Towards the Endgame? The French Republic and its “Jewish question”

Abstract

One of the most disquieting aspects of these new forms of anti-Semitism is that they are not acknowledged as such. In France it took years for state authorities to recognise that attacks on Jewish communities were not a consequence of the conflict taking place in the Middle East, however hateful it may be, but the specific result of a new anti-Semitic deviation that unifies in one undifferentiated unicum hatred aimed at Western culture and democracy with hatred of Israel and Jews. In these new deviations of Islamist and no-global origin, anti-Semitism is at times even falsely presented as a form of “anti-racism”. In referring to the French case, the author analyses the serious cultural delay with which European culture addresses this new emergency, emphasising the limitations and ambiguities with which the problem has been analysed so far.