The New Anti-Semitism

In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling feminist and Jewish writer Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism has become newly fashionable, even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, America, and Western civilization. A dangerous, worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but profoundly misinformed students, right wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, pious academics, feminists, opportunistic European politicians, and sensation-seeking international media have joined together to once again blame the Jews and the Jewish state for the current world crisis. Today, lethal activism against the Jews often takes the form of anti-Zionism. Osama Bin Laden, for example, blamed the 9/11 World Trade Center attack on U.S. government support for Israel. Since then, hundreds of synagogues have been burned, cemeteries and destroyed, and Jews threatened, boycotted, beaten, and killed. Jews have been blamed for huge stock market losses and for the decline of the world economy. The long-ago disproven Protocols of Zion, which accuse the Jews of an alleged world-conspiracy to conquer and control the world, have been revived and promulgated in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. So what must we do? "Fight against the Big Lies," Chesler says. (No, the Jews do not control the world's money and media, and the Jews did not kill Christ.) Avoid rigid, dogmatic ideologies. Focus on the world's real problems (disease, poverty, illiteracy, violence) instead of scapegoating the Jews and demonizing the Jewish state. Be fair to Israel. Form Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Muslim, and Jewish-Palestinian alliances. Restore campus civility and above all, Jews must stop fighting among themselves.