Causes and dynamics of affective anti-Semitism
Abstract
In this article, we conducted a questionnaire survey in October 2023 on a nationally representative sample of 1000 people, using a personal interview to investigate the mental map of the Hungarian adult population’s positive and negative feelings towards Jews. We found that a crucial stage on the path to affective anti-Semitism/its opposite, sympathy with Jews, is whether respondents consider it possible or impossible to distinguish Jews from non-Jews. Philo-Semites consider Jews and non-Jews indistinguishable, as opposed to anti-Semites who deny it. Stages on the philo-Semites’ path of sympathy for Jews include a self-critical politics of memory, a rejection of conflict between Jews and non-Jews, and a denial that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Hungary. The path to antipathy towards Jews (affective anti-Semitism) leads through all the other dimensions of anti-Semitism, based on despairing of the Jews loyalty to Hungary. The emotional rejection of Jews, however, is not directly linked to either primary, cognitive anti-Semitism or to secondary anti-Semitism, which downplays the significance of the Holocaust: the acceptance of the tenets of exclusionary antisemitism is a prerequisite for holding negative emotional attitudes toward Jews.
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