That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti‐Semitic

An anti-rascist analysis of Left Antisemitism

Steve Cohen

• Publisher: Dolman Scott Publishing
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781916235724
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Discrimination & Race Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

"Steve Cohen's book "That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti-Semitic", looks at the history of Left antisemitism from a Marxist perspective. From the early Labour movement's support for the Aliens Act 1905, the Left's inability to stem the influence of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the antisemitism that rears its ugly head in social justice organisations, the Labour Party and among anti-Zionists – he charts it all. He wrote, "It is intolerable that the socialist movement has never been prepared to look at its antisemitism in a self-critical way." This one book changes that.

The Left antisemitism which worried Cohen – which inspired him to write this polemic – was not just wrong but a threat to the political Left itself. He knew that it could go mainstream on the Left if it was not defeated on the fringes. He fought this battle within the socialist Left because he knew, even then, that it was important.

Written in 1984, it still resonates today. The issue of antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party only increase its relevance and makes it a "must read" book for anyone wanting to learn more, and, maybe even, take action.

"A comprehensive but accessible analysis of how antisemitism has historically manifested on the Left."

Clive Lewis,Labour MP and co-founder of Momentum

The Left's Advice to Jews—Assimilate and Stop Being Jewish

Assimilationism

Running parallel with, and sometimes overlapping, the Left's infection by antisemitism as an ideology is a chauvinistic attitude towards Jewish culture. The content of Jewish culture is never actually discussed by the Left. Jews are viewed as one‐dimensional people. We are defined in terms of any combination of four variables: from one point of view we are defined in terms of religion or Zionism, an irreligious, anti‐Zionist Jew is simply deemed not to exist; from another point of view our existence is reduced to being either aggressors through Zionism or, less frequently, victims through antisemitism.

Genuine questions which should be of concern to socialists—such as the class content of Jewish culture, or the effects of imperialism on that culture, or whether it is possible to talk of a single Jewish culture, or what is positive, and why, about that culture—are hardly ever mentioned. Instead there is the assumption that Jews should forget their culture and assimilate. This chauvinistic and reactionary attitude is also one that has long been held by the Western European diaspora leadership, which believes that assimilation is the route to 'acceptance'. It also accords with the practice of imperialism of which the British is probably the best and most successful example. Thus British imperialism, following its Christian tradition, is an expert at engulfing, invalidating and then destroying all 'alien' forms. When confronted by a socialist tradition, which in practice advocates the same process, it is no wonder that progressive Jews find it hard to assert an identity that is both Jewish and socialist.

Left Orthodoxy

Assimilationism has today reached the status of a tenet of faith on the Left. Like most faiths this 'gospel' is simply assumed and is normally made explicit only when challenged, when it is then stated as dogma. Thus the editor of Socialist Challenge, Geoff Sheridan, made the stark statement in relation to Jews that "assimilation is not a process socialists would wish to halt" (November 13th 1980). This immediately begs the question—assimilation into what? The only culture that Jews can assimilate into in this country is a racist, sexist, capitalist and antisemitic one. If the revolutionary Left exists to promote this then it need not bother—British imperialism is possessed of far greater resources and experience.

Support for assimilation is support for British chauvinism. In reality, socialist practice in the UK is simply to ignore, and therefore be complicit in, the fact that this is a WASP2 country. Christian culture is somehow assumed dead and is in any event believed to stop at the church door. It is considered unremarkable that the leading 'revolutionary' press should have seasonal Christmas editions whilst the festivals of non‐Christian cultures are ignored or regarded as opiates. Indeed, it is a spurious and peculiarly Christian atheism which allows British socialists to welcome public holidays (holydays) within the Christian tradition, but tolerates a system where members of other religions are compelled to work or take unpaid leave during their own festivities.

Within the Left there is the rhetoric of 'support' for national and cultural minority rights. However, the idea that there may be anything positive within Jewish culture is simply dismissed. Socialist practice extends only as far as liberal patronage. Lenin is the most obvious example. His writings on these matters are collected in Lenin on the Jewish Question edited by Hyrnan Lumer and where all subsequent quotations can be found. Lenin wrote:

"It is the Marxist's bounded duty to stand for the most resolute and consistent democraticism on all aspects of the national question" (Critical Remarks on the National Question).

However, he immediately followed this by stating, "This task is largely a negative one". In other words, Lenin seemed to regard the substance of most minority cultures as being either reactionary or non‐existent. For instance, in referring to the Jews of Russia and Galicia (half the Jews in the world), he said that "Jewish national culture is the slogan of the rabbis and the bourgeoisie" (On the National Question). For Lenin the only alternative to ghettoisation was assimilation. A proper socialist position on these matters would permit and encourage a struggle within minority cultures against their own oppressive elements, whilst simultaneously waging a struggle against the chauvinism of the host culture. Lenin, however, established Left orthodoxy by his advocacy of assimilationism combined with patronising toleration of Jewish culture. Thus John Nolan in a letter to Socialist Challenge talks about the existence of sexual oppression within 'Judaism' and states that:

"This is not incompatible with our defence of oppressed groups— even if they hold views incompatible with our views of socialism" (January 1st 1981).

There is no recognition of anything beneficial within Jewish life—which is merely reduced to a matter of religion. In particular, there is no acknowledgement that there may be elements within Jewish culture which are in opposition to oppressive attitudes. It is interesting to know why John Nolan wants to 'defend' Jews—as he believes everything we stand for is incompatible with his views of socialism. Actually all he is willing to defend (if anything) is, apparently, the physical existence of Jews—our identity he will let rot.

To be specific, socialist practice disparages virtually everything to do with Jewish culture. Karl Kautsky, the leading Marxist theoretician of his period, wrote in 1914 of Polish Jewry that:

"They have preserved to this day a peculiar language, the so‐called Yiddish, a corrupt German—the only Jewish population in the world that has not assimilated the language of its environment" (Are the Jews a Race?, all further quotations from Kautsky can be found in this book).

Such a statement revealed a profound ignorance of other Jewish communities who had preserved their own languages. Most prominent were the Ladino‐speaking Jews of the Mediterranean, whose great centre until the Second World War was Salonika. Ladino is still in use today in areas of the Balkans.

Moreover, completely lacking from Kautsky's observation was the fact that for several hundred years prior to the holocaust, Yiddish was the autonomous and rich language of daily communication for virtually all of East European Jewry. It was a wonderful vehicle for the expression of Jewish imagination—through poetry, prose and drama. Fundamentally, Yiddish was not simply a language. It was the basis of a whole cultural life—Yiddishkeit. Kautsky reduces all such vital manifestations of communal life—a life split as in every community by class conflict—to German dialect.

Lenin—who likewise seemed to think that Jews lived only in Europe—was even more pernicious. In Critical Remarks on the National Question he divided Jewry into two groups—those from the East of Europe who were 'rabbis' and those from the 'civilised world' of Western Europe where:

"The great world‐progressive features of Jewish culture stand clearly revealed, its internationalism, its identification with the advanced movements of the epoch".

This is glib and patronising. Not only was the Marxist movement in Eastern Europe itself heavily composed of many Jews, not only is it left unexplained how 'rabbis' migrating West suddenly became proletarian internationalists, but Lenin displays complete ignorance in defining progressive elements within a culture exclusively in terms of its overt political expression. There is more to European Jewish culture than socialist thought—though this was certainly one of its achievements.

Assimilation as an Answer to Antisemitism?

Throughout most socialist literature about Jews there is a judgemental attitude which suggests that Jewish people should assimilate in order to avoid antisemitism. For instance, Lenin quoted Kautsky with approval, in relation to Russian Jews:

"Hostility towards non‐native sections of the population can only be eliminated when the non‐native sections cease to be alien and blend with the general mass of the population. This is the only possible solution to the Jewish question" (The Position of the Bund in the Party).

The modern Left crudely repeats this. Nigel Ward in an article in Socialist Challenge gave as one explanation for the holocaust the fact that Jews in Western Europe were not "assimilated into the fabric of Western society" (October 2nd 1982). Big Flame took this one step further when it claimed that Jews were attacked as they were "visibly different" (September 1982).

This advice that Jews should assimilate in order to avoid 'pogroms' is startlingly reactionary for various reasons, some of which are examined later. For the time being, it is merely necessary to point out that the Left echoes the Jewish establishment, which also advocates assimilation as a way of avoiding political struggles against antisemitism. Indeed, the Left is articulating a position which is almost identical to the 'aspects' of Zionism that it attacks with the most vehemence. Thus Zionism is seen as an avoidance of the necessity to fight against antisemitism—but this is precisely what assimilationism is. Furthermore Zionism is criticised for presupposing an 'eternal antisemite' who cannot be confronted but must be by‐passed through the creation of some form of national ghetto. In a sense, Lenin's position is even more extreme. He seems to believe in the eternal antisemite whom Jews can neither confront nor avoid but can only satisfy by unbecoming Jewish.

Jewish Survival Through Antisemitism?

The Left has a completely contradictory position on the relationship between Jewish survival and assimilation. It argues that assimilation is necessary for some form of survival, and simultaneously argues that Jewish culture and identity have only survived because of antisemitism. Whereas all other groups exist in spite of, and in opposition to, their oppression, Jews exist as a result of it! Amongst the classic Marxist writers, the clearest exponent of this view was Kautsky who wrote that:

"Judaism draws its strength—as a specific group segregated from its environment—from antisemitism alone. In the absence of the latter it would have been absorbed long ago ... When the Jews shall have ceased to be persecuted and outlawed the Jews themselves will cease to exist".

Similarly Geoff Sheridan wrote in his letter to Socialist Challenge:

"Jewish identity has been undermined in those societies where antisemitism has become relatively dormant".

Two examples will suffice to show that this view is not only politically suspect, but also obviously historically incorrect. In both Moorish Spain and immediate post‐revolutionary Russia, Jewish culture flourished in relatively favourable circumstances. It is an antisemitic my...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword, by Tom Cohen, 2019
• There Must be Some Way Out of Here, 2005
• Introduction, 1984
• The Socialism of Fools
• The Antisemitism of English Socialism’s Formative Years
• The Left Returns to Zion
• The Left's Advice to Jews—Assimilate and Stop Being Jewish
• Left Responses
• How The Left Does Not Fight Antisemitism
• The Non‐Jewish Question
• Bibliographical Sources