The Re-emergence of the Jewish Question | Fathom

The Jewish communities of Europe and the US increasingly find themselves caught between the rising forces of the far right on one side, and a coalition of the far left and radical Islamists on the other, argues Shalom Lappin. He explores the political economy of contemporary antisemitism and how it can be resisted. He explores the roots of today’s strongly anti-globalist agenda, of which hostility to Jews is such an integral component, in the financial crash of 2007- 08, the bank bail out, austerity and a long economic depression, exploding social inequality, dislocation and insecurity, all of which caused the social contract to fray, and extremist movements, previously relegated to the fringes of the political spectrum, to go mainstream. Responses to antisemitism, he suggests, must also be interested in devising a new progressive politics to repair the social contract and to ensure ‘new forms of democratic governance that offer national electorates effective means for influencing the international institutions and multinational corporations that have come to shape their lives’.This article will appear in The Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, Volume 2 No. 1, forthcoming in July 2019, and is published here by the kind permission of its editors. Download a PDF version here.