IIIa. Reading Lafferty Through Rosenfeld and Marcus

"Rita, did you know that the Jews believe that the Jews are a handsome people," Cecelia Ching Brass jibed. "Really. And how odd it is. I found it out, quite by accident from a chance remark of Julius here. The implications of it open up an entirely new fantasy world, a world in which the Jews really are handsome, and everything likewise is upside-down." "I'm not sure what the Chinese think about the Chinese," Julius said, "but I have heard that the Irish really do believe that the Irish are handsome. But then the Irish have always lived in a fantasy world in which indeed everything is upside-down. But the belief that the Irish are handsome is the origin of the golden lie, that blatant falsehood. Odd, odd, odd, that such a delusion should take hold of a people, and how odd that you should abetit, Rita." In a Green Tree

I continue to reflect on Belloc and to think about the nature of Lafferty's antisemitism. What is proving to be useful are academic frameworks. One of the best recent books on the history of topic is Ivan G. Marcus's How the West Became Antisemitic (Princeton UP, 2024). "Chapter Nine, Antisemitisms: Medieval and Modern" is worth reading and can be found here:

Chapter Nine.pdf

Download PDF • 137KB

I’ll wrap up by outlining the chapter and explaining how I’d contextualize the quote from In a Green Tree that begins this post.

Also helpful are academic typologies of antisemitism, one of the best being Deciphering the New Antisemitism (Indiana UP, 2015). It offers the following typology:

Category	Manifestation	Description	Theorist	Examples
I. The "New" Antisemitism (Post-Holocaust / Post-1948)	Ideological Anti-Zionism / Israel as the "Collective Jew"	Defines contemporary antisemitism as an ideology that projects traditional antisemitic concepts of "the Jew" onto the State of Israel, which is treated as the "collective Jew." This framework analyzes how hostile beliefs about Jews are manifested culturally in myth, folklore, and imagery directed against Israel, urging its restriction, exclusion, and suppression as a solution to the "Israel problem."	Kenneth L. Marcus	The demonization of Israel in international forums, accusations of dual loyalty against diaspora Jews, and the application of classic antisemitic tropes (e.g., control of media, finance) to the State of Israel.
	Competitive Victimhood / Inversion of the Debt	Argues that a key feature of the new antisemitism is the equation of Islamophobia with historical antisemitism, positioning Muslims as the "new Jews" and, consequently, Jews/Israelis as the "new Nazis." This dynamic operates on three principles: 1) The Inviolability Principle: Islam is framed as a protected category beyond criticism. 2) The Equivalence Principle: Hostility toward Islam is presented as morally and structurally identical to antisemitism. 3) The Substitution Principle: The Muslim replaces the Jew as the world's primary victim, appropriating the historical uniqueness of Jewish suffering (the Shoah) to claim a moral debt from the West.	Pascal Bruckner	Young Muslims in Grenoble protesting a headscarf ban by wearing armbands with crescents, evoking the yellow star. Tariq Ramadan's claim that the situation of European Muslims is similar to that of Jews in the 1930s.
	Left-Wing Antisemitism	Manifests not necessarily as overt hatred but through a set of discursive practices within the contemporary political Left. Central features include: a disproportionate focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over all other global issues; the trivialization or denial of antisemitism as a relevant political problem ("antisemitism denial"); and the use of anti-Zionism as a subcultural code for belonging within the progressive milieu.	Sina Arnold	The Occupy Wall Street movement, where overt antisemitic signs were present but the issue was largely dismissed. The Livingstone Formulation, where any accusation of antisemitism is reflexively dismissed as a bad-faith tactic to silence criticism of Israel.
II. Intellectual & Cultural Antisemitism	Virtuous Antisemitism	A form of anti-Judaism that exists "beyond hatred" and is characterized as a phenomenon of "high culture." It is not expressed through vulgar racism or violence but through sophisticated, intellectualized discourses that perpetuate antisemitic ideas from a position of supposed moral or intellectual superiority.	Elhanan Yakira	Historical figures like Blaise Pascal, whose theological writings expressed admiration for the Jewish people's endurance but also justified their suffering as divine punishment. Ernest Renan, whose philological and historical work, while not hateful, created a framework of Jewish spiritual and cultural inferiority.
	Benign / Negative Virtuous Antisemitism	Consists of nonviolent, often implicit negative attitudes reflecting fictionalized images of the Jew. It manifests as a silent, semi-aesthetic discomfort in dealing with Jews, which is considered "harmless" in direct impact but contributes to a pervasive cultural murmur of antisemitism.	Elhanan Yakira	Jean-Paul Sartre's depiction of the "gentle antisemite" who would never commit violence but harbors a vague repulsion based on stereotypes, justifying it through mauvaise foi (bad faith).
	Positively Virtuous Antisemitism	Describes anti-Judaism originating from the "heights of culture" and "high moral grounds." It is an antisemitism created and propagated by intellectual, spiritual, and cultural elites who frame their views not as prejudice but as authentic moral or philosophical positions.	Elhanan Yakira	The long tradition of anti-Jewish discourse among major Western intellectual figures (e.g., Kant, Voltaire, Hegel) whose ideas provided the sophisticated underpinnings for later, more virulent forms of antisemitism.
III. Antihistorical Antisemitism	Holocaust Denial, Evasion, and Minimization	Defined as a "war against memory" and a continuation of the Nazi assault on the Jews. This form is not a genuine historical dispute but an ideological project rooted in antisemitism that seeks to deny the ethical and metaphysical testimony of Judaism by erasing its ultimate historical trauma.	David Patterson, Bernard Harrison, Aryeh Tuchman	The work of deniers like Robert Faurisson and Ernst Zündel, and state-sponsored denial from Iran. The "Uniqueness Debate," in which attempts to universalize the Holocaust can serve to de-Judaize it and strip it of its specific historical meaning.
	Radical Denial	The explicit, pseudo-scientific claim that the Holocaust did not occur, focusing on denying the existence or function of gas chambers and questioning the number of victims.	David Patterson	The activities of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which promotes revisionist history, and the claims of figures like Fred Leuchter who produced fraudulent "engineering" reports on Auschwitz.
	Evasion (Psychological & Intellectual Denial)	Subtle forms of denial that manifest as trivializing, relativizing, or de-Judaizing the Holocaust. This includes avoiding the term "evil," focusing exclusively on non-Jewish victims, or framing the Holocaust as just one of many genocides without acknowledging its unique characteristics, thereby relieving it of its "weightiest moral and intellectual demands."	David Patterson	Holocaust museum boards that speak of "victims and trauma" in general terms but speak "less and less about the Jews." Left-wing academics who relegate the Holocaust to a secondary concern behind colonialism or other crimes.
IV. Traditionalist & Religious Antisemitism	Radical Catholic Traditionalist Antisemitism	A form of "political religion" that rejects the theological reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the Nostra Aetate declaration, which repudiated the charge of Jewish deicide. This movement restores classical Christian theological antisemitism and fuses it with a right-wing political agenda against modernism, liberalism, and Zionism.	Mark Weitzman	The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and its leaders, who have engaged in Holocaust denial (e.g., Bishop Richard Williamson) and espoused classic anti-Jewish theology. The influence of antisemitic theologians like Denis Fahey on contemporary extremist Catholic movements.

Given this, I would characterize Belloc’s antisemitism in the following manner:

Category	Manifestation	Placement & Explanation
I. The "New" Antisemitism (Post-Holocaust / Post-1948)	Ideological Anti-Zionism / Israel as the "Collective Jew"	Anachronistic and Ideologically Distinct. Belloc's major writings on this subject predate the full emergence of the "New Antisemitism." His worldview was shaped by the pre-1948 European political landscape. He was anti-Zionist for antisemitic reason, seeing the Zionist movement as proof of his core thesis: that Jews were an alien, unassimilable nation within Europe whose loyalties lay elsewhere. He argued in The Jews (1922) that Zionism confirmed the "alien character" of Jews and would create a conflict of loyalty for diaspora Jews, making the "Jewish problem" in Europe even more acute. This stands in stark contrast to the "New Antisemitism," which often projects antisemitic tropes onto the State of Israel itself, treating it as the "collective Jew." Belloc's focus was on the Jew in Europe, not the Jewish state.
II. Intellectual & Cultural Antisemitism	Virtuous Antisemitism	Definitive and Primary Placement. Belloc is an example of the "virtuous antisemite." As a prominent historian, essayist, and Catholic intellectual, his antisemitism was articulated not as vulgar prejudice but as a sophisticated, reasoned analysis of what he termed the "Jewish problem." He presented his book The Jews as a reluctant but necessary warning to both Jews and Gentiles about a looming, inevitable conflict. This framing of antisemitism as a matter of high-stakes political and historical analysis, conducted from a position of intellectual authority, is the hallmark of this category.
	Positively Virtuous Antisemitism	Direct and Primary Fit. Belloc's antisemitism originates from the heights of culture and what he considered high moral grounds—the defense of Christian European civilization. His arguments were not based on racial biology but on what he saw as an irreconcilable conflict between the "Jewish spirit" and the "European spirit." He framed his position as one of historical realism and intellectual honesty, arguing that ignoring the "problem" was a greater folly. This intellectualized framework, propagated through influential books and essays, defines this subtype.
III. Antihistorical Antisemitism	Holocaust Denial, Evasion, and Minimization	Anachronistic / Not Applicable. Hilaire Belloc died in 1953. While the Holocaust occurred during the final decade of his life, the organized, pseudo-scholarly movement of Holocaust denial and revisionism, as analyzed in Deciphering the New Antisemitism, emerged and gained prominence long after his death. There is no evidence that he was a Holocaust denier.
IV. Traditionalist & Religious Antisemitism	Radical Catholic Traditionalist Antisemitism	Foundational and Primary Placement. Belloc's work is a cornerstone of 20th-century traditionalist Catholic antisemitism. His views were deeply rooted in a pre-Vatican II theological and political framework. Key elements include: Supersessionism: A theological worldview in which the Catholic Church is the true successor to Israel, and Judaism is an anachronistic and spiritually defunct religion. Jews as an "Alien Body": His central thesis was that Jews constituted a separate, unassimilable nation and an "alien body" within Christian societies, leading to inevitable friction and conflict. Conspiratorial Tropes: He attributed disproportionate and nefarious influence to Jews in finance (especially international finance), politics, media, and the promotion of both Bolshevism and Capitalism, seeing them as a secretive power working against the interests of the Christian world. Political Program: His antisemitism was not merely a belief but a political concern. In The Jews, he advocated for a "solution" to this "problem," proposing a policy of official recognition and segregation (a form of apartheid) as the only way to avoid violence. This desire to translate theological animosity into a political structure is a key feature of this category.

Here is how I currently situate Lafferty:

Category	Manifestation	Placement & Explanation
I. The "New" Antisemitism	Ideological Anti-Zionism / Israel as the "Collective Jew"	Not explicitly addressed. While I can reconstruct some of Lafferty’s views, extending from antiquity through the Dreyfus Affair to modern times, his specific opinions on post-1948 issue of Israel as a state are not something I know
II. Intellectual & Cultural Antisemitism	Virtuous Antisemitism	Partial but significant fit. Lafferty's antisemitism presents as intellectual and contrarian rather than based on vulgar prejudice, though some of the things he wrote about Jews are vulgar. He framed his Holocaust denial in terms of logic and evidence, arguing it was irrational for Europe to destroy its intellectual capital. This fits with the "virtuous" subtype, which operates from a position of perceived intellectual rigor and moral clarity, even while arriving at antisemitic conclusions. His admiration for Jewish intellectual achievement alongside his denialism reflects the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of this category.
III. Antihistorical Antisemitism	Holocaust Denial, Evasion, and Minimization	Direct and primary placement. Lafferty's views fit squarely with this category. The archival evidence reveals: <br> Radical Denial: He explicitly stated in a 1990 letter, "I myself never did accept the idea of the Holocaust in the context of The Six Million," and argued against its demographic and logistical possibility. Adoption of Denialist Literature: He embraced and endorsed materials from the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a central organization in the Holocaust denial movement. A box in his archives contains IHR journals alongside his handwritten timeline of denialist books. Evasion in Fiction: The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny, which is concerned with 20th-century history and trauma, conspicuously omits the Holocaust. Without knowledge of his denial, a reader is far less able to grasp the significance of this absence, as I have elsewhere argued.
IV. Traditionalist & Religious Antisemitism	Radical Catholic Traditionalist Antisemitism	A contextual fit. While not a member of a formal movement like SSPX, Lafferty's antisemitism is deeply intertwined with his identity as a devout Catholic and with many traditionalist leanings. His views intensified alongside his disillusionment with the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. This is why I would argue for the Theological/Continuity Thesis, situating his remarks within a framework of Catholic traditionalism, including anti-modern polemics and historical skepticism. It also has the virtue of explaining how some of Catholic characters behave and talk. His denial of the Holocaust, a pivotal event in Jewish history and its relationship with Christianity, is an unfortunate manifestation of certain attitudes attached to this traditionalist worldview.

Outline, How the West Became Antisemitic, Chapter 9:

Marcus argues that modern, racial antisemitism is distinct from medieval, religious Jew-hatred yet not discontinuous with it. He identifies a persistent, three-part structure—the binary of an inverted hierarchy, the Jew as the inner enemy, and the permanence of Jewish identity—created in medieval Catholic Europe and uniquely capable of transformation and secularization. That is what enabled it to persist and evolve into its modern, racial form. The continuity lies not in specific stereotypes, often applied anachronistically, but in the underlying ideological structure.

I. Introduction: The Central Problematic and Historiographical Landscape

• A. The Core Question: Establishing the relationship between medieval Christian Jew hatred and modern, racial antisemitism, particularly in the context of the Holocaust.

• B. The Scholarly Divide: Two Primary Approaches

  1. The Teleological View: Posits a direct causal connection between medieval and modern forms of Jew hatred.

     • Proponents: Jules Isaac, James Parkes, Joshua Trachtenberg, Léon Poliakov, Robert Chazan, Gavin Langmuir.

  2. The Discontinuity / Contextual View: Argues that medieval and modern forms are fundamentally different and should be treated as distinct phenomena.

     • Argument: The term "antisemitism" is anachronistic for the pre-modern era, as it was coined in the 1870s/1880s for a modern, racist ideology.

     • Author's Critique: This position risks suggesting a "complete discontinuity," which is problematic.

• C. Analysis of Key Scholars and Concepts

  1. David Nirenberg:

     • Communities of Violence (Initial "Contextual" Position): Argued against teleology, viewing medieval violence as ritualized, symbolic, and potentially stabilizing.

     • Author's Critique: Nirenberg's case studies (Southern France, Iberia) fail to address the more virulent hatred in Northern Europe (German Empire), the more likely precursor to modern German antisemitism.

     • Anti-Judaism (Later "Modified Teleological" Position): Proposes continuity of "anti-Judaism," but redefines it as a Western mode of thought against all victimized groups ("imaginary Jews").

     • Author's Critique: This redefinition evades the specific question of the historical relationship between Christian anti-Jewish thought and modern antisemitism targeting real Jews.

  2. Hannah Arendt: Advocated for a sharp distinction ("Pauline dichotomy") between:

     • Medieval "religious Jew-hatred" (conflict between creeds).

     • Modern "anti-semitism" (secular, nineteenth-century ideology grounded in nationalism and pseudoscience).

     • Author's Critique: Arendt's framework fails to explain why Jews became the specific target of modern antisemitism.

  3. The Term "Anti-Judaism":

     • Usage by Dahan, Cohen, Abulafia: Used to denote theological criticism of Judaism, implying a discontinuity with modern, racial antisemitism.

     • Langmuir's Controversial Definition:

       • "Anti-Judaism": Rational critique of actual Jewish beliefs and practices.

       • "Antisemitism": Irrational, chimerical accusations against Jews for things they never did (beginning in the 12th century).

     • Author's Critique of Langmuir: His view is anachronistic, apologetic (absolving the Church), and reliant on unverifiable psychohistory (e.g., "projection" of Christian anxiety).

• D. The Author's Terminological Position:

  1. The term "anti-Judaism" is misleading because Christian hatred was directed at Jews (people) rather than Judaism (theology), which Christianity itself depends upon.

  2. The author advocates for using the term "antisemitism" (or "medieval antisemitism") for premodern Jew hatred, arguing it is more accurate and that scholars should move past the "technical issue of when the term was coined" to enable a more nuanced understanding of continuity.

II. Deconstructing the Continuity Argument: A Critique of the "Stereotype" Approach

• A. The Stereotype Thesis: The argument that continuity between medieval and modern antisemitism can be traced through the persistence of anti-Jewish tropes and images (e.g., Novikoff's list of stereotypes; the Vienna exhibition comparing medieval images to Der Stürmer).

• B. The Author's Rebuttal: The Problem of Anachronism

  1. Qualitative Difference in Perceived Threat: Modern antisemitism is uniquely concerned with "the rise of the Jews" and their imagined global power. This was not a significant medieval concern.

     • Example: Thomas of Monmouth's 12th-century ritual murder narrative imagines a Jewish conspiracy to end their exile, not to achieve world domination like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

  2. Misreading Historical Figures: Characters like Shakespeare's Shylock are Renaissance creations, not direct products of medieval stereotypes. Scholars anachronistically "read back" the characteristics of these later figures into the Middle Ages.

• C. Conclusion of Critique: A focus on stereotypes is insufficient and misleading. A deeper structural connection is required to explain the relationship: "Something other than shared stereotypes enabled medieval Christian antisemitism to develop into its modern form."

III. The Author's Thesis: The Three-Part Structure of Antisemitism

• A. The Core Argument: Medieval Christian culture created a three-part "scaffolding" for its "imagined Jew." This structure, while originally religious in content, was translatable into modern, secular, and racial terms.

• B. The Three Interlocking Structural Factors:

  1. The Binary of Inverted Hierarchy: Rooted in the theological rivalry over divine chosenness, this created a worldview where Christians believed they must be socially and politically superior to Jews, and Jews must be subordinate. Jewish assertiveness or success was seen as a violation of this sacred order.

  2. The Jew as the Inner Enemy: This concept crystallized during the First Crusade. The Jew, living within Christian society, was imagined as a proximate and dangerous threat, leading to accusations of:

     • Poisonous usury

     • Ritual murder

     • Host desecration and well poisoning

     • A fundamental motivation of hatred and revenge against Christians.

  3. The Permanence of Jewish Identity: A belief that Jewishness is an essential, unchangeable condition, regardless of conversion. This nascent "racial" idea became prominent in late medieval efforts to convert Jews, which revealed their resistance and were interpreted as proof of an immutable nature.

• C. The Mechanism of Transformation: The Asymmetry of Hatred

  1. The author posits a crucial asymmetry: "Jews hated Christianity, not Christians, and Christians hated Jews, not Judaism."

  2. Because Christian antisemitism was directed at the Jewish people, it was not dependent on a religious framework.

  3. This focus on the person of the Jew allowed the three-part structure to survive the secularization of European society. Had the hatred been purely theological ("anti-Judaism"), secularization might have ended it. "Instead, it got worse."

IV. Conclusion: Implications for Today

• A. Applying the Three-Part Structure to Contemporary American Antisemitism:

  1. Inverted Hierarchy: White supremacists resent successful, assimilated ("white") American Jews because they violate the expected hierarchy where Jews are subordinate.

  2. Inner Enemy: Jews are read as a dangerous internal force that must be "contained or eliminated."

  3. Permanence: Nativist groups adopt a racial essentialism, viewing Jewishness as a permanent, threatening identity.

• B. The Enduring and Transportable Nature of Antisemitism:

  1. The medieval structure of antisemitism has proven to be resilient and adaptable, transportable from its European origins to other cultures like American nativism.

• C. Final Statement: Awareness of this deep, historical structure is essential for any attempt to overcome modern racism and antisemitism. The West must acknowledge the unique history of this prejudice to combat its contemporary manifestations effectively.

----

How should we read the exchange from In a Green Tree? Well, it's a near-perfect illustration of what Elhanan Yakira calls "Virtuous Antisemitism," an intellectualized discourse that traffics in ethnic generalizations not as vulgar hatred, but as a kind of high-cultural observation. It is the sort of cultural murmur that normalizes the thinking upon which more virulent prejudices are built.

The murmur itself is not disconnected from the more extreme views found in Lafferty's archives, namely in the IHR materials; instead, it is sustained by the same deep history that Ivan Marcus describes. Seen through Marcus, Lafferty's Holocaust denial is another manifestation of the "inverted hierarchy" principle. What does this mean?

In a post-Holocaust world where Jewish suffering was granted a unique moral authority, Holocaust denial attempted to shatter that authority and invert the hierarchy back to a traditionalist framework where the Jew does not occupy that central, victimized position. A character's jibe about a fantasy world and its creator's belief in historical revisionism are facets of the same ideological project, aimed at reordering reality along the lines of an ancient prejudice, one that the Catholic Church has now unequivocally condemned.