Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Editor’s Introduction Catherine Chatterley, Founding Editor-in-Chief In this, our third consecutive, issue we turn our attention to three countries in east central Europe—Slovakia, Latvia, and Hungary—to investigate contemporary forms of antisemitism. Which attitudes continue to linger in these complex post-Soviet societies, and what new forms of anti-Jewish hostility, if any, exist today? How is antisemitism affected by Europe’s migrant crisis, for example? Has the upsurge in ethno-nationalism made Jews into targets once again? In all three countries, the Jewish population is a tiny fraction of what it was before World War II, and those same communities were reduced again after the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite small numbers of Jews, however, antisemitism persists and is recognizable by its familiar themes. Blaming Jews for the crimes of Soviet communism is a recurrent trope among antisemites but the general assumption of a close association between Jews and communism in this part of the world is perhaps even more common than most people assume. So much so, that this accusation, summed up by the compound phrase “Judeo-Bolshevism,” requires further study and analysis by scholars. Also present, and sometimes connected to this accusation, is the relationship to the Holocaust and the resentment it provokes, especially given the fact that EU membership for former Soviet states was dependent upon implementing Holocaust memorialization and educational programming designed to Western standards. The fact of the matter remains that in many countries in central and eastern Europe, to celebrate those who defended the nation and the goal of independence—positive and respectable actions by definition—is to also celebrate those who allied themselves with Nazi Germany (against the Soviet Union) and who participated in antisemitic activities, and even in the perpetration of genocide. This paradox, unique to this region of Europe, [End Page 1] continues to divide these societies internally and to isolate parts of the population from mainstream opinion. This is also a part of the world untouched by Vatican II (1961–1965) and the changes it dictated with regard to the Jewish people and how they are to be understood and represented by the Catholic Church after the Holocaust. The suppression of religion in the Soviet Union and its powerful reappearance in many places after the collapse of communism created a very different reality for Jewish-Christian relations in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic worlds than that of the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities of the West. The Internet is the most powerful vehicle for the transmission and dissemination of antisemitism across the planet, and this is also true in east central Europe. The anonymity of the Web allows people to express honest feelings of hatred and to connect with others who share the same sentiments, emboldening groups of people who had previously been isolated in their silence. Hatred for Jews, homosexuality, and Muslims have formed a new triad against which traditional ethno-nationalists feel the need to organize and defend themselves. In a classic antisemitic framework, Jews are sometimes depicted as orchestrating the migrant crisis and the “homosexual agenda” to undermine traditional societies and to perpetrate a so-called “white genocide.” What is astonishing at this late date is to know how long Jews have been residents of Europe and to see that in so many ways they are still thought to be outsiders and not members of these nations. They are still Jews rather than Slovaks, Latvians, and Hungarians, and they are not even offered the option of a hyphenated identity. In this issue, Nina Paulovičová provides a valuable overview of Slovakia’s history from the Nazi period to the present day, focusing on the nation’s changing relationship to the Holocaust under communism and after independence. A masterful analysis of the complex layers of Latvian society is provided by Matthew Kott, who explains the changing position of Jews in the Latvian imagination and how the Holocaust—and the memory of the Rumbula Massacre in particular—impacts current thinking. Contemporary [End Page 2] Hungary is examined by Ferenc Laczó, who uses three case studies to analyze current attitudes toward Jews in a cultural and political context of growing ethnic nationalism. All three...