The Socialism of Fools? Leftist Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism

Our book, just published with Cambridge University Press, is a comparative analysis of the history of anti-Semitism on the left in France, Germany, and Britain from the French Revolution to the Second World War.  We find that the historic European left did not, as has often been assumed, prove immune to anti-Semitism.  Instead, many left-wing movements, or substantial segments of those movements – including early liberal nationalist, radical, and socialist movements – developed and actively disseminated new, modern forms of anti-Semitic rhetoric.  What explains the anti-Semitism of the historic European left?  We identify as important driving forces: 1) an 18^th- and 19^th-century push to liberalize and rationalize Christianity, which entailed an attack on Judaism; 2) early radical nationalist objections to Jews as outsiders, especially in Germany; and, of particular importance, 3) the influence of an often-virulent anti-capitalist anti-Semitism that grew up over the course of the 19^th century.  Leftist anti-Semitism, we argue, ultimately influenced the anti-Semitism of the late-19^th-century radical right in both France and Germany.  It was only in the late 19^th and early 20^th century that the socialistic left took steps to distance itself from anti-Semitism, for reasons of political opportunism and because symbolic meanings shifted to cast Jews as the oppressed rather as oppressors.  Conclusions are based in part on a systematic analysis of left- and right-wing French, German, and British newspaper coverage from the 19^th- and early-20^th centuries.  The results shed light on the politically-contingent nature of both prejudice and tolerance.