Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Editor's Introduction Catherine Chatterley This fall, our eighth issue of Antisemitism Studies includes a variety of subjects including two articles in the field of psychology. The first is Jay Geller's analysis of Sigmund Freud's various theories about antisemitism and its origins. He traces the references to antisemitism in Freud's work from a footnote in the case study of Little Hans (1909), to Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (1910), to Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), to Moses and Monotheism, Freud's 1939 work on the development of the Jewish people and the phenomenon of antisemitism. Geller then moves to Freud's discussion of neurotic development and finds another theory of antisemitism that Freud never pursued. The article attempts to explain the reasons for this and suggests a traumatic disavowal related to the world collapsing around him. With the goal of furthering psychological research into antisemitism, Caroline C. Kaufman, Andrew J. Paladino, Danielle V. Porter, and Idia B. Thurston surveyed psychological literature on antisemitism in the United States from 1999 to 2018. Using Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of human development, the authors explored factors associated with antisemitism related to person, process, and context and found that several person level factors, context level factors, and one process factor are associated with antisemitic prejudice. Their findings suggest the need for an investigation into whether or not validated measures of antisemitism accurately assess contemporary forms of antisemitism as six of seven studies that utilized validated measures used measures of antisemitism that were developed over 45 years ago. The authors also argue that efforts to reduce or prevent antisemitism should address multi-level factors (religious identity, right-wing authoritarianism, and racial prejudice, for example) concurrently in order to have a more significant impact. Research on the long-term effects [End Page 213] of antisemitism on Jews and the larger public is also suggested by their study. In a wide-ranging historical analysis, Lourens Minnema identifies four types of Orientalism (religious, philosophical, imperialist, and artistic) generated by the East-West dichotomy in European thought. Minnema suggests his own intercultural communication typology of the Oriental Other based on two scales ranging from foreign to familiar and from threatening to interesting. He then examines how Jews were perceived within these systems of meaning. As one might imagine, European perceptions of Judaism and the Jewish people were directly affected by Europe's Orientalist images. Minnema explains how Jews were "included and excluded, perceived as European or Oriental, and sometimes both simultaneously, depending on the period of time and the ways in which the East-West boundary was applied to them." He also examines how Jews themselves internalized Europe's East-West dichotomy and its stereotypes. The "ritual murder" of Czar Nicholas II and his family is the subject of Victor Shnirelman's article "To Take the Katechon Out of the Milieu:" The Murder of Czar Nicholas II and its Interpretation by Russian Orthodox Fundamentalists. The myth that the Jews murdered the Romanov royal family in a ritual murder in 1917 began immediately in Russia and developed among Russian émigrés in diaspora. Shnirelman explains the theory at the root of this belief based on 2 Thessalonians, which describes the "restrainer of evil" who holds back the Antichrist until the end of time when Christ returns to finally defeat him and establish his eternal kingdom. The Russian Czar was believed to be the divinely-appointed "restrainer of evil" who was removed through ritual murder and communist revolution to allow for the arrival of the Antichrist. Shnirelman traces the major writings on this popular subject from 1918 until today and reveals a pattern of sustained commitment and growth among Russians especially those who support the re-establishment of the Russian monarchy. This article provides food for thought about the actual levels of antisemitism and real attitudes toward [End Page 214] Jews in contemporary Russia despite the appearance of improvement under Vladimir Putin's firm hand. In a new commentary section, Stephen Eric Bronner offers readers a thoughtful analysis of modern antisemitism from the Right and the Left within the context of contemporary American culture. Antisemitism feeds off conspiracist thinking on both sides of the...