HOW TO FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM
by Bari Weiss
In 1971, the
New York Times published a piece on anti-semitism entitled
"The Socialism of Fools." Written by Seymour Lipset, an eminent scholar of political sociology, it called attention to a major shift in the phenomenon. "Unlike the situation before 1945, when anti-Jewish politics was largely identified with rightist elements," Lipset observed, "the current wave is linked to governments, parties, and groups which are conventionally described as leftist." Singling out anti-semitism within the Black nationalist and New Left movements, the piece argued that leftist critiques of Israel and Zionism had become tainted with anti-semitic tropes and that leftists in the United States and Europe were unwittingly parroting Soviet propaganda.
Lipset was not the first to argue that the left had a problem with anti-semitism. The phrase "socialism of fools" is attributed to August Bebel, a leader of the German socialist movement at the end of the nineteenth century. This internal critique nonetheless upheld the overwhelming association of anti-semitism and the extreme right, which the rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust made undeniable. In the 1960s, however, concerns about anti-semitism on the left re-emerged. This time, the warnings came from American Jewish intellectuals who linked their analysis of anti-semitism to a broader argument for a rightward shift in the political orientation of American Jews.
Comment: Russiagate's First Survivor: The Harsh Education of Maria Butina