Rootism, Modernity, and the Jew: Antisemitism and the Reactionary Imaginary, 1789–1945

The far-right identification of Jews with modernity has been noted by many scholars, yet most analyses have fallen short of offering a properly dialectical account of antisemitism, one that will scrutinise the antinomies at the heart of the antisemitic discourse and trace their relations to the contradictions of modernity itself. In this paper, I will make modernity as movement the focus of the analysis. Modernity, philosophically underpinned by the Enlightenment, and politically ushered in by the French Revolution of 1789, was seen by its reactionary and fascist opponents both as a time of great upheaval, constant change and social disruption, but also as the setting-up of an era of stasis and degeneration. It was paradoxically decried, sometimes simultaneously, as both helplessly nomadic and incurably sedentary. And in both respects ‘the Jew’ and ‘the Jewish spirit’ were often placed, no matter how spuriously, at the very centre of attacks. Qua ‘wandering’ or ‘eternal’, the Jews were seen as embodying the spirit of restlessness and lack of roots, undermining tradition and fixed national and racial identities; their dynamic role as revolutionaries, conspirators and rabble rousers was ritually denounced. Jews were also condemned, however, as a major obstacle to movement and expansion, the arch-enemies of imperialism, seeking to establish a realm of universal brotherhood, peace and egalitarianism. By attacking the Jews, reactionaries and fascists thus attempted to settle their scores with a modernity that they feared and loathed in equal measure.