Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Robert Wistrich and University of Maryland, College Park professor Jeffrey Herf trace the history of anti-Semitism from its earliest recorded roots through the present.
Furthermore, they discuss the potential impacts of its modern-day resurgence.
Bio
Jeffrey Herf
Jeffrey Herf is professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World examines the Nazi regime's efforts to spread its ideas to North Africa and the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust.
Herf has lectured widely at major universities and research centers in the United States, Europe and Israel, and has also brought a historian's perspective to bear on issues of contemporary policy and politics in his contributions to The New Republic online and in essays in The American Interest, The International Herald Tribune, The National Interest, Partisan Review, The Washington Post and major German newspapers including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, and Die Zeit.
Christian Friedrich Ostermann
Christian Friedrich Ostermann is the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), an international clearinghouse for cold war research, and editor of the CWIHP Bulletin.
Before joining CWIHP in January 1997 as associate director, he worked as a research fellow at the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and repository based at George Washington University. He is a co-editor, Cold War History (London) and a Senior Research Fellow, National Security Archive (George Washington University). He also served as a Lecturer in History and International Affairs at George Washington University and Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University. He has been a consultant on several historical documentaries, including CNN/Jeremi Isaacs Productions' "COLD WAR" (1998).
Prior to coming to Washington, he studied in Bonn, Cologne and Hamburg and was a research fellow at the Commission for the History of Parliament and Political Parties, Bonn (Germany).
Robert Wistrich
Robert Wistrich is director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Neuburger professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A prolific author, Wistrich has written extensively on the history of anti-Semitism, Jews and socialism, Nazi Germany, and related topics. Between 1999 and 2001 Wistrich was one of six scholars appointed to an international Catholic-Jewish historical commission to examine the wartime record of Pope Pius the XII.
More recently, in June 2003, he initiated and acted as chief historical advisor for a BBC film documentary on contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism, entitled "Blaming the Jews." Since 2003, he has edited the research journal Anti-Semitism International and the Posen Papers in Contemporary Anti-Semitism. Most recently, Wistrich is the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad.
Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious group or “race.” Although the term anti-Semitism has wide currency, it is regarded by some as a misnomer, implying discrimination against all Semites, including Arabs and other peoples who are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood. In antiquity, hostility to the Jews emerged because of religious differences, a situation worsened as a result of the competition with Christianity. By the 4th century, Christians tended to see Jews as an alien people whose repudiation of Christ had condemned them to perpetual migration. Jews were denied citizenship and its rights in much of Europe in the Middle Ages (though some societies were more tolerant) or were forced to wear distinctive clothing, and there were forced expulsions of Jews from several regions in that period. Developed during the Middle Ages were many of the stereotypes of Jews (e.g., the blood libel, alleged greed, conspiracy against humankind) that have persisted into the modern era. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution brought a new religious freedom to Europe in the 18th century but did not reduce anti-Semitism, because Jews continued to be regarded as outsiders. In the 19th century violent discrimination intensified (seepogrom), and so-called “scientific racism” emerged, which based hostility to the Jews on their supposed biological characteristics and replaced religion as the primary basis for anti-Semitism. In the 20th century the economic and political dislocations caused by World War I intensified anti-Semitism, and racist anti-Semitism flourished in Nazi Germany. Nazi persecution of the Jews led to the Holocaust, in which an estimated six million Jews were exterminated. Despite the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, anti-Semitism remained a problem in many parts of the world into the 21st century.
Garbage! If this dude truly believes the stuff he's spewing, the joke's on him. By all means get his book (from the library), but supplement you reading by buying various titles by Noam Chomsky (chomsky.info) and Norman Finkelstein ( normanfinkelstein.com ), both of whom are of Jewish ancestry and truly care about world peace via accurately reporting what's really going on.
This is perhaps the most interesting discussion I have yet heard on this site. Throughout my entire life, I have seen the world's attention drawn to Israel, a tiny part of the world in the middle of a desert. My desire to understand the Arab/Israeli conflict as objectively as possible has lead me to books, discussions and other sources and I must say, I have been saddened and shocked by the hatred of Jews I have seen in otherwise reasonable people. I see both Western academics and the United Nations and the so called "human rights" community to be the fuel supply to global anti-semitism, as they have chosen those against Israel and Jews in every issue where Israelis and Jews around the world are at odds with others.
I am stunned that the leaders of Hamas and Hizbollah and Ahmadinejad and many Imams in Western European nations have not been indicted by these International "human rights" tribunals for their clearly genocidal incitements as well as actions that are unambiguously war crimes as defined by the United Nations. The silence of the "human rights" groups in response to the incessant shelling of civilian areas by Hamas from Gaza compared to the outrage over Israel's response to those shellings is almost unreal. Even those in these groups who believe Israel does have a right to defend itself give only lukewarm support and insist Israel's response must be "proportional." If Israel did respond "proportionally" to this shelling, they would launch missiles back into Gaza civilian areas, missile for missile, right?
I am convinced that envy is a primary reason that Arabs and others hate the Jews. This tiny nation with almost no natural resources, has built an advanced, democratic society and has contributed a tremendously disproportionate amount of scholarship, creativity, art, technology and other contributions when looked at in light of its tiny population. The Arab world, on the other hand, sits atop a bonanza of natural resource wealth (which they could neither dicover or develop without Western leadership) and has contributed almost nothing to the world in terms of cultural, intellectual, technological or scholarly achievement in the last several hundred years. Even educated Americans buy into the "Jews run the banks," or "Jews run America" nonsense.
I admire Israel and believe the world would be greatly diminshed without this mighty, proud state and its people. Where would any of you rather live, Israel or Pakistan? Israel or Yemen? Israel or Saudi Arabia? Israel or Chechnya? Israel or the suburbs of Paris?
Herf calls out critics on their double standard toward atrocities committed by terrorists, and those attacking him here in the comments are very obviously doing so because his points are hitting a little too close to home.
Criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic. However a double standard is. It's possible to piggyback bigotry and dishonest attacks on criticism by dishonestly ignoring the context, and displaying a double standard that demonstrates bias.
on the contrary i think a lot of people will agree with you, i have only watched the highlighted clip so far but i also found it rather lacking in substance and selfcontradictory.
I found some parts of it rather nauseatingly selfobsessed and indeed closely resembling conspiracy-theories... as for example the odd assertion that there would be some sort of extra close bond between what one of the lecturers calls "the jewish people" and historic events, that kind of hyperbolis bullshit is what is behind rasism and tribalism.
People are probably going to disagree with me but I though this was very near sighted, specially with respect to the "anti-semitism card" question and some other points, it is very common for a person to be branded anti-semitic just for being critical of the israeli government, regardless of you being a Jewish person yourself.
It generally follows that people that oppose the occupation end up being accused of anti-semitism. The whole fact that we need to discuss whether it is valid to consider the accusation of "anti-semitism" is due to the fact that it has been overused in completely trivial situations.
I reckon that anti-semitism, racism and even sexism are outdated terms since we live in a egalitarian society where everyone is deemed to be equal, the -isms can be dropped and replaced by the despicable action of someone being prejudice towards a fellow human being.
so overall I do reckon that the content of the talk was rather poor.
Brilliant talk! I need to get that book to read..:-) I feel great empathy with Jewish people but I wish they would identify themselves as Israelites and not by their religious affiliations. I think all religious beliefs should be kept very private (like political views). Maybe one day we will all wake up to the world free from religions. John would have been pleased..:-)
member. 
