The New Antisemitism Is the Oldest Kind – WSJ

America s antisemites in those days were more fools than monsters. With exceptions Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, et al. their antisemitism seemed more snobbery than hate crime. It wasn t political, programmatic or fanatical. One evening in 1918, Eleanor Roosevelt (of all people) came home from a Washington dinner party for the financier Bernard Baruch and wrote to her mother-in-law that the Jew party was appalling.

The antisemitism that has poured forth onto the country s streets and campuses in the autumn of 2023 is a different thing a reversion to a politics of aggressive, unapologetic hate. The ominous historical regression at work in the latest Jew-hatred takes up the themes of the mid-1930s, the spirit of Hitler s brown shirts and Kristallnacht. Of course, the new Jew-haters especially young people on campuses think of themselves as perfectly virtuous. What is a thousand times worse, they think of their Jew-hatred as righteous. It s morally fashionable among them.

via www.wsj.com

I met LWJ in 1981 in New Canaan, Connecticut. She came from a Catholic family but New Canaan was one of the WASP suburbs of NYC. We couldn’t have our reception at the New Canaan country club — they didn’t accept Catholics or Jews. But the local monsignor played golf at the NCCC by some sort of arrangement. I’m sure plenty of Jews live in New Canaan now though and probably some Catholics too.