Combating Antisemitism

Available at https://www.facultyagainstantisemitism.org/christine-maxwell

The ancients (according to Barbara Baert) had a word for the joy and the sorrow of an opportunity that suddenly presents itself but is just as suddenly gone: Kairos. In her exploration of Kairos as “the in-between space,” a space where decision-making happens, Baert points to a particular moment where links in information come together and present an opportune time for new understanding and action to occur. 

This online essay is part of the Academic Engagement Network's OCTOBER 7 REFLECTIONS project created to commemorate one year since the October 7 [2023] massacre. One year since the worst atrocities perpetrated against Jews on a single day since the Holocaust.

Breaking the Tidal Wave of Contemporary Antisemitism

by Christine Maxwell, PhD | March 2, 2024

Another Holocaust is unfolding before our eyes. We are witnessing not just the silence of bystanders, but the louder and louder shouting and singing of the phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. This genocidal chant has become the drum beat of the ‘unthinking herd’ as the same ‘visual beat’ gets blasted in flashing neon lights onto the iconic Houses of Parliament in London without any vast outcry of anger and indignation at the defilement of ‘the peoples’ house – neither from the general public nor the Press. There is no global sense of horror and outrage at the true meaning of this pro-Palestinian mantra that literally intends to achieve the annihilation of all Jews living in Israel – and the destruction of Israel.

Report after report, survey after survey, study after study, document unnerving and highly alarming increases of antisemitism and increasing antisemitic violence in America, Europe, and most parts of the world. Most every form of media outlet spews forth bile. Propaganda and antisemitic tropes are heard and unconsciously incorporated into the emotional out-pourings of millions of people.

The horror of October 7, 2023 was the wake-up call that shook me to speed up my readiness to speak in my own voice. How can those of us who know about the unique horrors of the Holocaust, remain silent? It happened in ‘broad daylight’. Millions of ordinary people in every European country, stood by and let Jews – their very neighbors – be taken away and murdered just because they were Jews.

I shuddered upon remembering the words of Pastor Niemoller that are hammered in stone on a wall of the United States Holocaust Memorial:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Niemoller, The United States Holocaust Memorial.

Fifty years ago, my mother (Dr Elizabeth Maxwell) was shocked into taking direct action when she discovered through her own exhaustive research that my father had lost 330 members of his family and extended family in the Holocaust. What did she do? She became a Holocaust Scholar, dedicating the rest of her life to educational outreach, speaking out to all kinds of different audiences in Britain and many other countries, fighting antisemitism and pushing hard for interfaith dialog: doing everything she could to ensure that the Holocaust would never happen again. What set the same fire burning in me, to act, are the public reactions around the world in support of Hamas and its genocidal objectives.

The ancients (according to Barbara Baert) had a word for the joy and the sorrow of an opportunity that suddenly presents itself but is just as suddenly gone: kairos. In her exploration of kairos as "the in-between space", a space where decision-making happens, Baert points to a particular moment where links in information come together and present an opportune time for new understanding and action to occur. Kairos helps explain why paradigm shifts happen and what it takes (in terms of profound change in an individual’s thinking) to move to action.

I experienced my own ‘kairotic’ moment when all the information gathered in my research over five years of work that went into writing my doctoral thesis, The Book as Provocative Artifact: A New Relevancy for Holocaust Literature in the 21st Century, suddenly linked and snapped into place. In a blink, I could see a completed jigsaw of all the ‘old’ and new information. I now have the agency and the motivation to create a consequential/subsequential provocative artifact... one that I hope will finally break the power that the black propaganda message of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion holds over millions: that the Jews are conspiring to take over the world. In each of us lies the power to create something new – that fits the moment – THIS moment that is so perilous for the whole world.

Each and every act of confronting antisemitism within our individual spheres of influence has the power to catalyze significant change. “Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push – in just the right place – it can be tipped” (Gladwell 2000). We must all STAND UP together right now to build the seawall that that breaks the tsunami of antisemitism... before it engulfs all of humanity.