Dr. Susie Jacobs
Dept. of Sociology
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester M15 6LL
 s.jacobs@mmu.ac.uk


The main aim of this paper is to compare and contrast antiSemitism in Britain – particularly contemporary Britain – with other forms of racism. Most discussions of antiSemitism in Britain, and of the ‘Anglo’-Jewish community more generally, have taken place apart from mainstream writing on ‘race’ and ethnicity – that is, either within ‘Jewish studies’ fora and/or Jewish-oriented media. (However, see e.g. Cohen, P. 1988; Miles, 1993). That is, this topic has been somewhat ghettoised and therefore takes on the character of an internal debate (i.e. among Jews, or affiliated Jews).

Another issue touched upon in the paper is that of multiculturalism vs. cosmopolitan democratic orientations. How do Jewish identity (itself, a contested issue…) and anti-Jewish racism fit into current debates? There are a number of criticisms of multiculturalism the most trenchant of which include the tendency to see ‘cultures’ as fixed, bounded and relatively unchanging (Parekh, 2000; Modood and Werbner, 1997; Hall, 2002; O’Byrne; 2005) and the tendency to envisage cultures as unified wholes, with little attention to schisms of class, gender, generation and other aspects of structure/identity (e.g. Brah, 1996; Yuval-Davis 1997 and a range of other feminist writers). Additionally, multiculturalism tends towards cultural relativism, a negative side of which can be disregard for individual rights. In contrast, democratic cosmopolitan theory (Vertovec and Cohen 2002; Fine and Cohen 2002) envisages identities as fluid, potentially multiple and as overlapping. However, democratic cosmopolitanism mirrors a problem opposite to those above: methodological individualism (Hall, 2002) and lack of sufficient attention to the ‘group’ nature of ethnicity. At first sight, Jewish identity/ethnicity fits in well with such a perspective: Jews are of course both a diasporic and a ‘cosmopolitan’ grouping par excellence. In Britain today, Jewish ‘communities’ are often fairly fragmented in religious and political terms1. Nevertheless, the persistence – and some hold, the resurgence – of anti-Jewish racism tends to maintain ethnic boundaries, albeit ones that are more permeable than for people ethnically marked in more visible ways.


‘AntiSemitism’ and Anti-Jewish racism:

Given the trajectory of discussions of ‘race’, ethnicity and multiculturalism in Britain, it is perhaps necessary to make the theme explicit rather than leave it as subtext: the paper deals with anti-Jewish racism – i.e. as one racism among other forms. For stylistic variation, I also use the term ‘antiSemitism’, despite the danger that this term implies that this is not ‘racism’. By being ‘differently named’ the term antiSemitism may imply that a different form of analysis is needed to that applied to other racisms.
This paper thus sets out to explore the themes of commonality and exceptionalism.

A number of different elements feed into the marginalisation of antiSemitism in analyses of ‘race’/ethnicity in contemporary Britain. One is the nature of ‘Jewishness’ as simultaneously a religious (or, religiously-based), an ethnic and a national-like identity. From the late 19th Century in particular, the religious basis of Jewishness and of much antiSemitism changed with colonial conquest and the development of nationalisms so that Jews, along with others, came to be seen in more racialised and national terms, although this did not herald the end of religious antiSemitism.

A second reason for the relative disregard of anti-Jewish racisms (similarly to anti-Irish racism: Hickman, 1995; Mac an Ghaill 1999) is that in most Anglo and American (i.e. USA) based accounts of ‘race’, the black/white dichotomy (i.e. ‘colour’ or skin pigmentation-based accounts of racism) predominates. Various problems with this dichotomy exist, including reification of the category ‘race’ (Miles 1982, 1993, 1995) and marginalisation of other forms of racism: e.g. against Gypsies/Travellers. However, given the existence of ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ in popular imagination, most light-skinned/Ashkenazi Jews in the Britain and the USA did benefit to a great extent by being considered ‘white’, even if rather ambiguously so (see Jacobson 2000; Roediger 1991on the Irish)..2

Thus the more predominant racisms exhibited in Britain in the contemporary period have been those against ex-colonial peoples of African and/or South Asian origin. This has altered to some extent recently, with the rise or resurgence of (especially) Islamaphobia - which extends to Muslims whether or not their family origins lie in Britain’s ex colonies – as well as antiGypsy/Roma racism and sentiment against asylum seekers including ‘white’ ones from Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the Jewish ethnic presence is usually acknowledged even if not highlighted in the literature; thus it is distinctly odd that a recent Guardian special supplement mapping ethnic groups in Greater London omitted Jews as a ‘religious’ rather than an ethnic grouping. (Guardian, 21/1/2005)

In Britain, other reasons for partial lack of integration of discussions of antiSemitism into ‘race’/ethnicity discourses have to do with the particularity of Anglo- Jewish history. British history includes virulent antiSemitic innovations including the invention of the ‘blood libel’ (see below) with the story of Little St. Hugh in Norwich in 1144 and the first mass expulsion of Jews from an entire realm in 1290. However, with the Readmission in 1656, the small Jewish population (mainly of Sephardi origin) faced few legal impediments other than those faced also by Roman Catholics and Dissenters. AntiSemitism in Britain has also been noted for its muted nature, particularly compared to many European contexts. This has sometimes been mistaken for near-absence of anti-Jewish racism (e.g. Roth, 1964). Endelman notes that social historians - working in the main academic arena for discussion of Jewish migration - have found it difficult to locate appropriate categories for discussion of Jews as a group. Jews could not easily be placed into traditional categories of British historical analysis: rather than being religious dissenters, marginalised immigrants or distinctive ‘ethnics’, they were all three at once (2002: 6). More recent historians (see e.g. Cesarini [ed] 1990; Kushner, 1992a, 1992b) have pointed to the [sometimes] semi-covert nature of anti-Semitic manifestations and discourse.

The rest of the paper firstly discusses a number of antiSemitic themes, and briefly explores their main sources in Britain, before going on to attempt a preliminary comparison of racisms.


ii) (Some) antiSemitic themes:

A number of antiSemitic themes remain of relevance in a Britain struggling towards a multicultural (or perhaps a cosmosopolitan democratic?) identity.

a) Religiously-based themes in Britain emanate mainly from Christianity. In post-war Britain, this genre of antiSemitism (and other racisms) are not usually expressed openly; however, this does not mean that they have entirely disappeared. (e,g. The Anglican Third Collect for Good Friday, dating from 1662, asks God/G-d to “Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Hereticks…so that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites….”[etc].
Although this passage was altered in 1980, it only disappeared in the most recent versions of the Common Worship (Tomes, 2004).

Religious themes encompass several charges: that of deicide, and of collective ‘guilt’; the figure of the ‘wandering Jew’ (condemned to be without a nation as a punishment); of associations with the devil; and the blood libel (the accusation that Jews drink the blood of victims – preferably Gentile children – for Passover and other holiday rites; Cohen, 1988; Shain, 1998). As noted, this particular racist fantasy originated in England although it then spread to other parts of the world. The last such murder charge occurred in 1930 in Czechoslavakia (Mosse, 2000)

b) Economic themes also predominate within anti-Semitic discourses. These include the charge of ‘usury’, and of ‘meanness’ or covetousness: this has strong links with the position of [some] Jews as moneylenders and traders especially in medieval and feudal Europe, when most other professions were barred to them (Halevi, 1988).

c) Political themes provide another discursive underpinning. Jews were/are seen both as agents of the state and as ‘enemies of the state’ (although the particular state in question has varied).

i) The former theme links with another common one: Jews as having ‘undue influence’ over either government, the media, particular states, etc. This perception has links with Jews’ historical position of dependence upon monarchs and/or aristocrats (e.g. in the 12th and 13th Century in England; in Poland ). Jews were sometimes granted limited ‘protection’ and were used to raise revenue for the crown, or for particular aristocrats. This placed them in middlemen positions between aristocrats and poorer people (serfs, town dwellers). The congruence of this economic positioning and religious antiSemitism meant that Jews were often the targets of hostility (Halevi, 1988; Lerner, 2003).

ii) The theme of Jews as enemies of the state links with another, of Jewish people as subversives in either a political or economic sense, or both.

Jews have commonly been seen as infecting people’s (or ‘the’ people’s) minds with ‘foreign’ ideas (Chesler, 2003): e.g.

• humanitarian ideals (e.g. following the French revolution) (Mosse, 2000);
• humanism and/or secularism;
• socialism/communism (Samuel, 1985; Alderman, 1992);
• capitalism (Cohen, S. 1984);
• globalisation and internationalism.

As an extension of these themes, Bauman (1991) notes that Jews stand for ambiguity in a (modern/modernising) world seeking certainty.

d) A quasi-geographical theme, of the ‘placement’ of Jews is also relevant: Jews are commonly viewed as ‘clannish’ and insular (therefore placed or preferring to be placed in bounded spaces). However, the opposite complaint is also common: ‘Jews get everywhere, don’t they?’ – i.e. Jews may spread too far geographically when out of the ghetto and may then act in a subversive manner.

e) Jews may be viewed as ‘overly traditional’ and/or ‘dangerously avant-garde’. This particular contradiction in characterisation may today reflect real community division/differences; however, these characterisations predate current splits.

f) At the level of personality characteristics (both of individuals and – in imagination – of ‘the’ group): Jews are stereotyped in a number of ways. These attach particularly to the economic accusations of antiSemitism. Jews are materialistic and/or mean (e.g. to ‘Jew’ someone: to haggle, to drive a hard bargain: one meaning of the noun ‘Jew’ is also ‘usurer’ (Chambers English Dictionary 2003); are greedy/wealthy/too successful; are overly hard working (Woo, 1990) Alternatively, they may be seen as work averse (the USA/Canadian ‘Jewish princess’ stereotype Booker, 1990). In aid of Jewish materialistic purposes, Jews are seen as pushy (i.e. because too successful); and often as hyper-intelligent but in an inhuman, cunning way (hence the British phrase ‘too clever by half’.)

Gilman (1991) and others (e.g. Jacobson, 2000) have shown how racialised ideas have formed perceptions of the bodies of Jews and other racialised peoples. In both Nazi and pre-Nazi thought, Jewish bodies (especially those of men) were seen as signifying weakness and illness. Thus Jewish men were/are pictured as demasculinised and as signifying intellect. Both Jewish men and women have been pictured as unattractive, especially in western Europe; however in Eastern Europe the imagery of Jewish women changes to that of beauty and seductiveness (indicating wealth). Along these lines, Jews have often been characterised as ‘showy’ and loud (see Baddiel’s reproduction of the (real) instructions to German Jewish refugees to Britain in the 1930s…`Do not make yourself conspicuous by speaking loudly, nor by your manner or dress. The Englishman greatly dislikes ostentation, loudness of dress or manner or unconventionality of dress or manner….’ (Baddiel, 2004: 28: advice issued by the German Jewish Aid Committee, London, 1939). However, Jewish poverty, associations with the rag trade (Endelman, 2002) and shabby dress are also embodied themes and apparently still live (see correspondence in a recent Indymedia, 2004 on jfjfp/PSC meeting in Manchester).

At the individual level, antiSemitism is, like other forms of racism (Fanon, 1986) internalised. Much ink has been spilled, especially in literature, on Jewish ‘traits’ and characteristics. Some of these have obvious roots: e.g. responses of extreme defensiveness and fear. Other stereotypical traits – e.g. argumentation – perhaps stem from longer traditions of debate. As with other racisms, internalisation of critical stereotypes leads individuals to experience feelings of shame/of self-dislike (Brown, 2003). Other characterisations can be positive (e.g. Jewish success; mobility, etc, but these are often double–edged, as seen.

It is a common observation (see e.g. Clarke 2003) that Jews (and others) as scapegoats have been longstanding objects of ‘splitting’ and rejection of [imagined] ‘bad’/unwanted psychic or bodily emanations. One aspect of internalisation of racism may be manifest when Jews, like other racialised minorities, attempt to avoid particular stereotypes through emulation: this follows the model of the highly assimilated Anglicised Jewish elite, which dominated British Jewish life until the middle of the 20th Century (Alderman, 1992; Lipman 1990). 3

It is perhaps evident in the above that some of the above traits and characteristics are contradictory. The containment of contradictory stereotypes of one group/people is a – perhaps unusual? – feature of antiSemitism: e.g. Jews as both ‘shabby’/mean and showy; Jews as both ‘weak in body’ and hypersexual. Here we turn to a source of a characterisation that has had far-reaching consequences for many Jewish communities: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

As is well-known, the Procotols was a forged document written in Russia in 1897, alleging that a worldwide Jewish conspiracy existed. This document attempted to explain a seeming contradiction: Jews were (are) prominent both in capitalist and in socialist/communist circles: the ‘explanation’ was that both were shams: capitalist and communist Jews were not really at odds, as it might seem. They were in fact united (secretly) in a bid for world domination. Although this conspiracy theory lay at the heart of Nazism it is also widespread outside neo-fascist groupings. Many of these are right-wing/neo-Nazi (e.g. Pamyat in Russia) but the Protocols have had some influence on movements with some claim to progressive credentials. The Protocols have also had some influence elsewhere, so that Eyptian and Syrian state-sponsored TV serials have produced soaps which dramatise the allegations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Mohamed, 2002; Kaba and Tubiana, 2002).

That some type of shadowy Jewish conspiracy exists is commonsense, taken-for-granted element in many quarters: e.g. rumours that the predominance of neo-conservatives in the USA is a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ (Greenspan, 2003; Berlet, 2004; Interview, 2004 ). Perhaps even more common is a vague suspicion that such a conspiracy might exist but that it is impolite to articulate this. A contemporary form of this fear is the phrase ‘the Jewish lobby’ without mentioning other ‘lobbies’ or differentiating Jews who have different political positions on a number of questions, including Israel and Palestine.


iii) Sources…

Anti-Jewish racism has a number of manifestations, then, of which many contain particularly florid fantasies. Here I outline sources - viewed socially and politically - of anti-Jewish racist thought, rhetoric and action: the section concentrates on those most influential in Britain, historically and in the present.

a) As noted above, Christian antiSemitism (Nicholl, 1993; Shain, 1998), stems from medieval times, but is much attenuated today especially in the Church of England, However Christian fundamentalists continue these themes and carry forth newer ones…

b) State antiSemitism has been largely absent in Britain since the Readmission of Jews in 1656) This factor is crucial, as elsewhere in Europe - Spain, Portugal, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, etc.- state anti-Jewish racism led to confinement of Jews in ghettos, to high levels of discrimination, forced conversion, expulsion, and to massacres/pogroms. However, the first British immigration law, the Aliens Act 1905 was enacted against Jewish refugees from eastern Europe and policies against Jewish migration before and during World War II emanated from the state. Similarly, racism within the aristocracy existed but was mild compared with e.g. France, Poland and Russia.

c) The far/neo-Nazi right is obviously anti-Semitic, drawing on conspiracy theory, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, and elaborated, biologically-imagined racist ideas. In this regard it is important to underline that Jewish history is ‘experienced’ [vicariously] by many Jews as simultaneously national and supranational. That is, it matters a great deal whether one was born or lives in Britain, France, the USA, Russia or Morocco, but events abroad such as pogroms, ‘show’ trials; or Nazi Holocaust live on as trauma.

e) Black or African/African-American nationalism: (Lerner and West, 1996; Howe, 1998) is another source of antiSemitism: this alleges, for instance, that Jews were the main slave traders and main exploiters of black people. This strand of thought is not highly influential in Britain but is in some US circles e.g. the ‘new’ black Panthers (Burkeman, 2002) or the Nation of Islam.

f) Islamist ideas (as opposed to Islam) form another basis of rhetoric: Islamist antiSemitism draws on several sources, including populist elements of anti-imperialism as well as elements of conspiracy theory and (sometimes) of Protocols accusations (Kaba and Tubiana, 2002; Mohamed 2002)

g) left-wing antiSemitism: This echoes[the anarchist] Proudhon, who saw Jews as the driving spirit behind capitalism. However, ideas have long persisted about Jews embodying the spirit of capitalism and as being mainly bourgeois. Indeed, this theme has become more prominent recently: see below - in some left/populist circles. (see Steve Cohen, 1984; see Leon for example of analysis solely in class terms; Strauss, 2003.) These orientations display an uneasy symbiosis of populisms, anti-imperialism(s) and sometimes ‘anti-racist’ discourse.

At this point I enter the fraught territory of antiZionism/antiSemitism. Phyllis Chesler has argued in A New Antisemitism (2003) that a confluence of anti-Zionism and antiSemitism characterises a new manifestation of antiSemitism; an alternative view is that these elements are repackaged in a somewhat novel manner but are not ‘new’.
modern day colonialists). (See also Strauss 2003).


Chesler argues that this `new’ form is present when:

-- overt antiSemitism occurs (e.g. in Holocaust denial; or more commonly, Holocaust belittling);
-- when diaspora Jews are held responsible for Israeli policy whether or not they support this (and by implication, Israeli Jews are also held responsible en masse for state policy in a way that citizens of other nations are not held responsible):
-- when double/unequal standards obtain: eg. When Jewish behaviour – especially bad behaviour - (including violence, racism, not actively campaigning to change discriminatory or oppressive state policies against minorities) is treated differently to similarly [unacceptable] behaviour elsewhere.

However, this matter is highly complex, and often confused. Many on the Israeli/Jewish right label any criticism of Israel/Sharon’s policies or of Israeli military violence, occupation and expansionism or as a manifestation of antiSemitism and/or of self-hatred by Jews. (Although this is not true of Chesler, she is not forceful in emphasising how Israeli military policies may stoke up antiSemitism.) On the other hand, many left-wing Jews find it hard to detect antiSemitism (along perhaps with other non-Jews) unless it actually stems from ‘safe’ sources such as fascist/neo-fascists. As one author notes, ‘little space for a calm and rational discussion exists’ (Greenspan, 2003). [see below for further discussion]

Many discussions also employ the dichotomous thought patterns which – at least until recently – were so characteristic of discussions of ‘race’ and ethnicity (Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1992). A subtext of such thought is again, splitting: the need to assign ‘bad’ or ‘good’ exclusively to some agents/groups. Aside from its other problems, this is a highly simplistic form of thought and inadequate for a complex phenomenon such as any contemporary racism.

iv) British tolerance, British racism:
The multidirectionality of sources of antiSemitism is highly relevant to the context of any discussion of the phenomenon, and renders it more complex to analyse. The particular British context must also be taken into account.

British (or Anglo-) Jewish history is in some respects peculiar (Endelman, 2002). This history is marked by several waves of immigration of Jews after the Readmission; these were from very different backgrounds. Until the late 19th Century the small Jewish population was mainly of Sephardi origin; although most were poor and became associated with petty trading and other low status occupations (Endelman, 2002), a layer became highly assimilated into the British elite; unlike elsewhere, some remain unconverted. The dominance of the Jewish community by this elite has been very long-lived and was relatively unchallenged until the 1930s-40s. Although anti-Semitic ideas and imagery have been widespread, antiSemitism was only sporadically of a violent character and the Jewish presence was not a matter of obsessive attention as in eastern and central Europe. However, from the 1880s, Jews from Eastern Europe sought asylum in Britain in larger numbers – up to 150,000 (Endelman, 2002:122), and the nature of the migratory flow altered. Many had lived in shtetls, were far less educated, were more religiously observant 4. Occupationally they were concentrated in the smallscale and medium retail trade and small workshop manufacturing.

The descendants of these Eastern European Jews came to constitute the majority of British Jewry. A third migration from Nazi Germany took place from the 1930s: this migration was of a highly educated, assimilated intelligentsia (including figures such as Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband). Some Jews met a tradition of relative toleration and ideas (or at least rhetoric) of ‘fair play’ but at the same time, deep hostility to cultural diversity (Endelman, 2002:6): in other words, a lack of British tradition of multiculturalism until recently. At the same time, he argues, English liberalism (or, most versions of it) was beneficial for Jews as it emphasised individual rights rather than organic conceptions of the nation. Particularly for light-skinned, better-off Jews, there existed possibilities of assimilation as long as ‘Jewishness’ was de-emphasised. As for other minorities, social stigma and marginalisation usually increases with class marginalisation.

Along with anti-Irish racism (Hickman, 1995; Mac an Ghaill, 1999), anti-Jewish racism has been a long-existing theme; however, in general in the contemporary period it has been less dominant than racisms based on colonial domination and denigration of skin colour. Like antiSemitism, such racisms do not necessarily depend on the physical presence of stigmatised people in order to exist; however, with post-war Black and South Asian migrations, colour-based racism became more predominant in political and popular imagination(s) and came to be seen as the ‘authentic’ racism.

Recently, a number of commentators, particularly in the mainstream Jewish community (e.g. Kosmin, 2005) have held that antiSemitism is increasing and that it has become more acceptable to express this. Whether or not this is the case, the very recent period has seen a number of examples of anti-Jewish racism, drawn particularly from political life. I list a few examples here. In 2003, Tam Dalyll (himself of aristocratic origin, and speaking as Father of the House) referred to Jews as a ‘cabal’, evoking the ancient spectre of conspiracy (Freedland, 2003a; O’Mahoney; 2003). Other manifestations have ‘old’ associations: e.g. Peter Mandelson as devilish rather than as simply elitist and a neo-liberal in the Labour Party; Michael Howard as not only a politician with unsavoury policies but as having ‘something of the night’ (i.e. something vampirish) about him; the recent Labour Party depiction of Howard as Fagin. Perhaps less well-known is Sue Blackwell’s recent statement concerning the defeat of the AUT boycott was that this was due not to disagreement, to a genuinely complex situation, to differences over tactics to end the Occupation of Palestine, etc. but to ‘a massive and well-financed campaign’ (Taylor, 2005) In the above examples, it might be argued that the anti-Semitic imagery is not overtly `recognised’ by the perpetuators (e.g. those designing advertisement, cartoons) but that it nevertheless appears to well up from (collectively??) unconscious, half-suppressed historical and/or psychic sources.

Best publicised was a January, 2002 cover of the New Statesman with artwork that was widely heralded as racist, with a large gold star of David stabbing a Union Jack, the text underneath asking ‘A Kosher Conspiracy?’. Perhaps equally disturbingly, the editor defended this both at the time and after (Wilby, 2002). A few weeks ago the deputy editor Christina Odone again implicitly defended the offensive imagery, commenting simply that the New Statesman could ‘take on the wrong taboos, viz its Zionist conspiracy [cover] ……’ (2005:7). On the basis of this statement, the New Statesman example, like some others, appears to be more deliberate than the other incidents.

These events sit rather uneasily with more ‘traditional’ British manifestations of anti-Jewish racism, which as noted has tended to be muted although interspersed with more violent outbreaks. AntiSemitism in Britain – perhaps stereotypically – tended and tends to be expressed in indirect ways: through for instance the inflection of voice, or an offhand remark (e.g. isn’t that name rather Biblical?)5, or through a key phrase (`well-organised and well-financed campaign’). The ubiquitous and pointed ‘you don’t look Jewish’ (Cohen, 1988) however, continues to remind us of the import of bodily `markers’. As Endelman remarks, Anglo expressions of antiSemitism were for the most part “a genteel brand of intolerance” (Endelman, 2024: 247) – and of course most would prefer this to the more violent and hostile response that greeted African Caribbean, South Asian and Roma migrants. Not always visible through skin pigmentation or appearance, Jews could/can still often be picked out through names, gestures, ways of speaking and appearance (see Jacobson on ‘the nose’ 2000) even if they did not wish to be identified as Jewish. Common responses of British Jews were to tolerate slights, not to ‘make a fuss’ at racist remarks or incidents and to – consciously or unconsciously – to mute expressions of ‘Jewishness’ (religious or cultural) to facilitate assimilation, at least in public (Kushner 1992). 6 Fitting in, not drawing attention to oneself and (for some) becoming ‘more British than the British’ were common responses.

The historical dominance of the Anglo-Jewish ‘aristocracy’ over Jewish communities fed into these reactions, as did those of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. This was and is proactive in pursuing Jewish rights to worship, to observe major holidays and to maintain a communal existence, however it was consistently passive in protesting against antiSemitism, even during the rise of fascism. The 1930s were a time of bitter struggle between the Jewish left (inside and without the Communist Party) and the Board of Deputies (see Rosenberg, 1985; Samuel, 1985; Lipman 1990; Alderman, 1992). The Board’s perception was that it was ‘making a fuss’ would simply increase antiSemitism through a backlash, and that it was best to work unobtrusively and in the background (Endelman 2002). In the 1990s, the Board of Deputies distanced itself from possible alliances with other ethnic minority groups so that such alliances have been taken up by other (non-mainstream, left) Jewish groupings (e.g. Jewish Council for Racial Equality, J-CORE; Israeli/Palestinian peace groups such as jfjfp).

Observations on British expression of this form of racism tends to contradict the observation made by Timothy Garton Ash (2005) that “the great, glorious compromise that is British multiculturalism has traditionally worked……. precisely by not speaking about these things….” . Although Ash’s comment is made in the context of Michael Howard’s stance on immigration, I query whether ‘not talking about these things’ really acts beneficially to suppress racism. Rather this strategy may simply facilitate a means of of indirect communication through symbols and signifiers.

In light of all these factors, how can we compare antiSemitism/Judeophobia to other forms of racism in Britain? Brah (1992) argued that different forms of racism have to be located within the specificity of different economic, political and cultural circumstances reproduced through different mechanisms and that they find different expressions . (See also Philip Cohen’s comparative analysis, 1988). The following attempts a brief and exploratory sketch.


v) Comparisons….

All racisms, of course, involve ‘othering’, elements of scapegoating and often large doses of fantasy/imagination. Although I return to discourses below, these are not the only, or necessarily the most important elements. Firstly, I discuss structural/material manifestations.

i) AntiSemitism in Britain is not, or not systematically manifested in economic terms. Although the majority of British Jews (i.e. descended from eastern European Yiddish speakers) had ancestors who were impoverished, the British Jewish population became predominantly middle class by the end of the 20th Century. In Kosmin’s 1977 study of Redbridge (northeast London) 40% of the sample was white-collar and the rest, skilled working class (Kosmin 1979). In 2002, 54% of working Jewish men and 50% of working Jewish women were in professional or managerial occupations ( Valins, 2002). Another Jewish Policy Research (Institute) survey (Becher, et.al. 2003) found that two-thirds of respondents (of nearly 3000 people surveyed) were in professional or managerial positions.

This contrasts with the situation of e.g. Black and South Asian origin people. In 1997, two-thirds of Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men were in manual occupations (compared with 50% of white men and 52% of Indian-origin men) (Ratcliffe, 2004: 95, citing Modood 1997). For Black and Asian ethnic minority men and women, unemployment levels are over twice as high as for whites in equivalent age groups (Ratcliffe, 1994: 92-3): the gap between black/Asian ethnic minority and white unemployment rates has remained at this level or higher for decades.

ii) Jews are heavily represented in Britain’s political and judicial establishment, a situation opposite to that of other, Black and South Asian minorities whose representation does not match their weight in the country’s population. It is important to re-emphasise that Jews in Britain are not systematically the subject of overt state or judicial actions. This contrasts with e.g. the police stop and search used as social control on Black and increasingly, Asian youth (BLINK/Black Information Link 2005), or the deaths in police custody of a number of Black people, or differential arrests of Black males (Blink, 2005).

This aspect is crucial as mass killings on a systematic scale usually takes place with a congruence of popular action and state policy and bureaucratic mechanisms (Gordon, 1992).

iii) Violence/attacks: The existence of violent attacks against minorities is of course, a ‘bottom line’ of coercion as well as being the most immediately frightening. Violent attacks on Jews and Jewish property (e.g. graveyards, synagogues, businesses) and has increased a good deal. In 2004 there were 532 antiSemitic incidents recorded, the highest since records began twenty years ago (Woolf, 2005). Of these, 83 incidents consisted of serious violence or assault, and 53, of damage/desecration of property (including graveyards). The more visible, strictly orthodox community is most likely to suffer violence and abuse. Attacks and violent incidents were most likely to emanate from the far right but an increasing number took plce in the context of political gatherings around Palestine/Israel and the Iraq war (CST, 200- ). In interpreting these figures, both the likelihood that incidents may be recorded and the very small size of the Jewish population (under 300,000) should be noted.

However, the percentage of attacks on other, more visible minorities is far greater: there have been 25 racially-motivated killings recorded in Britain between 1999-2002 (Black Information Link, 2005: www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp). The 1999 British Crime Survey reported that 35% of racially motivated attacks were against Black and south Asian people, with Pakistani and Bangladeshi people at the greatest risk of attack (IRR 2002). Recorded racist incidents rose to 52,700 in 2004 (Rayner, 2005) and these are acknowledged to be underestimated. Ethnic minority people are least likely to experience racist incidents in areas with high ethnic minority populations (e.g. London, Leicester); however in more isolated or rural areas, Black and Asian people are over three times more likely to experience serious racist incidents (Rayner, 2005). In London, Jews three times more likely than whites to be attacked, African-Caribbean and Asian people were ten times more likely to be attacked, and attacks on people designated as ‘Arabs’ were even higher (Akhtar, 2004?, http:// www.nusonline.co.uk). .

It is racist violence that is most feared in Jewish communities, for good reason. Despite Jewish assimilation, relative acculturation and the high social status of a number of some, these factors have not prevented expulsions and mass killings in 14th Century Poland (Chesler, 2003); in 15th and 16th Century Spain and Portugal or, of course, in Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, without dismissing the existence or further possibility of antiSemitic violence, this is not on a large scale in the UK.

iv) Jews have been subject to immigration controls (the 1905 Act) and this is similar to the controls exerted over migrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and from the Caribbean and Africa, although no doubt contemporary enforcement is both more efficient and more draconian. As immigrants, another similarity is the medicalisation of such immigrants, such that they were/are seen as inherently disease-ridden and likely to import disease/infection/pollution into the body politic. Jews in the 19th and early 20th Centuries were seen as carriers of smallpox and particularly, trachoma (Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit,1998). More recently, Bangladeshis have been seen as potential or actual carriers of TB, and African migrants, of HIV/AIDS. These images exist above and beyond any actual epidemiology – e.g. Jews were likely to have a greater incidence of trachoma than the general population (although it was often confused with conjunctivitis) as it was common among the very poor, although treatable. However, the disease came to stand in for Jewish disease and infection.

v) As noted, Jewish migration to Britain has been characterised by different ‘waves’ since 1656 and has taken place over a longer time scale. Thus the Anglo-Jewish diaspora contains people of different country and regional origins, social class groups, religious affiliations (i.e. within Judaism or secular), and appearance. There now exists a small – but growing – group of people who are both Jewish and mixed ‘race’/ethnicity. However, other diasporic migratory flows also contain people from different parts of a country, or nations within a region, who may share a language, a religion, or a broad cultural affiliation but may differ otherwise (e.g. the constructed categories of ‘South Asian; East Asian in the UK). Other groupings in Britain also now contain a number of mixed-background or ‘mixed-race’ people.

Turning back to the question of ‘characteristics’: historically, one of the charges against Jews was of their ‘essential’ inassimilable nature. (This begs the question, of course, the highly problematic nature of ‘assimilation’.) Given the extent of intermarriage today (44% for men in 1996: Miller et. al. 1996 ), however, this image may now be less common for Jews. It could be argued that the vision of inassimilability is now focussed much more strongly on Muslims and perhaps to a lesser extent on Roma people, although other groups are by no means exempt.

The most common way to categorise racisms is along the ‘black/white’ axis, as noted.
Here I suggest another line of comparison: anti-Asian, Islamaphobic and anti-Jewish racisms share certain characteristics, while anti-Irish and anti-Black (i.e. African or African-Caribbean origin) racisms share others. Both Black and Irish-origin people in Britain are envisaged in stereotype as having ‘childish’ characteristics; easily dominated but at the same time with criminal tendencies, rebellious but overtly so; emotional, charming and with a sense of humour, embodied (i.e. for Black people: facility at sport, at physical activities); with facility for music; hyper-fertile (Cohen, 1988; Mac an Ghaill 1999) (Does the undermining and demeaning nature of these social imaginaries perhaps underlie the disproportionate percentage of both Black and Irish people diagnosed as ‘schizophrenic’ in Britain? (Pilgrim and Rogers, 1993))

In contrast, Jews, Muslims and other Asians tend to be seen as ‘contained by culture’: inward looking, insular, traditional. Not only Jews but also Asian (both ‘south’ and ‘east’) as well as Muslim ‘others’ are constructed - in Orientalist form - of being devious, ‘clever’ and greedy: not to be trusted and difficult to control due to their subversive nature.

More parallels could be drawn, without losing the insight that racisms do to some extent have different histories and different signifiers; nevertheless continuities also exist.


vi) Differences?

Nevertheless, anti-Jewish racism(s) has several features which are not replicated in other discourses. One aspect is the religious foundation of antiSemitism: Christianity and Islam are of course also intertwined in history as in the present, but Christian theology does not depend upon Islam as it does upon the ‘Old’ Testament/Torah. For some fundamentalists, Jews must be preserved (or, some Jews must) but only because they are necessary for the second coming of the messiah. This is a complex and intertwined relation in which Jews have also borrowed a great deal from Christianity (Hilton, 1994); since the majority of Jews have lived in Christian societies, this relation has been formative. Although in Britain religious accusations against ‘proud and stiff necked Jews’ are muted and in some circles now absent, this relation – perhaps partly buried – remains important: many attitudes and images engendered historically linger on: half-suppressed, they may ‘pop up’ half-remembered images and charges.

Another ‘exceptional’ element in antiSemitism may be its contradictoriness; this might be a fruitful element for comparative studies of racist discourses.

However, what perhaps stands out most clearly as ‘different’ about antiSemitism in comparison with other forms of racism is the accusation of conspiracy to world domination. As noted, the Protocols and similar theories remain alive and well.

These two factors: antiSemitism rooted historically in Christianity and the Protocols’
type conspiracy theory have made for a particularly lethal mix in many parts of the world. Anglo-Jewish history since the 17th Century, however, has been unusual because of the lack of systematic persecution or pogroms. Because of this, much British Jewish historiography until fairly recently has done a good deal to facilitate a ‘cheerleadering’ (Kushner’s term, 1992b) rendition for the Anglo-Jewish success story (e.g. Roth’s depiction). However, despite this relatively placid history, antiSemitism has been one formative element in British identity (Richmond, 1992); the `success story’ also rests on partial forgetting of the earlier history as well as obscuring of episodes such as the anti-alien agitations of the early 20th Century and of current tensions.

Another strand in this kind of conspiratorial thinking appears – rather paradoxically – in the label of ‘cosmopolitanism’ as applied to Jews. One meaning of ‘cosmopolitan’ refers to an international bourgeoisie without loyalty to a particular country (Calhoun, 2002) or locality. Jews as ‘rootless intellectuals’ (the charge of rootlessness was shared to a great extent with the Roma), were charged with ‘cosmopolitanism’ both by the Nazi regime and by Stalin, who took up this aspect of Nazi and Russian populist thought. Jews were under constant suspicion of being considered ‘cosmopolitans’ and were deported to gulags in large numbers from this period and into the 1980s (Fine and Cohen, 2002). The charge, along with `Zionism’ was also borrowed in Poland in 1968, when it was used to purge Jewish intellectuals (Henner, 2004; Tych, 2005).

Antisemitic conspiracism mainly flourishes on the far right (e.g. the idea of a Zionist Occupation Government or ZOG (Berlet, 2004) or the ‘Jew’ World Order, a contemporary incarnation of the Protocols. However, such conspiracy thinking is at times also taken up on the left and has appeared in the anti-globalisation movement. For some (see accounts in Rifkin, 2003; Strauss, 2003), globalisation is seen as a(nother) Jewish conspiracy, in pursuit of Jewish financial interests and world domination. The fact that there is a disproportionately high percentage of Jewish people who participate in anti-globalisation movements (as well as many other left movements) is not capable of puncturing such mythological thinking. The globalisation ‘movement’ is of course a coalition and therefore contains many disparate elements. Some elements incline more towards cosmopolitan democratic views based on human rights; others are more populist in orientation and many campaigns are single-issue based (e.g. original people’s rights movements). Certainly for some, however, Jews as such are identified as arch-globalisers. As Naomi Klein wrote “…every time I log on to activist news sites like Indymedia.org which practise ‘open publishing’ I am confronted with a string of Jewish conspiracy theories about September 11 and excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Such aspects of movements which hold to ‘progressive’ ideas are little-analysed (e.g. see Mayo 2005) or else passed over as insignificant, and it is unusual for this to be taken up outside media oriented to Jewish readers/viewers. (However, see New Internationalist October, 2004; see Kiely 2005).

Again, many roads including that of the anti-globalisation movement lead back to Israel/Palestine. The situation is brutal, complex and encompasses much racism on both sides (Agbarieh, 2004). But it is necessary to state that it possible to support Palestinian rights and independence and to oppose the Israeli occupation, oppression of Palestinians and militarised violence without descent into antiSemitism, overt or covert.


vii) Some concluding/continuing thoughts:

This short review has attempted to show that antiSemitism, as one form of racism in Britain and internationally, has varied manifestations, contains a number of deep underlying myths and emanates from different sources in social and political terms. Within the left including some anti-racist circles, there exists a deep malaise about this issue such that it is painful and difficult to discuss. (Many Jews and some non-Jews raising this issue find their voices being suppressed as an embarrassment , or facing the [age-old….] accusation of ‘taking over (Jewish peace activist workshop 2004); many then lapse into silence.)

Although there exist many reasons for this, an (in part) understandable one is that anti-Jewish racism in Britain, as this paper has emphasised, is less dominant than other forms, particularly against Black, Asian and Muslim people. However, it is important to situate racisms in their context, and not to pit one against another (`who has suffered the most?’). Each has specific and usually intricate dynamics. Discussion of one type of racism does not preclude discussion of other types, or indeed discussion of forms of discrimination other than the ethnic/racialised.

This discussion finds that there is no completely clear disjuncture between anti-Jewish racism and other forms; rather, many linkages and similarities exist. At the same time, the history of religious antiSemitism and the images/imaginings this has left, along with political conspiracy theories have given this form of racism a great persistence, power and ‘migratory ability’. Work is needed to make detailed links between forms and expressions of different types of racism in Britain.
Doing so may help move beyond a static multicultural model to one of greater complexity and inclusiveness.



Dr. Susie Jacobs
Department of Sociology
Manchester Metropolitan University
June, 2005



NOTES:

1 However, the Jewish ‘community’ contains sub-communities especially among the highly observant/religiously orthodox that display a good deal of internal cohesion.

2 Although the ‘blackness’ of (Ashkenazi as well as Sephardi) Jews was originally stressed in many accounts , Jews like the Irish did eventually come to be classed as ‘white’, albeit inferior ‘whites’ (Jacobson, 2000; Lerner and West, 1996).

3 However, given the sometimes hard-to-decipher nature of antisemitism in Britain especially since WWII, Jews may be less aware than others who suffer racism that this is what they are experiencing. (For instance, the charge that Jews themselves foment or are responsible for antisemitism, e.g. through Israel’s misdeeds and/or through the ‘hidden hand’ of globalisation - is current in some populist circles….)

4 In fact no trained rabbis existed for many years in Britain due to lack of sufficient knowledge of Jewish law; therefore in Britain until the Eastern European migration yielded trained rabbis, this role was filled by ‘readers’ or ‘ministers’(Endelman, 2002)

5 Virginia Woolf referred to her husband Leonard Woolf as ‘the Jew’ in his presence, and complained of Jewish ‘dirt’; at the same time, these were presumably expressions of ambivalence as she married Woolf. (Endelman, 2002: 163)

6 This contrasts with more overtly multicultural societies such as the USA or Canada, where ethnicity is overtly marked and discussed, sometimes obsessively.




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