The Antisemite – Key Markers

In his treatise on antisemitism, The Devil That Never Dies, Prof. Daniel Goldhagen provides several defining characteristics distinguishing antisemitism and other forms of truly malevolent prejudice from less virulent or dangerous modes of human discriminatory behaviours. These other types of discriminatory behaviours may stem from a variety of prejudicial tendencies but differ from the type of prejudice that becomes “so entrenched and so divorced from reality and reality testing and correction that they become pathological.” Antisemitism is a singular prejudice of this kind. It is grounded in a specific and identifiable mode of prejudicial perception and behaviours that are objective indicators of antisemitism. Notably, this definition of antisemitic behaviour excludes “hatred” as a factor. Any person of any ilk perceiving and essentializing Jews through the lens of the antisemitic paradigm described above may in fact harbour no active hatred towards Jews at all – but is nevertheless antisemitic. As explained by Goldhagen: “There is no hatred against an ethnic, religious, linguistic, or cultural group without prejudice, but there is prejudice without hatred. Prejudicial perception, thinking, speaking, and acting [described above] are the defining aspect of antisemitism.”^[1][1] Ibid. p. 45 While hatred undoubtedly is a factor in the prejudicial disposition of many antisemites, antisemitism itself can be identified by certain basic modes of prejudicial thinking and behaviours which include^[2][2] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (p. 45). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.: 

• False accusations against Jews – believed or expressed when thinking about or dealing with Jews

• Essentializing Jews – reducing all Jews individually or collectively to a set of malevolent traits that constitute their inherent noxious Jewishness 

• Selectivity of critical focus – disproportionately or exclusively focused on Jewish misbehaviour either actual or imagined – a true double standard – one for Jews and another for all others

• Labeling Non-Jews as Jews – to describe what they perceive to be malevolent Jew-like behaviour to denigrate and delegitimize that person 

The antisemite according to Goldhagen therefore has four essential identifying features: “Obsessive condemnatory focus on the object of prejudice; selectivity of the application of principles to Jews; resistance to information that falsifies prejudicial assertions; and systematic and gross errors in the accusations.”^[3][3] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (pp. 45ff and 326). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Continue Reading:Antisemitism – “Arguably the most murderous prejudice in human history”

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