The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi by Johann Chapoutot (review)

Abstract

377 It is true that we dare not ignore the prevalence of anti-Jewish prejudice. In crisis situations, the mindlessly prejudiced as well as the fanatical haters can provide the shock troops of highly dangerous mass movements. But it is those movements and their organizers that should be our focus. Prejudice is dangerous only when it is organized to some purposeful end. A narrower definition of antisemitism would be of more practical use in the fight against organizers. Antisemitism is not first and foremost a way of thinking about Jews. From its inception as a politically organized movement in the 1880s, it has been a coherent ideology aimed at disempowering Jews, threatening their rights and, ultimately, their lives. It has always represented a much greater, more direct peril to their existence than the harboring of vile thoughts about them. Habits of mind are hard to change, as Lipstadt well knows. By contrast, the individuals and groups that seek to mobilize hatred against Jews can be fought effectively—in courts of law, through surveillance, and by public confrontation. The struggle against them must be unceasing, as this book amply shows.