Trudy Gold
The Rise of Racial Antisemitism in Germany, Part 1
Summary
Jews were at the forefront of modernity in Germany amidst political, social and economic upheaval. One response to this was to view them as scapegoats. Religious hatred toward the Jews gradually transformed into a secular, nationalistic and racial hatred. Thus, modern antisemitism was born.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
The whole theory of race is balderdash. I am telling you the story because that’s what a lot of people believe. There is no such thing as pure race. You maybe could have made a case for, you’d have to geographically isolate for a thousand years. Maybe the Eskimos, maybe the Mauris, maybe the Aborigines before they were colonised. But certainly the whole theory of race is crazy.
You are back to that old conundrum. What does it mean to be a Jew? My mother used to say it’s simple, it’s cardiac, you just feel it.
You know, the problem is choice doesn’t depend on what we want. It also unfortunately depends on the outside. I can say until I’m blue in the face that anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem. It’s actually a problem of the anti-Semites. But it doesn’t make it go away, does it?