The Return of Religious Antisemitism Religious Return of The • Gunther Jikeli Gunther • The Return of Religious Antisemitism? Edited by Gunther Jikeli Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions www.mdpi.com/journal/religions The Return of Religious Antisemitism? The Return of Religious Antisemitism? Editor Gunther Jikeli MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin Editor Gunther Jikeli Indiana University USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special issues/anti). For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03943-497-8 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03943-498-5 (PDF) c 2020 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Editor .............................................. vii Preface by Catherine D. Chatterley .................................. ix Gunther Jikeli Is Religion Coming Back as a Source for Antisemitic Views? Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 255, doi:10.3390/rel11050255 ................... 1 Mark Weitzman “One Knows the Tree by the Fruit That It Bears:” Mircea Eliade’s Influence on Current Far-Right Ideology Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 250, doi:10.3390/rel11050250 ................... 9 Cary Nelson The Presbyterian Church and Zionism Unsettled: Its Antecedents, and Its Antisemitic Legacy Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 396, doi:10.3390/rel10060396 ................... 21 Giovanni Matteo Quer Israel and Zionism in the Eyes of Palestinian Christian Theologians Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 487, doi:10.3390/rel10080487 ................... 43 Ildik´oBarna and Andr´asKov´acs Religiosity, Religious Practice, and Antisemitism in Present-Day Hungary Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 527, doi:10.3390/rel10090527 ................... 61 Esther Webman Rethinking the Role of Religion in Arab Antisemitic Discourses Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 415, doi:10.3390/rel10070415 ................... 77 Daniel Rickenbacher The Centrality of Antisemitism in the Islamic State’s Ideology and Its Connection to Anti-Shiism Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 483, doi:10.3390/rel10080483 ................... 93 Navras J. Aafreedi Antisemitism in the Muslim Intellectual Discourse in South Asia Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 442, doi:10.3390/rel10070442 ...................103 v About the Editor G¨unther Jikeli holds the Erna B. Rosenfeld Professorship at Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at the Borns Jewish Studies Program. He is an associate professor in Germanic Studies and Jewish Studies at Indiana University. vii Preface to ”The Return of Religious Antisemitism?” This collection of articles focuses on a wide variety of subjects, involving antisemitism and religion, including three studies of Muslim discourse and four studies related to Christianity. The reader is asked to consider whether religion is returning as a source of antisemitism and if religious motifs play a significant role in the resurgence of antisemitism in this century. In addition to asking whether or not religion is returning as a source of antisemitism, one could also ask why twenty-first century perpetrators of antisemitic violence specifically use religion to both inspire and justify their criminal behavior. It is true that countless attacks perpetrated against Jews by Muslims have involved Islamic beliefs and motivation, while the two recent mass murders in Pittsburgh and Poway were perpetrated by Antisemitism who used Christian anti-Judaism to justify their murderous actions. These two men believed that Jews are orchestrating “the Great Replacement,” a revolutionary project in which the original Christian population is replaced by immigrants and refugees to permanently change the culture of the United States. Similar ideas exist in Western Europe and even more so across the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe where Christian nationalist identities have established a new presence in public and in politics as a bulwark against a variety of perceived threats, including resurgent left-wing politics, Muslim immigration, EU dominance, and the unrestricted flow of refugees. There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world today, who make up 31% of the global population, now estimated to be 7.3 billion people. The vast majority of these Christians—almost all, it is fair to say—are busy living their own lives and have little to no interest in Judaism, Jews, Israel, or antisemitism. Two small but prominent exceptions are the American Evangelicals, who are also Christian Zionists and members of organizations, such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI), as well as some members of American, Canadian, and British Protestant congregations. The former group is unique in the Christian world in that they subscribe to their own idiosyncratic understanding of the “end of days,” which places the Jewish people and the state of Israel (particularly Jerusalem) at the center of these apocalyptic events. Their devoted financial and political support for the state of Israel rests on this specific theological understanding, based on the ideas of John Nelson Darby and Cyrus Scofield, which do not exist in other Christian traditions and denominations. While Christian Zionist Evangelicals are a prominent and vocal component of Christian America, it is important to realize that they do not define or represent Christianity in any other region of the world. Members of some Protestant congregations in North America and Great Britain have become engaged in Middle Eastern politics through a Christian lens and advocate for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel in support of the Palestinians. This development is a more recent manifestation of the well-established Social Gospel that flourishes in Protestant churches in which Jesus’ teachings are applied to the social and economic problems of the day. It is also a reaction against—and a repudiation of—the militant Christian Zionism practiced by some Evangelicals in America, which is not scriptural or mainstream in the Christian world. For Christians in general, there is no necessary connection between biblical Israel and the contemporary Jewish state. This is also true, of course, for many secular people, including those who are also Jewish and/or Israeli. It is important today, as it was in the past, to recognize the distinct roles and experiences of Christian clergy, theologians, and laity. While debates about supersessionism, for example, may be of interest to the first two groups, it is not a dominant concern or common topic of conversation among individual Christians. However, given the unique nature of the historical development of ix Christianity out of Judaism, and the understanding of Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the Gospels, it is fair to say that supersessionism is inherent in Christianity despite attempts to compromise with it, or invent lighter versions of it as interfaith dialogue proponents have done since the 1960s. Christian attitudes about Jews are hard to gauge with any certainty. We simply do not know how these billions of people feel about Jews, but demography and geography demonstrate quite clearly that only a small minority know any Jews (14.6 million people worldwide) personally. The same is true for Muslims who constitute 24% of the global population (1.8 billion). According to the Pew Research Center, Christians are the most harassed religious group in the world today; harassed in 128 countries by governments or social groups. One wonders how this reality impacts Christian perceptions of religious discrimination and bigotry. There is no question that antisemitic themes, images, dynamics, and feelings have surfaced in Western societies alongside increasing political hostility toward the state of Israel. The postwar taboos governing public statements about Jews have evaporated and more and more people feel justified in their hostility toward Jews as supporters of a so-called “racist militaristic state.” Those few Christians who have become politically engaged in the battle between Israelis and Palestinians face unique pitfalls given the anti-Judaic nature and rhetoric of Christianity born out of the conflict between Judaism and the Jesus Movement as it evolved into a Gentile Church. Politics is a dirty business, and its practitioners will use any and all means to weaken and disable opponents. Harnessing Christian and Islamic anti-Judaism in the political war against Israel is a shrewd tactic and it has been used by people in both camps, though particularly by Islamists, to great effect. However, neither form of anti-Judaism is sufficient on its own. For those who use the full power of Jew-hatred against Jews and Israel, Christian and Islamic anti-Judaism is combined with the antisemitism