An ancient hatred has been migrating to the mainstream. Bari Weiss delivers an urgent wake-up call exposing the alarming rise of anti-semitism – and explains what we can do to defeat it.
On 27 October 2018 Bari Weiss’s childhood synagogue in Pittsburgh became the site of the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. For most of us, the massacre came as a total shock. But to those who have been paying attention, it was only a more violent, extreme expression of the broader trend that has been sweeping Europe and the United States for the past two decades.
No longer the exclusive province of the far right and far left, anti-semitism finds a home in identity politics, in the renewal of ‘America first’ isolationism and in the rise of one-world socialism. An ancient hatred increasingly allowed into modern political discussion, amplified by social media and a culture of conspiracy that threatens us all.
Bari says: “The proper—and ultimately the only—response to this moment is to practice a Judaism of affirmation, not a Judaism of defensiveness. There are many forces in our world insisting, again, that all Jews must die. But there is a force far, far greater, and that is the force of who we are. Do we believe in our own story? Can we make it real again? I believe that we can, and that we must.”
Praise for Bari Weiss:
“How to Fight Anti-Semitism is violently stunning. It broke my heart—and then made me want to repair someone else’s. In these pages and everywhere else, Bari Weiss is heroic, fearless, brilliant and big-hearted. Most importantly, she is right.”—Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women
“This is the most important book you will read this year. Concise, morally certain, it’s a bullet train from the first sentence to the last. There needs to be a copy in every classroom in the country. If you think something dark is rising, you’re right. What can you do? This is what you do.”—Caitlin Flanagan, author of To Hell With All That
“Urgent, frank and fearless. There is something here to offend everyone—because there is something here to awaken everyone.” —Rabbi David Wolpe, author of David: The Divided Heart
“While European anti-Semitism has put Jews in mortal danger for too long, the ‘shining city upon a hill’— America—has descended into this same toxic darkness. Bari Weiss’s book is a powerful wake-up call against complacency and should push all free-thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic to take a stand against new guises of the oldest form of hate in the world. ‘HOW TO FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM’? Yes. But it could also be called ‘How to save liberal democracy.’” — Bernard-Henri Lévy, bestselling author of The Empire and the Five Kings
