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PARTISAN REVLEW
do believe is the longest-existing form of group prejudice, which has
shown an astonishing persistence, tenacity, and ability to adapt itself to
new circumstances.
Jews have had a special position in what we call, generally, Western
culture, or European civilization, certainly since the time of Christianity.
Although one of the important changes that has taken place in the
postwar world is the existence of a Jewish-Christian dialogue, we need
to recall that for something like two thousand years, the dominant reli–
gious and cultural force in Christendom defined itself in certain impor–
tant ways in terms of its own negation or supersession ofJudaism. It was
Christianity which decisively shaped a set of hostile attitudes towards
what was called "the deicide people," the people of Christ-killers, al–
legedly responsible for the ultimate crime imaginable - the crucifixion of
God himself. Jews represented in the minds of anti-Semitic and even
many non-anti-Semitic Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant or
Orthodox, the Old Covenant that had been superseded; they epitomized
a stubborn refusal to recognize the Messiah who had already come; they
were an obdurate, stiff-necked people. They were given the choice of
either conversion or living in perpetual servitude; the humiliation of exile
was the price for their blindness. The Church Fathers from the fourth
century onwards created a theology of rejection which was never for–
mally disclaimed until Vatican II in the 1960s. The consequences have
been enormous. I believe, again to speak telegraphically, that to the ex–
tent that anti-Semitism became a more or less universal phenomenon and
established such resonance within the larger culture, this resulted from the
Christian background. The Jew in effect became, from the time of the
Middle Ages, the personification of evil, the force that represented, or
was in league with the devil, or the devil's legions. The Jew was the
threatening antitype established by medieval Christianity, particularly by
the Roman Catholic Church, though the Protestant Reformation did
not initially improve matters much. Anyone familiar with the diatribes of
Martin Luther would be aware of that.
So even without going into the history of the worst incidents of
persecution during the period of dominance by the Christian churches,
such as the Crusades or the Inquisition, or the impact of social
segregation in ghettos, we need to be aware that anti-Semitism has a
central place in Western civilization. This influence was not only
theological in nature, but deeply entrenched in folklore, the visual arts,
drama, and popular culture in general.
Here was the bedrock on which the modern ideology of anti–
Semitism was constructed; through which new doctrines, new teachings,
new ideologies could be grafted that belonged to a more secular and
modern era. When we come to the period of the Enlightenment, which
