History of hatred, hatred of history: encounters between antisemitism and historical memory

This book aims to contribute into the contemporary “struggle for memory” by documenting the various encounters between antisemitism, history and collective memory. Its primary purpose is to explore various strategies by means of which the anti-Semites relate to historical events and concepts. It is an attempt to contribute to the discussions about the uses and abuses of historical and collective memory. In their analyses of antisemitic discourse, the authors strive to offer new perspectives on how has history been revised and rewritten in the antisemitic thought. The authors present a collection of case studies that inquire into the antisemitic concepts of history. Ivo Budil has analyzed the writings of Benjamin Disraeli and Ernest Renan to show how was the image of Jews shaped in the early racial ideology of the nineteenth century and what role did the various interpretations of history play in the formation of this image. A detailed insight into the thought of contemporary Czech antisemitism is offered in the two following chapters. Both of these chapters demonstrate the encounters between antisemitism and historical memory on particular examples from the Czech history. Věra Tydlitátová shows, how the contemporary Czech far-right circles relate to the historical personality of the Brst Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his legacy. The next study “Neo-Nazis on the Nation’s Boulevard” analyzes how the Czech far-right scene views the events of Velvet revolution and in particular, the day of 17th November, in which the revolution itself started. I am showing, how the most important Czech public holiday was “discovered” by the neo-Nazis and how did it move from the periphery to the center of the neo- Nazi and far-right discourse. Such analyses offer some crucial conclusions about the way the Czeh far-right constructs its own identity and relationship towards the mainstream society. The last chapter, written by Pavel Hošek, offers an insight into the question, how do the Jewish, rabbinic thinkers respond to antisemitism. Thoughts of one of the most important 20th century Jewish thinkers, Abraham Joshua Heshel, his re@ections on the problem of antisemitism and his response to this virulent hatred are thus closely explored