Conceptualising Contemporary Antisemitism: How Debates About Immigration Have Shaped the Understanding of Jew-Hatred in Germany and Britain Since 1945
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Conceptualising Contemporary Antisemitism: How Debates About Immigration Have Shaped the Understanding of Jew-Hatred in Germany and Britain since 1945 by: Doerte Letzmann A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy September 2015 Declaration I, Doerte Letzmann, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Dated: 2 Conceptualising Contemporary Antisemitism: How Debates About Immigration Have Shaped the Understanding of Jew-Hatred in Germany and Britain since 1945 Doerte Letzmann Abstract This thesis is a comparative historical analysis of the understanding of an- tisemitism in Britain and Germany since 1945. Motivated by recent trends to equate antisemitism and anti-Muslim resentments { or Jews and Muslims, it shows where the idea came from that these two hostilities can be compared. It critically analyses how concepts of antisemitism have been framed by na- tional discourse and debates about identity and immigration by looking at the dynamic relationship between major events and debates about this issue and theorisations of antisemitism. The main finding is that although antisemitism is a global phenomenon, it is understood very differently in different contexts. Conceptualisations and comparisons differed between Britain and Germany, which is due to the ways in which national identity and racism in general were understood and critiqued. In Germany, there was, in reference to the Holocaust, a strong theoretical focus on antisemitism while racism and anti- Muslim resentments were initially much less dealt with, and later only through a prism of antisemitism theories. In Britain, racism theories developed in the context of colonial immigration and were open to an inclusion of particular anti-Muslim resentments, however, they not only largely omitted Jews as vic- tims of any form of discrimination, they also failed to include the Holocaust in their analyses. The thesis shows how the equations of Jews and Muslims that were later made grew out of these different theoretical contexts in the two 3 countries. In both countries, however, there have been trends to find universal- ising explanations for antisemitism, even though the explanations themselves remain particular and embedded into national discourse. 4 Contents 1 Introduction 8 2 The History of Antisemitism in Britain and Germany 27 2.1 Jews and Antisemitism in Britain . 28 2.1.1 Early History . 28 2.1.2 Readmission and Resettlement . 28 2.1.3 Emancipation and Immigration . 34 2.1.4 British Jewry in the interwar period . 44 2.1.5 Jews and antisemitism in contemporary Britain . 49 2.2 Jews and Antisemitism in Germany . 50 2.2.1 Jews in medieval Germany . 50 2.2.2 Emancipation . 54 2.2.3 The Holocaust . 67 2.2.4 Jews in postwar Germany . 69 3 The Development of Post-War Antisemitism Theories in Britain and Germany 73 3.1 Britain: Understanding antisemitism through colonial immigra- tion . 74 3.1.1 Psychological approaches to antisemitism in the 1950s and beyond . 75 3.1.2 Approaches to domestic antisemitism . 79 3.1.3 Managing `Race Relations' . 86 3.2 Germany: Theorising antisemitism after the Holocaust . 105 3.2.1 Denial of Guilt . 106 3.2.2 Understanding Antisemitism: Voices from Exile . 108 3.2.3 German historians and antisemitism . 113 3.2.4 The Left and anti-capitalism . 116 3.2.5 Addressing post-war antisemitism: social-psychological approaches . 118 5 Contents 3.2.6 Approaches to anti-foreigner hostility in the 1960s and 1970s . 128 3.2.7 Understanding antisemitism differently: Britain and Ger- many in comparison . 138 4 Explaining past and present antisemitism: The big debates of the 1980s 140 4.1 Britain: Racism, minority recognition and the double squeeze on antisemitism theories . 140 4.1.1 From interactionist to critical racism theories . 141 4.1.2 Developments in racism research . 143 4.1.3 The Rushdie affair and anti-Muslim resentment . 151 4.1.4 Downplaying antisemitism . 158 4.1.5 Zionism and anti-Zionism . 161 4.2 Germany: Remembering the past, forgetting the Jews . 170 4.2.1 Historikerstreit . 175 4.2.2 The study of antisemitism . 179 4.2.3 The Fassbinder Affair . 187 4.2.4 Discourse analytical approaches . 194 4.2.5 Similarities to Britain: German multiculturalism? . 196 4.2.6 Religion and Recognition: Turks in Germany . 199 4.2.7 Thinking about antisemitism in a multicultural society . 202 5 The 1990s and beyond: universalising and comparing antisemitism204 5.1 Britain: Conceptualising Antisemitism in a multicultural society 205 5.1.1 New ways of thinking about minorities and citizenship . 205 5.1.2 Forging alliances . 210 5.1.3 The Narrative of Waves of Immigration . 214 5.1.4 Comparing Jews and Muslims in Britain . 216 5.1.5 The Jewish `Other': theories of antisemitic discourse . 217 5.1.6 Post-structuralist and post-colonial approaches to racism 225 5.1.7 A new antisemitism? . 228 6 Contents 5.1.8 The emergence of `Islamophobia' . 235 5.1.9 The `new' racism and comparisons with antisemitism . 241 5.1.10 Orientalism . 244 5.1.11 The Orientalised Jew . 249 5.2 Germany: Conceptualising Antisemitism in the context of a new found national self-understanding . 253 5.2.1 Right-wing extremism and theories of deprivation . 254 5.2.2 Remembering the Holocaust: the Goldhagen debate . 258 5.2.3 Remembering the Holocaust in a multicultural context . 265 5.2.4 Understanding antisemitism in multicultural societies: the theory of `group-related hostility' . 267 5.2.5 German multiculturalism . 268 5.2.6 Ethnic minority research . 271 5.2.7 Comparing Antisemitism and `Islamophobia' in Germany 279 6 Conclusion 284 7 1 Introduction This thesis is concerned with the development of conceptualisations of con- temporary antisemitism in Germany and Britain in the context of labour im- migration from the postwar years onwards. It is motivated by recent trends to emphasise comparisons between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hostilities. In the past decade it has been increasingly asserted by commentators, academics and politicians that Muslims are the `new Jews'. In both Britain and Germany, commentators have argued that antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiments have significant similarities. The aim of this research is not to become part of this trend by listing similarities { or differences { between antisemitism and `Is- lamophobia'1 or Jews and Muslims. Instead, it seeks to trace the origin of the idea that the two hostilities can be compared and the reasons why compar- isons are deployed. In an interdisciplinary framework, it uses a comparison between Britain and Germany as a methodological tool to examine conceptu- alisations of antisemitism and comparisons with anti-Muslim resentments in specific national contexts. The basic argument is that comparisons between antisemitism and Islamophobia promote certain narratives of national iden- tity. Comparisons are part of a narrative that determines how the past is related to and that assigns the place of Jews and Muslims within wider soci- ety. This thesis shows that this narrative significantly differs between Britain and Germany. In the case of Britain, this means that comparisons support the perception of Britain as a multicultural country of immigration, in which Mus- lims, just like Jews, will naturally progress to become British. In the case of 1Although usage of the term `Islamophobia' has become an established practice, it is highly contested and will therefore not be used as an accepted term in this thesis. For a discussion of this issue see chapter 4. 8 1 Introduction Germany, comparisons are part of a `discourse of normalisation' that seeks to normalise the German past and reinvent a positive German identity by equat- ing antisemitism with hostilities against other minority groups. The result is that in both countries, dominant concepts of antisemitism fail to acknowledge its particularity. This introduction will give a brief overview over the research that has been undertaken so far, and outline structure and methodology of the thesis. This thesis originally started out as a comparison between antisemitism and Islamophobia in the context of recent debates about this issue. In both Ger- many and Britain, it had been increasingly asserted that `Islamophobia' is very similar to, or has indeed substituted, antisemitism. One example for this was the reaction by German historian and antisemitism researcher Wolfgang Benz to the racist remarks of Thilo Sarrazin, former financial senator for Berlin and then chairman of the German federal bank, in September 2009. Sarrazin had stated in an interview for the cultural magazine lettre international in Berlin that he does \not have to accept anyone who lives off this state, rejects this state, does not properly care for their children's education and continuously produces little veiled girls. That is true for 70 percent of the Turkish pop- ulation and 90 percent of the Arab population in Berlin". He also pointed out that \a large number of Arabs and Turks in this city do not have any productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables and are unlikely to develop any perspective".2 Although his statements found supporters, among them German-Turkish feminist Necla Kelek, it also resulted in a threat to ex- clude him from the Social Democratic Party - as he was accused of harming the party's image - as well as in a sharp reduction of his responsibilities at the federal bank. Benz equated Sarrazin's statements with the anti-Jewish remarks that were made in Germany in the late 19th century. He argued that statements like that of historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896), who warned that the \ambitious, trouser selling youngsters" who pour into 2See \Sarrazin muss sich entschuldigen", 1 October 2009, in: Zeit Online [online].