JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

282 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 3:281
Not the Final Word,” weaves over the factual history, using all of the information
in the book to help us to understand the editors’ hypothesis: that we
are only in the second century of the new face of antisemitism, not just
hatred of the Jews, but an era of death and destruction to the Jews. In his
summary, Levy notes that since the end of the 18th century, certain people
have moved from “Jew-hatred, Jew-baiting, and Judeo-phobia and their permutations
and other prejudices to anti-Jewish actions.” Prior to the last century,
“persecution, especially in violent forms, had been episodic rather than
continuous, and long periods of European history yielded no evidence of
anti-Jewish violence.” The editors note that the “fantasy of enormous Jewish
power became the position of enough individuals to float a movement.”
Prior to this, Augustine had taught that “Jews should go on living but that
their debased condition was fitting testimony to the superiority of Christian
faith.” In the last 200 years, however, Jews thriving and triumphant rather
than suffering and subservient violated a culturally embedded expectation.
Jews are now to be feared, not just hated.
The body of the pieces begins with two chapters entitled “The Jewish
Question,” by Albert S. Lindemann; and “The Ancient Mediterranean and
the Pre-Christian Era,” by Benjamin Isaac, Lessing Professor of Ancient
History, Tel Aviv University, and ends with two chapters entitled
“Antisemitism in Eastern Europe (excluding Russia and the Soviet Empire)
Since 1848,” by Istvan Deak, Seth Low Professor of History emeritus,
Columbia University; and “Israel and Antisemitism,” by Meir Litvak, associate
professor of Middle Eastern history, Tel Aviv University, and Esther
Webman, senior research fellow, Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies, and the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
and Racism.
The 15 middle chapters open with the following quote in Chapter 3,
“Jews and Christians from the Time of Christ to Constantine’s Reign,” by
Philip A. Cunningham, professor of theology and director of the Institute
for Jewish-Catholic Relations, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia: “It is a
widely held belief that Judaism and Christianity became separate and fundamentally
opposed religious communities shortly after the lifetime of
Jesus,” teaching the history of the world from an antisemitic perspective.
Lindemann and Levy wonder what, perhaps, the Jews had done to
deserve their special status as the eternal scapegoat, but had no convincing,
valid explanation for it; indeed, given the present level of anti-Jewish, anti-
Zionistic, and antisemitic feelings among the billion Muslim voices, they
despair in the conclusion to the book—although they recognize that it is not
the final word—that “It is difficult to believe that antisemitism will anytime
soon be overcome.”
This book could either be used in the classroom, or serve, as it did for