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ROBERT S. WISTRICH
his trade. Is this phenomenon really susceptible to the rules of logic and
historical evidence? Is anti-Semitism ultimately explicable any more than
we can explain the mystery of Jewish survival and the tenacious clinging
to a vocation and an identity that has exacted so high a price in trials
and tribulations over the centuries? Is there really anything new in the
endless accusations that have echoed across the centuries from Haman to
Hitler? Is there any meaning to be extracted from the myths, the stereo–
types, the fantasies and obsessions that have characterized the anti-semitic
discourse for more than two millennia? Is there any answer to the ago–
nizing question of why this people has been subjected to such a seemingly
unending catalogue of persecution and discrimination?
The historian cannot in my view give any definitive reply to these
questions. What he can do is to provide as lucid an account as possible
of the path along which different anti-Jewish traditions have been trans–
mitted. He can examine their continuities and metamorphoses according
to changing conditions; he must try to illuminate the mechanism and
consequences of anti-Semitism in different social, cultural and political
contexts. While recognizing the astonishing longevity and persistence of
the phenomenon, the similarity and even repetitiveness of much of the
anti-semitic discourse, he must also be alive to its adaptability to new
circumstances and its constant capacity for renewal. There is no universal
key to the understanding of anti-Semitism, nor should it be seen as a
completely intractable phenomenon of equal intensity at different times
and in different places. The historian may be ultimately unable to explain
the "why" of this extraordinarily complex phenomenon, but if he can
demonstrate "how" it came to develop into what we are witnessing to–
day, then that, too, is a measure of progress.
