Thread by @skedeschi

This post is something people might find interesting about the crossover between left-wing extreme ideas, and antisemitism. I'm a socialist myself, but the history of this is quite interesting and sheds light on the unique construct of modern antisemitism and liberalism

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Travelling back to Tsarist Russia: antisemitism was significant. The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 and in short, this was more or less where Jews were ONLY permitted to live

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Life in the Pale for many was economically bleak. Poverty. Jews weren't allowed to farm so were mostly merchants of some kind. Following the Jewish religious tradition of tzedakah (charity), a sophisticated system of volunteer Jewish social welfare organisations developed

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Various organisations supplied clothes to poor students, provided kosher food to Jewish soldiers conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army, dispensed free medical treatment for the poor, offered dowries and household gifts to destitute brides, and cared for orphans

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So this sort of internal Jewish community welfare system arose; and by the end of the 19th century nearly 1 in 3 Jews in the Pale were being supported by Jewish welfare organisations. Kind of cool. But things were crap. There was a LOT of pogroms. A lot of Jews were banned

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From education and so on and discriminatory laws. So a lot of Jews emigrated when possible, and joined political groups like the Bolsheviks. Meanwhile, Russia birthed one of the most famous antisemitic texts ever.

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The Protocols of The Elders of Zion: which played a key part in popularising belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. This text traveled everywhere. It was taught in German schools in the 1930s. It was even published in the Times.

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The Protocols is basically a forged document of the minutes of a late-19th-century meeting attended by world Jewish leaders, the "Elders of Zion", who are conspiring to take over the world. The forgery places in the mouths of the Jewish leaders a variety of plans

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Most of which derive from older antisemitic canards. For example, the Protocols includes plans to subvert the morals of the non-Jewish world, plans for Jewish bankers to control the world's economies, plans for Jewish control of the press etc.

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You'll note a lot of this is exactly the same antisemitic garbage you find recycled now. Both on the left AND right. The document, which was printed in numerous international papers, identifies the Jew as a liar. A sneak. Arrogant. Corrupt. Heartless. Land stealers

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Thus was triggered the modern day form of antisemitism: the Jewish, cruel, money-led mission for domination. By 1917, it became a bestseller in Europe and the United States, where it was published by the American car magnate and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford.

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The Nazis found great inspiration in the Protocols and used it to blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat during WWI, the financial bankruptcy of the State, and the decline of the German race.

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Convinced that a Jewish conspiracy was in the works, Hitler mentioned the Protocols in his tract Mein Kampf and in speeches, while Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels distributed the text widely.

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Later in the century, the Protocols became a bestseller in the Muslim world. The Protocols help provide a denunciation of Zionism as the source of all problems in Arab lands, an excuse for the defeat of Arab armies, and a reason for their slow economic development.

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Hamas has made excerpts of the Protocols actual articles of its charter. According to Hamas’ political agenda, calling for the destruction of Israel is justified as a means of survival necessary before Zionists take over the rest of the world.

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Going back to Russia though, after the Bolshevik revolution of course: religion was not accepted. They were strongly opposed to any religion and conducted an extensive campaign to suppress the religious traditions among the population

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But aside from repressing religion, Lenin was outspoken against the pogroms. And on paper, Stalin opposed antisemitism too BUT he also adopted antisemitic policies which were reinforced with his anti-Westernism

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Antisemitism, as historian Raphael Patai and geneticist Jennifer Patai Wing put it in their book "The Myth of the Jewish Race", was "couched in the language of opposition to Zionism" under Stalin. Which is where we see the links begin to appear.

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And after WWII began the war against "The Rootless Cosmopolitan" (a euphemism for Jew). This ideology equated the cosmopolitans with Jews, and the campaign led to many leading Jewish writers and artists being killed.

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Terms like "bourgeois cosmopolitans", and "individuals devoid of nation or tribe" appeared in newspapers. The Soviet press accused "cosmopolitans" of helping "American imperialism" and " bourgeois culture". You can see the similarities with today!

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Victimization of Jews in the USSR at the hands of the Nazis was denied, Jewish scholars were removed from the sciences, and emigration rights were denied to Jews.The Stalinist antisemitic campaign ultimately culminated in the Doctors' plot in 1953.

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This was a was a Soviet state-sponsored antisemitic campaign and conspiracy theory that alleged a cabal of Jewish doctors intended to murder leading government and party officials. This was accompanied by publications of antisemitic character in the media

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Which talked about the threats of Zionism and condemned people with Jewish surnames. Following this, many doctors, both Jews and non-Jews, were dismissed from their jobs, arrested, and tortured to produce admissions. It was all later found to have been lies.

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Antisemitism once again peaked during the rule of Brezhnev, and following Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. "Anti-Zionist" propaganda was prolific. Institutional racism against Jews was widespread and they were banned from jobs etc.

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So in short the "anti zionist" form of antisemitism goes hand in hand with Russian "Marxism" and much of the ideas that originated back then are ever-present now. Used by Hamas. Used by the Nazis. And also used by many people everyday on Twitter

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Stalin and Hitler were of course opposite sides of the spectrum, but there was a shared hatred for the "bourgeoisie". Ulrike Meinhoff said "Auschwitz meant that six million Jews were killed, and thrown on the waste-heap of Europe, for what they were considered: money-Jews."

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"Finance capital and the banks, the hard core of the system of imperialism and capitalism, had turned the hatred of men against money and exploitation, and against the Jews. . . . Antisemitism is really a hatred of capitalism"

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This is the link between the two sides of the political spectrum and antisemitism: the scapegoating of Jews as "rich" and thus undermining the "poor" and hard done by - and its obvious how this plays into the pretty blatant polarised views of the current middle east.

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Wilhelm Marr was a German writer who coined the term "anti-Semitic". In 1879 Marr published his book The "Victory of Judaism over Germandom", and he also founded the Antisemitic Journal, and started an Antisemitic League.

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Marr idolized Tsarist Russia, and earlier in his career he had been a radical socialist. The new antisemites who followed Marr expanded the medieval attacks on Jewish traders and usurers and developed them into a full-scale economic critique.

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The Jews who provoked the most anger were those who embraced cosmopolitan, Enlightenment values, and who achieved economic success. You can sense this now today, it's pretty common and is threaded through a lot of narratives and ideas.

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This swept through Germany and Europe. With new, left-wing groups building on antisemitic and anti capitalist foundations. Georg Ritter von Schonerer German Liberal Party, developed a lower-middle-class, anti-Semitic, anti-capitalistic platform in the 1880s.

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He directed his anti-Semitism at the economic activity of the Rothschilds; he advocated nationalisation of their railroad assets and attacked Jewish merchants. Hitler was an avid admirer of Schonerer, and as a young man even hung Schonerer’s slogans over his bed.

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I am not saying Hitler was a socialist. He obviously wasn't, and Nazi Germany was a hard-right authoritarian regime - but what he was driven by was similar anti establishment sentiments that crossed over with the ideas of modern antisemitism with the Jew as the scapegoat

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So really, the link between socialism and antisemitism arose through intellectual affinity. Throughout the nineteenth century, the socialist critique of capitalism and the antisemitic critique used the same arguments. They actually still do!

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So thus in 2023 what we see is the positive elements of socialism - such as equality, fairness, human rights - interlaced with some age old prejudice and a definite reincarnation of the soviet ideas of the 'zionist' as the enemy of all that is good in the world!