This 1939 description of antisemitism could have been written today

Rev. Charles Owen Rice

This article from JTA, published in September 1939, sounds like it could have been written today in regard to "anti-Zionists."

DISCUSSES ANTI-JEWISH ATTITUDE 

Priest Assails Those Who Say They Are Not. Opposed to "Good Jews." 

PITTSBURGH—Those who mask their anti-Semitism with the assertion that they are not opposed to "good Jews" were assailed by the Rev. Charles Owen Rice in an address he delivered yesterday at St. Joseph House of Hospitality here. 

"One of the features connected with the present wave of anti-Semitism that is being stirred up is that some of the leading purveyors of anti-Semitism hotly deny that they are anti-Semites," he said. "They employ a clever sophistry in their attempts to escape the stigma. They define anti-Semitism in a certain restricted sense and then they claim that their teachings and utterances -do not bring them under the term. "

"For instance, these enemies of the Jew will define anti-Semitism as persecution of the Jew because he is a Jew. They will hold that because, to their anti-Jewish attacks, they affix a rider saying that they exempt good Jews, therefore, they are automatically absolved of anti-Semitism. "

"As a matter of fact the unctuous employment of the 'good Jews' qualifier generally intensifies that anti-Semitism of the statements as whole. Also we can have attacks upon Jews, as Jews, without direct statements. The brutal crude, direct anti-Semitic utterances, are far less harmful than the subtle ones. 

"Off hand I can give a partial list of some of the more commonly used anti-Semitic statements and inferences.

 "It is anti-Semitism to exaggerate the power of Jews, whether it be power in finance, in industry, in newspaper publishing, in radio or anything else. 

"It is anti-Semitism to say or hint there is a mysterious central controlling Jewish, national or international. leadership. 

"It is anti-Semitism to exaggerate the clannishness of Jews. 

"It is anti-Semitism to speak of deliberate controlled Jewish campaigns against Christianity. 

"It is anti-Semitic to exaggerate Jewish participation in Communism and similar movements. 

"It is anti-Semitism to hint at, or charge, a tie-up between 'International Jewry' and International Masonry. The very term 'International Jewry' has definite ant-Semitic implications. 

"You will note that these effective types of anti-Semitism consist of lies. and exaggerations. Their harmfulness consists in their engendering a feeling of mixed fear and anger in the breasts of non-Jews. All of them have been proved false. They are damnably un-American, un -Christian and anti-social." 

Then, like now, antisemites denied being antisemitic.

Then, like now, antisemites attempt to re-define "antisemitism" to exclude themselves.

Then, like now, antisemites defend themselves by saying that there are some "good Jews" who agree with them.

Then, like now, the subtle antisemitism that hides as social justice is often more dangerous than the explicit kind.

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