Yesterday, I posted a piece by David Frum about Tony Judt, a leftist professor who has proposed that the state of Israel be abolished. Frum wondered whether Judt's attititudes are anti-semitic. He concluded that they probably are not. I was less than convinced.

Now Frum has learned that Judt is Jewish. Thus, Frum considers whether this fact disposes of any charges of anti-semitism. He argues that it does not: "Unfortunately, having been born Jewish does not inoculate anyone against absorbing – and repeating – anti-Jewish clichés and slurs. The classic example is Karl Marx, the son of a German rabbi, whose famous essay “On the Jewish Question” is as vicious an anti-semitic screed ever penned." Indeed, Frum notes that "unlike Marx, the contemporary Jewish anti-semite need not even undergo baptism first. He can simply drift into the leftish secularism of the modern academic elite, a secularism that is soaked through and through with assumptions and attitudes profoundly hostile to the safety and wellbeing of the 5 million Jews who make their home in Israel."

Frum stands by his assessment that Judt is not exactly an anti-semite. But this is small consolation inasmuch as his views "if ever put into effect, would prove just as deadly as if Judt spent his spare time daubing swastikas onto synagogue walls rather than writing articles for the New York Review."

Posted by Paul at 08:55 AM  |    |  

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Tracked on October 15, 2003 06:57 PM