ABSTRACT
This chapter will argue that a new type of antisemitism has arisen after the Nazi Holocaust. 1 For reasons to be outlined, this recent syndrome can be analysed as an ‘antisemitism without antisemites’. Although the analysis focuses on Austria, its intention is more theoretical: my chief aim is to explain some of the central and general features of antisemitism after the Nazi Holocaust as a historically different prejudice from its preceding forms, using the Austrian case as a highly salient example. This requires an approach combining historical interpretation with social science data and techniques of analysis. Thus, the nature of contemporary antisemitic prejudice in Austria cannot be assessed adequately without taking into account both its history up to the Holocaust – an objective I share with the other contributors to this volume – and its historically different character after Nazism and genocide, as revealed through a close study of the available social scientific data. I believe we must aim for insights into the magnitude, spread and intensity of antisemitic prejudice; into the reasons and dimensions for its transformation and persistence in the postwar era; into the aftereffects of the Nazi past and the consequences of the Middle East conflict – as well as a review of earlier manifestations and functions of antisemitism – if we are successfully to understand and combat antisemitism’s qualitatively new historical manifestations and psychosocial dynamics. Such an ambitious programme can, of course, only be postulated and briefly sketched here, and the direction of its realization only suggested.
