Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS 7
It is for the some of these same reasons that undergraduate Jessica
Felber left the University of California-Berkeley after being assaulted during
Israeli Apartheid Week. While Israel is protested against and namecalled
“apartheid.” Efraim Karsh addresses the apartheid laws and culture
endemic in the Arab culture. Florette Cohen’s original research also demonstrates
how hating Jews is enduring in Middle Eastern culture and that it is
broadcast in the transmission of cartoons. Just as daunting is Ben Cohen’s
examination of how antisemitism is becoming more acceptable in intellectual
milieus, and how Daniel Vahab’s analysis of Gentleman’s Agreement
shows that, in spite of Jews’ prominence in Hollywood, antisemitism was
not a stranger to American film.
Israel Charny, who never minces words, speaks to the excesses of Shia
ideology and asks as a psychologist if Iran’s leaders are suicidal and want to
take everyone with them. Political pathology notwithstanding, Ryan Jones
offers a peek into Palestinian mindsets via polls that tell of the hate inculcated
in that culture.
Steven Leonard Jacobs points up the ambivalent history of Israeli-
United States relations, while the University of Toronto’s Leonid Livak
proposes a syllabus for teaching about antisemitism in academia. Rounding
up the usual scoundrels includes Dina Siegal Vann’s thoughts on Venezuela’s
ailing president Hugo Chavez. Finally, history reminds us of where
we come from and where we have to go, in Richard Spence’s examination
of double, and maybe triple, agent Boris Brasol and in Portuguese attorney
Francisco Garrett’s documentation rewriting history and vindicating Captain
Arthur Carlos Barros Basto’s good Jewish name.
Yes, “good” and “Jewish name” can go in the same sentence—just like
the Irish, Germans, and other ethnicities. Thanks to antisemitism, though,
Jews are not used to that notion. Ofer Ashkenazi observes that same process
in his critique of Israeli cinema. Veteran reviewers Joanne Intrator and Scott
Rose examine Israeli film directly in their review of Oscar Best Foreign
Film nominee Footnote. Alexander Traum takes another look at Peter Beinart’s
controversial Crisis of Zionism and Michael Berenbaum continues the
Zionism interest in Cohen-Sherbok’s book, but is much more satisfied by
Ericksen’s work regarding Holocaust complicity. Then again, there are
those reviewers like Michael Bates on I Sleep in Hitler’s Room, Fr. John
Palikowski on Were the Popes Against the Jews?, and Manfred Gerstenfeld
on Genocidal Liberalism, who were less impressed.
The hardest-working man in Judaic studies, Steven Leonard Jacobs,
has three reviews in this issue: one on Baum’s book addressing the psychology
of antisemitism; the second is on Manfred Gerstenfeld’s key works
regarding Dutch politicians’ thwarting of funds for Jewish survivors and
misdeeds of so-called humanitarians in general; the third review is of