Rise Of Political Anti-Semitism Research Articles

Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger by Allan Janik

Reviewed by: Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger by Allan Janik Vincent Kling Janik, Allan. Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger. New York: Simply Charly, 2021. 191 pp. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, Heimito von Doderer, Hermann Broch, Arnold Schoenberg, Elias Canetti, and numerous others in Austria; August Strindberg, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Italo Svevo elsewhere—these are only a handful of the artists profoundly influenced by Otto Weininger, who nonetheless is still often dismissed as a self-hating Jewish anti-Semite, a venomous misogynist, and a generally unbalanced fanatic. Weininger's suicide at an early age contributed further to the image of a disturbed crackpot trading in dubious, half-baked philosophical and psychological concepts of his own eccentric devising. In his lucid and helpful new study, Allan Janik confronts these distortions head-on, pointing out that mangled editions and clumsy translations have long fostered misunderstanding of the actual work, much of which was dismissed without even being read anyway, since "scholars" had already made their minds up that Weininger need not, indeed could not, be taken seriously. As Janik notes, goodwill is often lacking, especially to reconstruct the then-current state of the disciplines on which Weininger drew. It takes time and effort to clear away impeding misconceptions, and indeed, "We have to work hard to re-contextualize Weininger" (xiv), who is victimized by the prevalent error of being judged according to today's knowledge and insights, not within the framework of his own time. Janik succeeds so well here, especially in linking Weininger to his culture [End Page 95] at large, that his study is likely to remain definitive. Although in a different context, Martin Mosebach offers the helpful reminder that Vienna around 1900 was a hotbed of great and near-great minds devising new systems of order, new modes of understanding, new means of expression, new ways of seeing and hearing. Janik shows that Weininger was a full participant in these many-sided explorations and not the lone wolf or outlier he is made out to be. (Again, how could so many creative and analytical minds have been so fascinated by Weininger unless he were embodying currents and streams of thought in many disciplines?) For instance, Janik demonstrates Weininger's full familiarity with psychoanalytic thought, knowledgeably participating in the prevailing discourse, aware that the future of the discipline lay with Freud (15–16). Weininger occupied a position at the center of philosophical thought, too, as a member of the Philosophical Society, regularly meeting with Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, Sigmund Exner, and Friedrich Jodl, among others (11–14), and his presentations at the Viennese Sociological Society, even though he was still an adolescent, were greeted with esteem by specialists (12). Only in retrospect does the negative view of Weininger seem to have arisen; in his own day, and for a good many years after his death, he was regarded as a first-rate, formidable intellectual. Another area of unfair disparagement is the glibly cited snap judgment that Weininger was a Jew filled with Jewish self-hatred and therefore not to be taken seriously on the basis of purported psychological imbalance. Janik skillfully challenges this irresponsible distortion in his excellent chapter on "Judaism and Anti-Semitism" (93–109), demonstrating that Weininger's views were shaped by Kant's moral thought, not by personal dimensions; he counters false assessments by citing Weininger's own understanding of Judaism (94–96) and even more by offering a nuanced discussion of the topic as treated in Sex and Character based on Peter Pulzer's The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (99–104). The four varieties of anti-Semitism Pulzer outlines are powerful and apt guides for understanding the subtlety and depth of Weininger's arguments. Three chapters devoted to Sex and Character again present Weininger's thought against the backdrop of his culture and show how comprehensively that major work amalgamated and organized many areas of contemporary thought. The first of those chapters (38–56) is uniquely excellent in its discussion of "Early Sexology and the Theory of Plasms." No other treatment [End Page 96] of the matter is this lucid; Janik has...

What Bears Witness of the Failed Revolution?

This article investigates the rise of political antisemitism during the 1905–1907 Revolution in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland. Extensive, diachronic discourse analysis of political leaflets reveals the role antisemitism played as a political device assisting the construction of new political identities and their dissemination through political mobilization. National Democracy and their labor branch, the National Workers Union, took the nation as the basic form of affiliation. The forging of such national unity, however, was difficult to engender among the workers owing to unique historical circumstances, the experience of exploitation, and longstanding socialist agitation. This process was aided, however, by the reference to a strong negative figure of the Other. When “nationalism began to hate,” antisemitism appeared to be an extremely effective mobilizing device, and the Jews started to act as a negative, constitutive point of reference for the construction of national unity among the Poles. The analysis of the mobilization process and focus on discourse as a main factor in shaping political identities demonstrates that National Democratic antisemitism was neither an automatic activation of already present popular anti-Jewish sentiments due to the rise of mass politics nor a sheer creation of nationalist ideologues. It was, rather, the logic of discourse that ushered in a need for a negatively evaluated outsider, Jews being easily invested in this place due to a particular sociodemographic conjuncture and older judeophobic tendencies.

Mit den Waffen der Aufklärung gegen den Antisemitismus

AbstractThe rise of political anti-Semitism in Imperial and Weimar Germany met with public opposition initiated primarily by Jews. From various perspectives, jewish journalists and intellectuals investigated the origin of this anti-Semitism, its different manifestations as well as possibilities of its public rejection. Journalist Binjamin W. Segel (1866-1931) hereby focused his efforts on debunking antiSemitic myths, such as the Jewish World Conspiracy, as popularized by the text "The protocols of the Elders of Zion". In his writings, Segel, with an Eastern European background, pays attention to the discrimination of "Ostjuden" (EastEuropean Jews) in particular. Furthermore, Segel deals with questions regarding the origins of anti-Semitism, and the effectiveness of Jewish opposition towards it. The following article outlines his life and discusses his work.

Religions and Society in Modern Europe by René Rémond

BOOK REVIEWS343 tively minor complaints, compared with the overall contribution the study makes. David Genulcore School ofAdvanced Study, University ofLondon Late Modern European Religions and Society in Modern Europe. By René Rémond. Translated by Antonia Nevill. [The Making of Europe.] (Maiden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. 1999. Pp. viii, 237. $27.95 paperback.) This book is a volume in "The Making of Europe" series, a collaborative effort of five European publishers exploring both the exceptional creativity of their continent's past and the difficulties that this past bequeaths to the nascent European community. The author chosen to examine what religion has contributed to this legacy is René Rémond, one of France's most distinguished historians . His qualifications for the task are unrivaled. Elected in 1998 to fill the chair of François Furet at theAcadémiefrançaise, René Rémond has written or edited over twenty works on, among other subjects, the history of contemporary Europe, the political history of modern France, and the often deeply troubled engagement between the Catholic Church and the democratic and secularizing forces unleashed by the Revolution of 1789. The author's ambitions match his accomplishments. Rémond proposes "to measure" the place "the great organized faiths" have occupied in "people's minds, institutions, laws, customs, collective behaviour, and exchanges of ideas" (pp. 2, 54-55). The starting point of his study is the French Revolution, its terminus contemporary Europe. Adopting the perspective of the longue durée, Rémond seeks "to discern a general direction" in which the relationship between religion and society is headed in all European societies (pp. 10, 128). Rémond insists that his subject is not a study of the variety of juridical regimes that may govern the relationship between church and state.Yet much of the text is devoted to these regimes. In the opening chapters, the author sketches the essential features of the confessional state of the old regime. Subsequent chapters follow the transformation of the confessional state in the aftermath of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The nineteenth century was the period of what Rémond calls the first era of secularization. The abrogation of confessional discrimination under the auspices of a tolerant liberalism yielded, above all in France, to an intolerant campaign of "laicization" aimed at eliminating religious expression from all aspects of public life (p. 144). The second era of secularization took shape in the twentieth century. The great organized faiths, above all Roman Catholicism, responded to the threat of totalitarianism by shedding their opposition to liberalism and reinventing themselves as Tocquevillian intermediary bodies in a fundamentally pluralistic civil society (pp. 70, 170). 344book reviews Rémond's typology of secularization is a useful tool of analysis. Likewise his insistence on the important role religion may play in a vital civil society is welcome . Nevertheless, these contributions are compromised by a variety of flaws. Thus for all that Rémond announces a balanced history of the whole of Europe, he must concede in his conclusion that the "lion's share of the discussion has focused on France" (pp. 216-217). And indeed the comparative dimension of this text often amounts to little more than so many confirmations of a French model. Rémond's treatment of the varieties of European religious experience is equally unbalanced. As Europe's religious "traditional regime" and as Europe's largest religious denomination, Roman Catholicism deserves extensive treatment . This Rémond provides, but to the admitted neglect of the complexity of other religious traditions. Rémond's treatment of both Orthodoxy and Protestantism is at best perfunctory. ForJudaism, the emphasis that Rémond places on civil emancipation needs to be balanced by a far more searching examination of both the rise of political anti-Semitism in late nineteenth-century Europe and the Holocaust. To his credit Rémond does devote a section to Islam in contemporary Europe.Yet in discussing the difficulty that arises between Islam and secularity he overlooks the obvious reference to Islamic Turkey's secular state. Conceptually, too, Rémond dissatisfies. He tends to collapse "society" into "political society." Certainly the more urban, the more consumerist...

Vienna, the 1890s: Jews in the Eyes of Their Defenders. (The Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus)

Advocatesfor minority rights make stringent demands upon those they defend. The relationship between the persecuted and their defenders is often a minefield of conflicting agendas, made even worse by patronizing attitudes on the one side and wounded pride on the other. One example is the Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus (The Association for Defense Against Antisemitism), founded in Vienna in 1891 to combat the alarming rise of political antisemitism, unmistakable in the stunning electoral successes of the Christian Social Party led by Karl Lueger. Abwehrverein members came from Austria's elite of education and property (Bildung und Besitz): Liberal politicians, large-scale industrialists and merchants, members of the free professions, and artists. Most members were Austro-German liberals, and Liberal Reichsrat deputies sat on its board. Its founder and president was Baron Arthur Gunduccar von Suttner (1850–1902), a writer, and husband of Bertha von Suttner, recipient of the Noble Peace Prize in 1905. My intention is to explore the attitude of the Abwehrverein to Jewry, and to raise the question of whether it served Jewish interests well. But before that, a word or two must be said about the association.

The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany & Austria

(1990). The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany & Austria. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 74-74.

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (Revised Edition)PulzerPeter The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (Revised Edition)Peter HalbanLondon, 1988, xxvi, 357, £20.00 (hb)/£9.95 (pb)

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (Revised Edition)PulzerPeter <i>The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria</i> (Revised Edition)Peter HalbanLondon, 1988, xxvi, 357, £20.00 (hb)/£9.95 (pb)

The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840; Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany; The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

Journal Article The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840; Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany; The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria Get access Ritchie Robertson Ritchie Robertson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 7, Issue 2, April 1989, Pages 266–268, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/7.2.266 Published: 01 April 1989

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, by Peter G. J. Pulzer

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, <i>by Peter G. J. Pulzer</i>

Book Review: Western Europe: The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

Book Review: Western Europe: The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

Anti-Semitism and the Failure of Liberalism - Peter G. J. Pulzer: The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964. Pp. 364. $5.95.)

Anti-Semitism and the Failure of Liberalism - Peter G. J. Pulzer: The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964. Pp. 364. $5.95.)

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, by Peter G. J. Pulzer

<i>The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria</i>, by Peter G. J. Pulzer

Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. In New Dimensions in History. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964. Pp. xiv, 364.

Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. In New Dimensions in History. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964. Pp. xiv, 364.

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. P. G. J. Pulzer

<i>The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria</i>. P. G. J. Pulzer

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria.Peter G. J. Pulzer

<i>The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria.</i>Peter G. J. Pulzer

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria

The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria