The Peculiar Appeal of the “Jewish Question”: The Case of Left Antisemitism

Abstract

Antisemitism on the left remains a controversial subject of scholarly research. Analyzing the recent studies by David Hirsh and by Robert Fine and Philip Spencer, this article examines their contribution to a critical understanding of the debates surrounding Left antisemitism, past and present, as well as their origins and historical and ideational trajectories. The two studies illuminate the specific patterns of justification, rationalization, and distorted universalism by which anti-Jewish hostility emerged and developed in left-wing contexts, shedding light on the particular ways the "Jewish Question" has been posed recurringly on the left. Moreover, this research shows how leftist antisemitism and antisemitism denial, cloaked in discourses of progressivism, have helped facilitate what Hirsh calls "the mainstreaming of antisemitism" today.