were interviewed and voiced their mixture of fear and hope that these events did not signal a return of the 1930s.

The topic of Wistrich's book is as critical and pertinent as any contemporary issue could be. The movement known as "post-Holocaust theology" has not gained a large audience in Christian academic circles, certainly not nearly as large as those of the various liberation theologies, but reading Wistrich's study would inform laity, theologians, and pastors of the issues and questions to which post-Holocaust theology attempts to respond.

By "antisemitism," the author means hatred of Jews and his task in this book is to show that antisemitism is not "a natural, metahistorical or a metaphysical phenomenon whose essence has remained unchanged throughout all its manifestations over the centuries." He does this by covering his subject in three major steps. First, from Egyptian and Greco-Roman roots, antisemitism is traced in Europe from its beginning through two millennia until the Holocaust and after. Second, British, American, and French contributions are then delineated, subsequent to which Wistrich characterizes antisemitism today in Eastern Europe, Poland, and what remains of the Soviet Union.

153 - Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred

Third, the book concludes with a discussion of antisernitism today in Islamic countries and of the question of Palestine. Throughout, Wistrich shows what a remarkable longevity antisemitism has, how its classic Christian themes and their medieval twists manage to stay in circulation, for example, in Islamic lands today (the "blood libel" is alive and well); and how it serves different purposes and responds to different needs in different times and places.

Although Wistrich covers more than two thousand years of history and a geographical span that is almost global in scope, his treatment of the topic strikes this reviewer as reliable and nowhere misleading. Additionally, the book contains ample illustrations of anti-Judaism in art, from the Arch of Titus in 70 C.E. to the 1983 jacket of a book by the Syrian defense minister that depicts Jews engaging in ritual murder.

Readers of this journal will likely find most compelling the first part of the book, which makes clear that, while the Holocaust was not necessitated by Christian teaching and preaching, nonetheless Christian anti-Judaism did (and does) much to keep antisemitism alive and to incline Christians to indifference, if not outright hostility, toward Jews. What Wistrich's text makes clear is that the church, throughout its history, has understood itself as against the Jewish people. It has understood itself as the recipient of the divine "Yes," Jews as those to whom God has said "No." The church inherits the promises of the "Old Testament," its rejection of false religion applies to the synagogue. Whether Christianity and Christian theology, including popular Christian preaching and teaching, can ever rise above an obviously deep need to negate Jews and Judaism is a question that Wistrich's book makes us face.

Readers who find Wistrich's treatment of Christianity too fast-paced to be convincing might turn to Edward H. Flannery's The Anguish of the Jews or to a contemporary sociological study of Christianity and anti-Judaism, such as Glock and Stark's Christian Beliefs and Antisemitism. Wistrich will not answer any of the theological/ethical questions posed by readers of Theology Today. But he will make them ask them. That's what a good book does, and this is a good book.

Clark M. Williamson
Christian Theological Seminary
Indianapolis, IN