Antisemitism and racism are rightly considered shameful. So those accused of these things usually deny the charges vehemently. But such is the heat provoked by the accusation that people often shrink from reflecting on the issues that provoked the accusation. So it is worth reflecting on just why the recent graffiti on synagogues and abusive remarks about Jews in Australia are wrong, and under what conditions accusations of antisemitism or racism are justifiable or unjustifiable.
Many groups suffer from offensive words and actions on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion or political convictions. The behaviour is offensive because the perpetrators attribute to persons negative qualities that they associate with the group to which these persons belong, and abuse them for the negative qualities. They wrongly assume that attitudes and behaviour of individuals can be predicted from their membership of a group. Ultimately they deny personal freedom and value. Those treated in this way may feel afraid, disrespected and alienated. The perpetrators are legion: antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Communist, anti-American and anticlerical, to name just a few.
These attitudes are more vicious when they focus on more than one distinctive quality of the group under attack. Antisemitic behaviour, for example, is often fuelled by hostility both for the ethnic origins and for the religion of the people attacked. The combination of qualities intensifies hatred and contempt. This is also true of anti-Muslim prejudice, which feeds on negative beliefs about both Islam and about ethnic origin, and so about persons. This double prejudice makes antisemitism especially damaging and deplorable.
Historical and cultural factors can make prejudicial behaviour even more offensive and destructive. The history of the Jewish people in the West has been one of discrimination, occasional persecution, expulsion and, in our time, of attempted genocide. Persons were regularly targeted for their ethnic origins and religious beliefs. The history of murderous cultural prejudice means that survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants will legitimately fear for their security when they see anti-Jewish slogans painted on walls or hear the reality of the Holocaust denied. These historical and cultural factors explain why in some nations Holocaust denial has been criminalised as a symbol of the dangers and viciousness of anti-Semitism.
To say that antisemitism is uniquely vicious, however, is not to say that the targeting other groups, whose members have also suffered a long history of repression, discrimination and contempt, is any less shameful.