Analyzing Antisemitic Feindbilder

Wodak, Ruth (2023) Analyzing Antisemitic Feindbilder. In: Kontinuität und Aktualität des Antisemitismus :. Wochenschau Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, pp. 89-107. ISBN 9783734415616

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Abstract

Soon after the end of World War II, Adorno (1963 [1959]) coined the term ‘secondary antisemitism’ to address public opinion in post-war Germany, which held that the Jews were exploiting Germany’s guilt over the Shoah. Usually, justifications and denials used in response being accused of antisemitic beliefs or utterances abound in political debates and the media, typically as elements of blame avoidance (Wodak 2018). Victim–perpetrator reversals also occur frequently, specifically when Jews are (again) instrumentalized as scapegoats for common woes. In a nutshell, as the historian Tony Judt states, ‘what is truly awful about the destruction of the Jews is not that it mattered so much, but that it mattered so little’ (2008, 14).