The placard-wavers; the keyboard warriors. Anti-Jewish feeling undiminished by the Gaza ceasefire and the release of living hostages/hostage remains/prisoners/detainees. The hatred of Israel and everything it stands for, ain't going away. And it matters nothing if your muddled thinking does not enable you to appreciate that many Jews have disapproved of the extent of Israel's military action in Gaza: prejudice is based on sentiment, not rationality.
I have written in the last few months on soft antisemitism - How to be an Antisemite - and on the allegations of genocide against Israel - Judging Genocide - but before I cut to less troubling subjects than this one I thought I would reflect on a topic that might puzzle anyone with an interest in history.
So where did this anti-Jewish hatred (I prefer this to antisemitism) come from? President Trump may be comfortable in expansively declaring that he is sorting out 3,000 years of Middle Eastern conflict, but I would prefer to be a little more surgical in trying to identify a starting timeframe for the hatred that is now embedded in societies around the world. I am going for Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, where she wrote:
'Therefore, beginning with the late seventeenth century, an unprecedented need arose for state credit and a new expansion of the state's sphere of economic and business interest, while no group among the European populations was prepared to grant credit to the state or take an active part in the development of state business. It was only natural that the Jews, with their age-old experience as moneylenders and their connections with European nobility - to whom they frequently owed local protection and for whom they used to handle financial matters - would be called upon for help'.
Humour me for a moment while I unpick the above and then get to the antisemitism kicker. Three points:
- The connections point goes back to an earlier role of 'Court Jews', that is individuals providing financial advice and support to European nobility
- That role developed into Jewish banking houses financing European governments
- The financing role secured protection from discriminatory action against Jews.......but only, as Arendt explained later, for as long as the support was needed, so eventually the Jewish banking houses lost their earlier degree of influence as the states matured and had broader access to finance.
The kicker? The subsequent rise in Europe of the middle classes (bourgeoisie) and the working classes, and their resentment of the perceived governmental and business elite, with Jewish financial interests caught in the slipstream, long after objectively Jewish financiers could be argued as having significant influence - that's prejudice for you.
I am not here doing a one-size fits all profiling of Jews in the community. The echelon that gained the original influence was educated, sophisticated and, critically, keen to be assimilated into non-Jewish society. But this did not prevent the extraordinary paradox, emerging into 19th century and 20th century European society, that Jews could be vilified for their alleged influence in the elites and simultaneously denigrated for being the lowest of the low. For a no holds barred recent examination of this phenomenon, read David Baddiel's Jews Don't Count.
And the vilification has continued on and on, and has found a base in anti-capitalist political parties and factions, and has been weaponised to decry the audacity of those believing that the Jewish community has some historic claim (yes, contested territory I accept and thus my words) to a homeland within what was once Palestine.
However, who cares about the detail when you can wave your placard, or go to war riding your laptop?
The writer is a historian and former Managing Partner of a City law firm