Offenders or Victims?: German Jews and the Causes of Modern Catholic Antisemitism

by Olaf Blaschke

Overview

Antisemitism is generally thought to derive from chimerical images of Jews, who became the victims of these projections. Some scholars, however, allege that the Jews’ own conduct was the main cause of the hatred directed toward them in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Olaf Blaschke takes up this provocative question by considering the tensions between German Catholicism and Judaism in the period of the Kulturkämpfe. Did Catholic resentments merely construct “their” secular Jew? Or did their antisemitism in fact derive from their perceptions of the conduct of liberal Jewish “offenders” during a period of social stress? Blaschke’s deeper look at this crucial period of German history, particularly as revealed in the Catholic and Jewish presses, provides new and sometimes surprising insights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803226845
Publisher:	University of Nebraska Press
Publication date:	12/01/2009
Series:	Studies in Antisemitism
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	373 KB

About the Author

Olaf Blaschke is an assistant professor of modern history at Trier University in Germany. He was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, England, as Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, 2001–2, and a visiting fellow at Lund University, Sweden, 2004–5. He is the author of Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich, 2nd ed.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Catholic Attitudes toward Jews
-Challenging Explanations of Catholic Antisemitism
-The Nature of Catholic Antisemitism
2. Jewish Attitudes towards Catholics
-Explaining Antisemitism with Regard to "Jewish Offenders"
-Explaining Catholic Antisemitism without Jews
3. Jewish Views of Catholic Antisemitism
-Emphasizing Good Relations between Jews and Catholics
-Presenting Catholic Antisemites as Exceptions
-Referring to Antisemitism Directly
Conclusion: Explaining Antisemitism without Reference to Jews
Sources and Literature
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Blaschke's work is as deeply research as it is valuable and suggestive."—William D. Rubinstein, Journal of Jewish Studies

Journal of Jewish Studies - William D. Rubinstein

"Blaschke’s work is as deeply research as it is valuable and suggestive."—William D. Rubinstein, Journal of Jewish Studies

— William D. Rubinstein

Journal of Jewish Studies