Antisemitism as a Group Phenomenon: An Essay in the Sociology of Judaeophobia

Peretz (Friedrich) Bernstein

1926

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This text erroneously presumes that all Jews are white. It provides insight into history; however, The Posen Library does not condone or promote uniform ideas about Jews or their race.

The Sources of Human Hostility

It is necessary to remember that hatred is constantly in human society directed and discharged against persons who could not possibly have been guilty of causing it. . . .

We must disabuse ourselves of the common notion that feelings of hatred occur only as reactions toward injuries and are directed toward those…

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Creator Bio

Peretz (Friedrich) Bernstein

1890–1971

The Dutch Zionist leader and Israeli politician Peretz Bernstein emigrated to Israel in 1935, where he was a prominent figure in the General Zionist and later Liberal parties. A member of the Knesset from its inception until 1965, he served as minister of commerce and industry in 1948–1949 and from 1952 to 1955. His pioneering study of antisemitism, first published in German in 1926, challenged the liberal assimilationist notion that education and the diffusion of knowledge would banish antisemitism. It also rejected the claim that the “negative” traits of insufficiently acculturated Jews in the diaspora encouraged antisemitism.

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