The new anti-Semitism

"You should not and cannot let the past rest, as it might otherwise resurrect and become a new present." (Jean Améry) "The political and Jewish victim that I was and am cannot remain silent when the old miserable anti-Semitism re-emerges under the banner of anti-Zionism." (Jean Améry) Jean Améry's essays, written between 1969 and 1976, are strikingly relevant today. They read with such precision that they seem to have been written for the present day. Starting from his Jewish identity, which was imposed on him by the Nuremberg Laws, Jean Améry describes his existential bond to Israel, although his solidarity is not unconditional. Yet for him, Israel is the land that has taught all disenfranchised Jews of the world to stand tall. Here, his pain speaks, as he, having always been a leftist, can no longer reach the New Left, which views Israel as colonialist: their self-righteous anti-Zionism is clear to him as an indelible anti-Semitism. "The political and Jewish victim that I was and am cannot remain silent when the old miserable anti-Semitism re-emerges under the banner of anti-Zionism." (Jean Améry) "A classic of the future" (Jürg Altwegg, FAZ).