Talking About Today’s Anti-Semitism

After the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, everything changed for Jewish Americans. You could no longer talk about anti-Semitism in America the way you could the day before. That may sound like a bold statement, but it’s one that Professor Howard Lupovitch makes and backs up in FedRadioDetroit’s most recent episode.

“For a long time in the United States, anti-Semitism was a relatively marginal phenomenon,” says Lupovitch. “We could talk about a significant difference between anti-Semitism in Europe and anti-Semitism in the United States, because, up until a year ago, anti-Semitism in the US had been largely non-violent. [Tree of Life] really changed the situation. It was the first instance of real mass violence against Jews in America . . .”

Professor Lupovitch is an associate professor of history and director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University. He specializes in modern Jewish History, specifically the Jews of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy. He is also a well-known author and lecturer and one of our foremost experts on the topic of anti-Semitism here in the Metro Detroit area.

FedRadioDetroit hosts Beverly Liss and Sam Dubin welcomed Professor Lupovitch in the studio in December to discuss the alarming rise anti-Semitism in the United States. In this episode, he also explains the history of hate against Jews in this country and clarifies some common misunderstandings including the difference between right and left wing anti-Semitism and what we really mean when we say “anti-Semitism” and  “anti-Zionism.”

You can listen to the episode in its entirety. Stay tuned for Episode #3 coming out next month.