What is Secondary Antisemitism – A Brief Summary

• Secondary Antisemitism is a post-Holocaust antisemitic narrative and a central cog in modern globalized antisemitism

This expression of Jew-hatred is a key narrative in various formulations for multiple strains of antisemitic discourse including the extreme right, extreme left and Islamic forms of antisemitism. As noted by some scholars, secondary antisemitism is often explained as being generated or forged by the Holocaust and the resulting taboos related to open expression of antisemitism, as opposed to other antisemitic narratives which flourish despite it.

“Since open antisemitism …. after 1945 was associated with Auschwitz… and was censored… antisemitic statements had to be rephrased to avoid being labeled as such. The result of this transformation … can be characterized as an ‘antisemitism without antisemites’”. However antisemitism since 1945 is just characterized by the absence of self-labelled antisemites, but also by ‘secondary antisemitism”, which broadly defined, is any form of antisemitism that is itself a reflection of the taboo of expressing antisemitism.”^[1][1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/one-in-20-britons-does-not-believe-holocaust-happened ; https://web.archive.org/web/20090305065118/ ;  http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/material/pub/AS/Antisemitism_Overview_December_2006_en.pdf

In short it is a form of Jew-hatred crafted from the Holocaust framework itself rather than existing despite it. 

• The Ontology of Soft-Core Secondary Antisemitism

Goldhagen succinctly summarizes the spectrum of this “soft core” hatred: “It takes many hues from denying that the Germans slaughtered Jews, to treating the Holocaust in an antiseptic, falsifying way, in order to minimize or conceal its horror, to admitting that the Germans exterminated Jews but saying that, owing to the Jews’ nature or the danger they posed, the Germans were justified in eliminating them, or to saying that the Holocaust was not such a major historical event and does not warrant the attention it receives, because eliminationist assaults against other peoples have also been perpetrated—and that whatever actually happened to the Jews, the most significant fact, as usual, is that Jews exploit the past to harm other peoples, especially Germans and Palestinians….”^[2][2] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (p. 352). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. As similarly noted in the IHRA definition of Holocaust denial and distortion: “Forms of Holocaust denial also include blaming the Jews for either exaggerating or creating the Shoah for political or financial gain as if the Shoah itself was the result of a conspiracy plotted by the Jews. In this, the goal is to make the Jews culpable and antisemitism once again legitimate. The goals of Holocaust denial often are the rehabilitation of an explicit antisemitism and the promotion of political ideologies and conditions suitable for the advent of the very type of event it denies.”^[3][3] https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-holocaust-denial-and-distortion

• The Pervasiveness and Insidiousness of Soft-Core Secondary Antisemitism 

Dr. Clemens Heni explains: “Those who generate such a soft-core denial do not often refer to the Holocaust as a lie or fabrication by Jews or their sympathizers. It is much more subtle. Disguising history by talking about history is the unstated aim. Research on anti-Semitism must be vigilant in the coming years to develop new strategies to fight this new brand of Jew-hatred. Soft-core denial today is already at least as dangerous and widespread as Neonazi, Islamic or Iranian varieties: liberals, left-wingers, conservatives, clergy and scientists of all persuasions are using this form of post-Auschwitz anti-Semitism in good conscience.”^[4][4] https://jcpa.org/article/secondary-anti-semitism-from-hard-core-to-soft-core-denial-of-the-shoah/

Continue Reading:Secondary Antisemitism: Denying and Diminishing the Holocaust

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