ABSTRACT
History is supposed to teach Jews important lessons. Jews remain the principal focus of attention, but the declared target is the State of Israel, which has become "the collective Jew among the nations." Persistently emphasized by those who describe this phenomenon is the direct line of continuity linking attacks upon Israeli positions and the ancient current of anti-Jewish sentiment and ideology. Brooding upon the increasingly hostile international climate for Israel in 1976, the late Jacob Talmon, a distinguished Israeli historian, published an article headlined "The New Antisemitism." Since Israel has increasingly come to represent the broadest common denominator for Jewish self-consciousness in the world, and perhaps the sole basis for Jewish self-definition, serious attacks threaten the legitimacy of a distinct Jewish existence today. Joining the old and the new antisemitism was the repudiation of a separate, self-defining, independent Jewish peoplehood.
