This week on Times Will Tell we’re talking with Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld, the director of Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.

Rosenfeld based the Jewish Studies program at Indiana University some 50 years in the past and served as its director for 30 years. But retirement has eluded him:  In 2009, after observing the rise of anti-Jewish hostility all around the world, he based the Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.

Rosenfeld visited The Times of Israel’s Jerusalem workplace on a brisk winter day in late December for a wide-ranging interview on causes behind the current incremental flourishing of Jew-hatred, in addition to his experiences in founding one of many first Jewish Studies packages within the United States.

“The last time I saw Elie [Weisel] shortly before he died, he was very downcast… He looked at me and he said, ‘I’ve failed… Look at the rise of antisemitism today.’ So he thought, I thought, we all thought that the more people come to know about the persecution and mass murder of the Jews the more reluctant anyone would be to speak hostilely against Jews in the public sphere. But we were simply wrong,” mentioned Rosenfeld.

While early in his tutorial profession Rosenfeld was in a position to focus on poets William Blake and John Wheelwright, his current work is decidedly darker and offers with antisemitism, Holocaust literature and reminiscence, together with the 2011 guide “The End of the Holocaust,” and the 2021 assortment of essays “Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate.”

The following transcript has been frivolously edited.

Times of Israel: Alvin, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me at the moment in our Jerusalem workplaces of the Times of Israel.

Alvin Rosenfeld: I’m comfortable to be in Israel, as all the time.

Full disclosure, after all. You had been the pinnacle of the Jewish Studies program at Indiana University once I studied there 30 years in the past, and I, in reality, was a work-study scholar in this system, addressing mailings and all kinds of different issues. And you had been my boss, so full disclosure. And right here we’re once more, precisely 30 years later.

So as everyone knows, antisemitism could be very a lot within the information, particularly within the United States. And I ponder you probably have any perception into why there’s a rise in antisemitism. Or is it only a notion of an increase in antisemitism?

I feel it’s a query of each. There is unquestionably an escalating rise in hostility itself. In addition, we’re extra on to it than we had been earlier than. So the notion, I might say, is extra fixed, extra regular, extra acute, however it’s not model new. Since the flip of the millennium, hostility to Jews has been on the rise globally. Until comparatively just lately, most American Jews have felt pretty resistant to it, however that’s now not the case.

Doug Emhoff, middle, the husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks throughout a roundtable dialogue with Jewish leaders concerning the rise in antisemitism and efforts to combat hate within the United States within the Indian Treaty Room within the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, December 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

You have based and are operating the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. But let’s flip the clock again slightly bit to America circa Thirties. Would you say that the standing of Jews in America then was higher or worse? Because we all the time hear about how Jews weren’t allowed on this membership, they couldn’t reside on this neighborhood, issues of that nature.

Right. The Thirties and the Nineteen Forties, in reality, had been very tense occasions for Jews in America. There had been many restrictions on the place Jews may reside, the place they may work, the place they may go to high school, even what hospitals would admit Jews. We’re not seeing something like that at the moment. Thank God. The ’30s and ’40s had been a foul time for American Jews.

In the post-war interval, partially, I’m positive, as a result of increasingly grew to become identified concerning the persecution and mass homicide of the Jews in Europe, many Americans, as different folks, acknowledged how unhealthy “bad” may be when antisemitism goes unchecked. So for many American Jews — not all — however for many American Jews within the post-war interval, life has been quite a bit higher, kind of regular. Most Jews in America at the moment go about their day by day lives undisturbed.

On the opposite hand, I don’t suppose there’s a Jewish synagogue, a Jewish faculty, a Jewish neighborhood middle in America with out safety at the moment. That’s new, and it’s irregular, and it’s not simple to get used to. When Christians go to church, they don’t must cross by means of safety, which is the one manner it must be. But when Jews go to synagogue on Shabbat or on the vacations, in reality, they’re checked.

A mom hugs her son in entrance of a memorial on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2019. (AP/Gene J. Puskar)

It appears as if Europe has had this process for much longer than the United States. You suppose that’s a good characterization?

Europe has had it longer. When I’ve been to Europe, over time, I did see safety earlier than many Jewish establishments and felt good being an American, being in a rustic the place that was not crucial. That’s now not the case. It has modified, and I’d say modified for the worst. There’s one group in New York that’s really skilled one thing like 3,000 safety guards to supply safety earlier than Jewish synagogues and different establishments.

So we’re in a brand new chapter of American Jewish historical past. As , there have been brutal assaults on Jews at prayer in several synagogues and daily in several venues. Things are simply not as hospitable and as welcoming as they’ve been.

I might assume that you could’t put your finger on anybody motive why that is the case, however may you give us some causes?

Yes. Antisemitism is multicausal, so we are able to’t cut back it to anybody set of actors or anybody set of attitudes. Recently, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, testified earlier than a Special Security Commission assembly within the House of Representatives and mentioned Jews are getting hit from all sides. And he was proper to explain the variegated causes of antisemitism. It’s coming from the left, it’s coming from the best. It’s coming from sure militant segments inside Islamic communities, from sure very aggressive segments inside the Black communities as effectively. It exists in sure labor unions. Certain campuses are now not as welcoming as that they had been up to now. So there is no such thing as a one trigger particularly. But once I add all of it up collectively, what we’re is a level of ongoing hostility, which appears to be rising, that we’ve not seen earlier than for many years.

When I realized at Indiana University within the 90s, Holocaust research had been extraordinarily well-liked. And I keep in mind taking one course with Prof. John Efron, which had a whole lot of scholars within the course. And I simply surprise, I don’t perceive how the recognition of the Holocaust and the literature and the movies and the books, which is ongoing, you see a lot on provide — how can that add up with an increase in hostilities to Jews? Is there any connection or not?

To my luck, I used to be a good friend of Elie Wiesel’s for some 4 many years. When I final noticed Elie, shortly earlier than he died, he was very downcast, and I requested him, “How come? What’s up?” And he checked out me and he mentioned, “I failed.” I mentioned, “Elie, what do you mean you failed? You’ve done more to educate the public at large than any other single individual.” He mentioned, “Maybe so, but look at the rise of antisemitism today.”

Elie Wiesel in his workplace in New York, September 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

So he thought, I assumed, all of us thought, that the extra folks come to know concerning the persecution and mass homicide of the Jews, the extra reluctant anybody could be to talk hostilely in opposition to Jews within the public sphere. But we had been merely mistaken. Today, such rhetoric is unrestrained with out checks. We all know of the current outbursts by Kanye West and another folks saying outrageous issues. And but these outrageous issues win applause amongst sure folks.

It’s very, very onerous to grasp how on the earth antisemitism can have enchantment. It not solely has enchantment today, there’s a sure leisure use of antisemitism. When Dave Chappelle appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in New York just lately and was saying sure issues he by no means ought to have mentioned, he gained resounding applause. People had been laughing at what he needed to say. Antisemitism in sure quarters now could be certainly a type of leisure. It’s performative, and that’s new.

So it’s modern in a manner, to be antisemitic in some circles. But I additionally surprise, is the world simply extra open to anti-everything-ism at this level. Is it simply extra simply acceptable to be a foul, impolite particular person or a hateful particular person in public?

The reply to your query is sure, sure, sure. A great deal of that’s owing to social media. Many folks spend many hours per day tuned into numerous social media websites during which there aren’t any restraints in any respect. You can say no matter you wish to say about anybody you wish to assault. You needn’t give your identify. Many folks don’t. So all holds are off.

It’s a nasty time, in my very own view, it’s a harmful time. And except sure affordable restraints are placed on, outbursts of hatred in opposition to Jews and numerous others. Jews will not be the one ones getting it today. But we definitely are getting it. God solely is aware of what lies forward. It’s not going to be good. It’s already not good and it appears to be getting worse.

People participate in a march marking one yr for the reason that dying of Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in Sighetu Marmatiei, northern Romania, Sunday, September 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Is this a case of the pendulum swinging? Right now, we’re on the horrific aspect to the Jews, and do you see a manner during which the pendulum can swing to the opposite aspect once more?

I might like to say I see a manner. At the second, I don’t see a manner. Quite a lot of this hostility is directed in opposition to Israel. That is definitely nonstop in sure quarters. The campus the place you studied and the place I nonetheless educate, relative to different campuses, is in fairly fine condition. Indiana University is extra an Israel-friendly quite than an Israel-hostile campus. But I can’t say we’ve had no antisemitic incidents. We have had not as many as elsewhere. But the truth that I’m seeing any in any respect on a campus that’s all the time been very welcoming to Jewish college, Jewish employees, Jewish college students, is an indication of the occasions. That’s very unfavourable.

Quite a lot of the antisemitic incidents are self-reported. Do you suppose that additionally performs into the rise of numbers, that the Jews themselves are saying, hey, I don’t have to take this anymore? Is it doable that there all the time had been these incidents and solely now folks really feel empowered to talk out?

I want extra people who find themselves on the receiving finish of those incidents would converse out. But, Amanda, the actual fact is, I’ve college students who inform me issues which have occurred to them who don’t converse out. So I’d say a good quantity of it goes unreported or underreported. It could be higher in the event that they did converse out extra forthrightly and immediately than a lot of them do. And what could be particularly good is that if their schoolmates, their buddies, their neighbors would stand with them and converse out as effectively.

Jews want and sometimes have buddies, however the time for proving friendship is now. Jews shouldn’t be caught out alone on the receiving finish of people that goal them in a really aggressive and hostile manner. To the diploma we do have folks in America who stand with us, and we do, I’d say perhaps there could also be a flip for the higher, however not quickly.

We’ve seen, after all, the large marches in New York standing up in opposition to antisemitism, however it appears to me residing right here in Israel that there hasn’t been the #metoo second but for American Jewry. That there hasn’t been this huge outcry but.

No, we’ve not had our personal #metoo motion. Will we? Remains to be seen whether or not or not we’ll. Jews typically now will not be in favor, I might say. I imply to comply with that up rapidly by saying I’m completely satisfied that almost all Americans are first rate folks and will not be antisemitic. But Jews at the moment are not being spotlighted for any explicit concern or pity. Other teams are.

People march in solidarity from Foley Square over the Brooklyn Bridge, concluding their rally in opposition to antisemitism at Cadman Plaza, on December 5, 2020, within the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)

America is correct now within the grip of a really polarized sort of pondering and appearing. There’s a substantial amount of pressure between teams. The politics of identification proper now takes entrance stage middle and that includes race, class and gender. And Jews simply don’t determine into these classes. In truth, we’ve change into marginalized and worse than marginalized. We’re typically accused as being the unhealthy actors ourselves.

There’s a really simplistic ideological pondering today which caught on in lots of locations that divides human expertise into the oppressors and the oppressed, the persecuted and the persecutors. And Jews are sometimes lumped collectively as by some means white and privileged with different teams on the persecutor aspect. It gained’t maintain as much as mental scrutiny as a result of it’s probably not a great mirror of actuality. And but this sort of more and more dogmatic ideological pondering has taken maintain in lots of quarters and it really works in opposition to Jewish effectively being.

I keep in mind once I was in a ladies’s research class — it was an African American ladies’s research class — we had been speaking about all kinds of oppressors, et cetera, et cetera. And I did slightly comparability to what occurred in Jewish historical past as effectively. And I keep in mind clearly the professor there being so indignant with me and saying there’s nothing that may evaluate to this. And Jews had been white and issues of that nature. That was the 90s. So you’re saying it’s a lot worse now?

It is way worse. And we’re proper now on the sting of a dialogue that will take extra time and extra care than we may give it. But Black-Jewish relations are proper now tense within the United States. Some of the hostility directed in opposition to Jews, together with among the most brutal bodily assaults in opposition to Jews, come out of sure segments of the Black neighborhood. By no means the Black neighborhood as such. There isn’t any such factor.

But nonetheless, in numerous boroughs of Brooklyn, week by week, typically daily, Jews are particularly seen. Hasidic Jews particularly, are on the receiving finish of bodily assault. Much of which, once more, is unreported or underreported. But from what we learn about who the actors are, a great deal of it includes racial pressure there. It wants cautious consideration.

And is that this not once more, simply historical past repeating itself, particularly in New York?

Sad to say, it’s. We’re each aware of the Crown Heights riots of a lot of years in the past. We’re not, up to now, seeing something fairly that unhealthy. But what we’re seeing for a big variety of Jews makes day by day life-threatening. That merely has to cease. But I don’t see indicators that it’s about to cease. If something, it appears to be rising.

In this Aug. 21, 1991 file picture, New York Police Department officers, in riot gear, stroll previous a police automotive that was overturned by rioters within the Crown Heights part of the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/David Burns, File)

So you studied this sickness of antisemitism. Is there any sort of treatment on the horizon? Is there any manner to assist folks cease being antisemitic?

From your mouth to God’s ear, after all, I want there have been. Antisemitism, as we each know, dates again over many centuries. It waxes and wanes at completely different occasions and elsewhere. Right now it’s on the rise. That doesn’t imply it has to remain on the rise.

What may be carried out proper now as we converse to assist curtail a few of it? I want I may say eradicate it, however that will be naive. But we maybe can do sure issues to curtail it. I’ve been a professor ceaselessly, so I might say training. Education goes to be essential. It’s not in and of itself enough.

Leadership throughout the board has to talk out. That’s to say political management, cultural management, non secular management, academic management. We’re seeing a few of that, however not almost sufficient. More work must be carried out in interfaith relations, interracial relations, intercommunal relations. If we make headway in a few of these areas, will it assist? Sure. Will it name it quits to Jew hatred? No.

Okay, let’s discuss very briefly about Jewish Studies as effectively. Because, as I discussed, you based the Jewish Studies program. When did you discovered the Jewish research program?

Amanda, subsequent yr we’ll be celebrating our fiftieth anniversary. So we’re one of many oldest Jewish Studies packages within the nation, nonetheless one of many largest, and I’d prefer to consider among the finest as effectively. And it’s true that I created it and directed it for 30 years, which is why I look so drained as I sit throughout from you proper now. But I really feel happy with this system.

It continues to draw a good variety of college students, not as many because it has up to now. In that respect it’s half and parcel of what’s occurred in humanities programs as such at American and likewise at overseas universities. But we get a number of superb college students. We provide one thing like 40 programs a yr, a lot of which nonetheless enroll effectively. We by no means ask our college students in the event that they’re Jewish or not Jewish.

Illustrative: Indiana University in Bloomington college students on the Hillel House greet their non permanent Israel Fellow reservist in September 2014. (courtesy)

I simply completed educating a course on the Holocaust myself. It was restricted to 25 college students. I don’t know for positive what number of had been Jewish, what number of not Jewish, however I might say an correct estimate typically is perhaps 20 non-Jews, 5 Jews, and that’s all to the nice. I welcome anyone and all people who desires to come back and examine with me.

When folks ask me what it’s I educate, I say, “unhappy subjects.” And then they ask me, what does that imply? And then I inform them, I simply completed educating a course on Hitler.

It’s onerous to get extra sad than that, in reality. I wish to ask you, although, that while you did discovered this system, what was the ambiance in America at that time? There is a flourishing of various Jewish research packages that sprouted all through the nation nearly on the similar time. You had been one of many first.

Yes.

What spurred lecturers to do that?

Right. In these days, the code phrase that was used within the academy was multiculturalism, and a lot of universities had been all for diversifying their curricula by providing extra multicultural programs. Unfortunately, as I and others noticed, Jews weren’t thought of inside the multicultural agenda, simply as at the moment we’re usually not thought of as a part of range, fairness, and inclusion. So we needed to exit on our personal and make the declare, which is completely authentic and justifiable, that certainly, there’s such a factor as Jewish tradition, backed up by a protracted and terribly attention-grabbing historical past, with its personal languages and literatures and music and faith, you identify it.

At the time once I launched this concept to the then-dean of the faculty, himself a chemist, not Jewish, he instantly noticed the nice of what it was I used to be proposing. He mentioned, by all means, we must always do it. I’m going to ask two issues of you: One, go forward and lift the cash crucial for establishing such a program. And two, guarantee that anybody we carry right here to show in this system be as effectively certified as students we’re bringing into the chemistry division or the French division or the historical past division.

Maxwell Hall on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. (Wikipedia/Nyttend/public area)

And I agreed to do each. And 50 years later, my, oh my, do I give my blessings to that dean. He was very farsighted, extraordinarily cooperative, and the outcomes, 50 years later, are there for everybody to see.

I didn’t, nonetheless, foresee the necessity to create an Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. I assumed I had carried out sufficient with administrative work, however observing the rise of anti-Jewish hostility on a world foundation, I mentioned to myself, it’s time now that we dedicate very cautious, ongoing, scholarly and pedagogical consideration to what’s taking place.

Unfortunately, you’re proper, clearly. And I thanks a lot for becoming a member of me at the moment.

It’s my pleasure, Amanda. Thirty years later.

Amazing. So let’s converse once more a lot prior to in one other 30 years.

Good. Amen v’amen.

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