Tracking the spread of an infectious social disease in eastern Europe

A survey published this month reveals the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, Russia and America. Prof Jerzy Holzer, of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, charts the history and trends of this "social disease" in the countries of eastern Europe
EAST European anti-Semitism arises from the large number of Jews who lived in a region of a distinct multinational character. It was promoted by the shaping among Jews of distinct senses of nationality which drew them inexorably into the current of national conflicts.
Although the Jews of Western Europe were also involved economically outside agricultural production — in the professions and in intellectual life — it was characteristic in Eastern Europe for trade and the crafts, and later the professions, to be saturated by Jewish people. Not infrequently Jews would form the majority, and this was a source of antagonism between or within social groups.
Today this specific set of circumstances is, of course, history. The great majority of Jews were murdered during the Second World War; many survivors emigrated in the following decades. Only in Hungary and in some areas of the former USSR are Jews to be found in any significant numbers they are usually well-assimilated and hold relatively strong positions in intellectual circles.
East European anti-Semitism is saturated with relics from half a century ago. A source of antiSemitism is the defensive posture adopted in relation to memories of the Holocaust. In some East European countries, the murder of Jews took place with the active co-operation of a certain portion of the populace (in particular in Slovakia, Croatia, the Ukraine and the Baltic states).
hi other countries, the fate of the Jews was met with indifference or they were blackmailed or robbed by people exploiting their peril (which happened in Poland). This defensive East European antiSemite will therefore apportion blame to Jews for inciting antiSemitism, whilst at the same time playing down its importance. The apologist, defending himself from the spectre of the Holocaust will say that, over the decades and even centuries, Jews behaved inamicably towards the remaining population; yet he will also minimalise the meaning of antiSemitism in particular countries in the extermination of Jews.
A further source of antiSemitism became Jewish responsibility for communism in the region. Like early socialism, communism gained the sympathy of a substantial part of East Europe's Jewish population, because it promised full and de facto equal rights. It cannot be denied that in those East European nations which had communism imposed on them after the Second World War, Jews felt sympathy towards the new regime.
Thus arose the strange mixture that can be encountered today in the minds of anti-Semites in Eastern Europe: Jews have to answer for their pre-war wealth and for their pre-war poverty, dirtiness and smell. Jews have to answer for introducing communism and for its "distortions". Jews have to answer even for responsibility for their own extermination.
In the opening phase of the changes that are liquidating the communist system, it did not take much for this primitive brew to play a strong part in social life. Like many aggressive psychoses, anti-Semitism is strident; it throws itself at the eyes and ears of outside observers, which does not necessarily equate with its universal presence: the countries of Eastern Europe have not yet shaped their own mature civic societies, which can marginalise spokesmen for extreme views without the need for police or administrative repression.
Not overestimating the reach of anti-Semitism, one must likewise not ignore it. Its re emergence has resulted from the overall situation in which the region finds itself. The breakdown of the social norms, the collapse in living standards for many people, disenchantment and both communism and with the process of post-communists transformation, has created much frustration. It is not by chance that there is a wide demand for conspiracy theory views of history among people seeking an escape from "dirty" politics.
Against this background antiSemitism is renewed though often without a clear focus because it is not evident where the Jews who are to blame for current woes are to be found. It is characteristic that in Polish elections the parliamentary election of 1989, presidential election of 1990, and the parliamentary election of 1991 — mass gossip ascribed "Jewishness" to randomly chosen politicians, even those without any Jewish antecedents. In those elections; anti-Semitism was directed intensively against nonJews whilst avoiding politicians from Jewish or mixed, assimilated or converted backgrounds.
Anti-Semitism in East Europe in 1992 cannot be separated from growing disorientation and aggression. It manifests itself in xenophobia (pogroms against gypsies in the Czech republic and in Poland, pogroms against Africans and Poles in former East Germany, anti-Czech attitudes in Slovakia, the bloody events in former Yugoslavia), in manners becoming more uncouth, in the use of force to settle disputes, a and public arguing. These would have only occurred on the fringes of society and would not have spread into the wider sphere of social life were it not for the growing crisis throughout the region. Real danger, however, begins only when anti-Semitism is seized as an instrument to be exploited and it is easier to exploit than other forms of aggression. In East Europe,Anti Semitic political parties or movements do not play a more important role, because it is difficult to construct a policy platform around anti-Semitism. However, it is easy to notice incidental, and at the same time instrumental, thinly veiled uses of the anti-Semitism weapon on political skirmishes between groups who publicly distance themselves from it.
These forms of allusion have manifested themselves In Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Contemplation of likely future developments in Russia fills one with unease; widespread antiSemitic emotions appear strongest there. As a rule the poisoned blade is wielded by parties tending towards the "left". (Defining political positions in East Europe is difficult; there is a long way to go before fix unambiguous labels on individual parties.
One should not exaggerate nor over-rate the danger. The greatest peril lies in Russia, the most strongly frustrated and least stable country.
In other countries, antiSemitism in a serious ethical and aesthetic failing, but one which does not threaten greater dangers. But wherever it arises, it should be met with clear opposition i the affected country and in world public opinion.
A particular role falls to intellectuals and to churches. Intellectuals are called upon to unmask nonsense. Churches must battle steadfastly with the relics of anti-Semitism, carried over through the centuries in the spirit of Christians against Jews. And, finally, we are all individually called upon to stand against antiSemitism. It is a social disease that by infecting one person infects all.
This article first appeared in the quarterly International Minds.