Goodbye to All That? (Page 4)

This brings us to a related and equally sensitive issue. Among European intellectuals and artists--in Germany, for example--anti-Semitism occasionally surfaces in discussions of how to speak openly about the unmanaged past. Why, people ask, after all these years should we not speak of the burning of Germany's cities, or the sinking of refugee boats, or even the uncomfortable fact that life in Hitler's Germany--for Germans--was far from unpleasant, at least until the last years of World War II? Because of what Germany did to the Jews? But we've spoken of this for decades--the Federal Republic is one of the most philo-Semitic nations in the world; for how much longer must we (Germans) look over our shoulder? Will the Jews never just forgive us and let everyone move on? As this last question suggests, what begins as the search for historical honesty risks ending perilously close to resentment at "the Jews."

In formerly Communist countries one frequently encounters resentment and perplexity, among well-informed and educated people, at the West's failure to understand the enormity of the crimes of Communism. "Why won't you compare Nazism to Communism?" they ask. There are a number of answers that one might offer, but the question is not unreasonable, especially when posed by Communism's victims. And it must be addressed openly, lest the citizens of Eastern Europe tell themselves what a number of intellectuals in Romania, Hungary and elsewhere have already openly suggested: that the reason we in the West reject the comparison is that Nazism persecuted Jews above all, and it is Jews who set the international agenda for remorse, retribution and reparation. Once again, anti-Semitism emerges as the bastard child of otherwise reasonable political preoccupations.

There is no simple answer to the dilemmas raised by such issues. Somehow we need to juggle the need to speak honestly and openly about present politics and past sufferings without either imposing silences or legitimizing the resurrection of prejudices. In my view it is incumbent upon Jews in particular--Jewish writers, Jewish intellectuals, Jewish scholars--to address these contested and disconcerting problems. Because Jewish critics of Israel are less vulnerable to moral blackmail from Israel's defenders, they should be in the forefront of public discussion of the Middle East, in America and Europe alike.

Similarly, Jewish commentators need to take the lead in opening up difficult and uncomfortable conversations about the past--and the present--in Europe. Public discussion in Germany especially, but elsewhere too, is often trapped between politically correct evasions and resentful "taboo-breaking." The majority's fear of offending Jewish sensibilities arouses a growing minority's desire to do just that. We can never "normalize" the European history of anti-Semitism, nor should we. But if the charge of "anti-Semitism" remains suspended like Damocles' sword across the European public space--as it is today across much of America--we shall all fall silent. And between controversial debate and fearful silence we would be well advised to choose the former. Silence is always a mistake.

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