Inside the Antisemitic Mind

Preface to the English Edition (2016) • Preface to the German Edition (2013) • Notational Conventions • INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR THIS BOOK • HOSTILITY TOWARD JEWS AND LANGUAGE: VERBAL IMPOSITION OF POWER AND VIOLENCE • Language as a Cognitive System and Communicative Instrument for Action • The Power of Language as Violence through Language • The Reconstruction of Antisemitic Conceptualizations: Linguistic Utterances as Traces of Cultural, Cognitive, and Emotional Processes • Conceptual and Verbal Antisemitism • Conclusion • HOSTILE STEREOTYPES OF JEWS AND THEIR HISTORICAL ROOTS • On the Genesis of Resentment toward Jews: Why the Jews? • Survival and Resistance of Judeophobic Stereotypes in Modern Times • Antisemitism as State Doctrine: The “Final Solution” as the Ultimate Consequence of Judeophobia • Hostility toward Jews after 1945: Minimization of the Caesura in Civilization and Withholding of Empathy • Present-Day Hostility toward Jews: The “New” Antisemitism of the Twenty-First Century • Conclusion • PRESENT-DAY VERBALIZATION OF STEREOTYPES • Stereotypes, Mental Models, Prejudices, Clichés, and Stock Phrases: Terminological and Conceptual Clarifications • Current Stereotypes and Their Verbal Manifestations • Conclusion • ECHO OF THE PAST: “THE INSOLENT JEW IS HARASSING GERMANS ONCE AGAIN!” • Components of Nazi Speech in Contemporary Discourse Hostile toward Jews • Lexical Analyses of Insolence/Insolent and Harass/Harassment • Conclusion • ANTI-ISRAELISM AS A MODERN VARIANT OF VERBAL ANTISEMITISM: THE MODERN CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE COLLECTIVE JEW • Criticism of Israel versus Anti-Israelism: Two Different Speech Acts • Characteristics of Antisemitic Anti-Israelism • Derealization: False Statements, Concealment, Distortion, Biased Perspective • “As I just read in my paper . . .” —Intertextual Allusions and Verbal Convergences: On the Potential Effects of One-Sided Reports on the Middle East Conflict • Conclusion • A COMPARISON WITH OTHER COUNTRIES IN EUROPE: RESULTS OF A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS • Austria • Switzerland • The Netherlands • Spain • Belgium • England • Ireland • Sweden • Conclusion • THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF MODERN HOSTILITY TOWARD JEWS • On the Relevance of Emotions to the Analysis of Antisemitism • The Emotional Potential of Antisemitic Texts: Expression of Emotions and Description of Feelings • The Obsessive Dimension • Contrary to Reason: On the Dominance of the Irrational Dimension in Antisemitic Texts • Fallacies and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies • Contradictions and Paradoxes: Statements in Collision • Hate without a Real Object: Jew as an Abstract Notion • Conclusion • ACTS OF VERBAL VIOLENCE • Abuse, Insults, Threats, Curses • Hostility toward Jews as a Missionary Urge: Moral Appeals and Advice • Suggestions for Solving the “Jewish Problem”: “Exterminate them for good!” and “Dissolve the state of Israel” • Conclusion • TEXTUAL STRATEGIES AND PATTERNS OF ARGUMENTATION • Communicative Strategies and Argumentative Elaboration • Strategies of Legitimation and Self-Aggrandizement: “I am a humanist through and through!” • Strategies of Avoidance and Self-Defense: “I am no antisemite!” • Strategies of Justification: “You provoke that!” • Relativizing Strategies: “After all, it’s 2007!” • Strategies of Differentiation: “You are one team” • Conclusion • APPENDIX: The Basic Corpus—Letters to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, 2002–2012 • Notes • Bibliography • Index