A person performing a cursory review of his local Barnes and Noble could be forgiven for concluding that there may only be a few less books on anti-Semitism than anti-Semites themselves. The “people of the book” do seem to take some form of comfort from the steady stream of printed words in their ongoing battle with the forces of hate. May the comfort continue, because the books don’t seem to have had much effect over the millennia. In fact, in Walter Laqueur’s sobering new book, it’s hard to find much reason for optimism.
An expert in modern European history, an intellectual with impeccable credentials and the possessor of a ninety six-page bibliography, Laqueur should be the ideal candidate to write the definitive history of the “socialism of fools.” And in many ways, he has. Starting with its first stirrings in Egypt and the ancient world, through the scars of European history and ending with chapters on leftist and Moslem anti-Semitism, Laqueur produces an admirable survey of this sad series of distortions and destructions. As might be expected, his most trenchant information centers on the various intellectual sources for the condition.
Unfortunately, the author only describes “The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism,” and does not offer either a comprehensive analysis or program for battling it. In fact, his work ends on a note which suggests that perhaps as the Jews physically disappear from the Earth, so may the world’s hatred of them. Maybe there once was and will be again a time when measured words will prove valuable in this fight. Today, however, there’s a need for sterner stuff. Bibliography, index.
