Anti-Semites of right and left

Recently in The Forward and in the New York Times reference was made to the revival of Jewish culture in Poland. Jewish style restaurants opening, klezmer bands playing, derelict synagogues being restored, a Festival of Jewish culture every June which brings thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. “The only thing missing, really,” the Times reporter noted, “are Jews.” Both pieces discussed the usually tortured relationship between Poles and the Jews who used to live among them. Before the Nazi invasion one-tenth of the population was Jewish (3.5 million people), now there are only about 10,000 in the whole country. Before the Nazis, Poland was a land of persecution. After the Nazis there were renewed pogroms when surviving Jews tried to return home, and again in the late '60s in response to the Communist anger over the success of Israel in '67 and the associated “blame the Jews for the civil unrest” of 1968. A Polish friend tells me that to this day Poles see the greatest threats to their national existence coming from Germany, Russia and the Jews. He added that he was not listing the perceived threats in order. “But there are no Jews in Poland,” I said. “Yes,” he said “but there are anti-Semites.” So this Jewish revival, largely by Christians, is as welcome as it is surprising. But why this sudden interest in reviving a destroyed culture? Maybe its a progressive counterpoint to conservative nationalist strains in Polish politics.

In another Times story complaints are made about a Polish priest, Tadeusz Rydzyk who has a radio program which he has used as a springboard to create “a conservative Catholic media empire.” Both on the air and in secretly taped conversations Fr. Rydzyk has been heard making anti-Semitic remarks. He says that he is the victim of entrapment and suggests that the tapes had been tampered with, but he's not denied making the statements.

An American friend, who loves to send me stuff off the Internet demonstrating that “the left” is becoming, or already is, anti-Semitic, sent me a story out of England. Caveat: I trust nothing that people send on the Internet without first running it through one or more of the urban legends sites. I've seen nothing yet that contradicts this, but I can't swear to it. The piece says that opposition to the Iraq war and loathing of Israel has led the self-styled 'anti-racist' Left to make common cause with Islamonazis. And “anti-Zionism” soon tips over into straight- forward Antisemitism. A Daily Observer columnist comments on what he calls the casual anti-Jewish sentiment around Left-wing dinner tables and in the salons of Islington. (In the 1930's, of course, it was conservatives who held these dinner parties and over the table made snide anti-Jewish remarks.) He is appalled by the way in which his old comrades-in-arms have embraced terrorist groups like Hezbollah, one of the most anti-Semitic organizations on Earth. There's more, but you get the point. A Labour MP says he's disgusted at the way many on the Left have become almost casually and routinely anti-Semitic. “We wouldn't have seen this ten or 15 years ago. This idea that in some way there's a conspiracy of Jews running the world goes back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the last century. We've seen this before, and now it's resurgent.” The author of the Internet piece concludes with the usual “the American left is anti-Israel” statement that makes me suspect the validity of the whole. Well, to right wing ideologues, I guess that's true, but there are many people left of center, farther left than I am (if you can imagine such a thing) who love Israel and what it has been able to accomplish despite its myriad problems. And there are no right-wing anti-Semitic bigots here? P'lease!
So what gives here? Conservatives are anti-Semitic in Poland, Liberals are anti-Semitic in England. Was Herzl right? Do Jews carry antisemitism with us in our knapsacks as we are forced to wander from place to place? He was writing in a different era, of course, when from Russia to France anti-Jewish outbreaks were endemic (pogroms in the former, Anti-Dreyfusards in the latter). Or in the post-holocaust world is “anti-Semite” merely what you call your political opponents? Comments?