The Paranoid Apocalypse: A Hundred-Year Retrospective on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

273 Pages·2012·2.65 MB·English

by  Steven T. Katz

The Paranoid Apocalypse
ELIE WIESEL CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES SERIES
General Editor: Steven T. Katz
The Shtetl: New Evaluations
Edited by Steven T. Katz
The Paranoid Apocalypse:
A Hundred-Year Retrospective on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Edited by Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz
The Paranoid Apocalypse
A Hundred-Year Retrospective on
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Edited by
Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© 2012 by New York University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The paranoid apocalypse : a hundred-year retrospective on the
Protocols of the elders of Zion / edited by Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz.
p. cm. — (Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies series)
Includes index.
ISBN 978–0–8147–4892–3 (cl : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–0–8147–4893–0 (ebook)
ISBN 978–0–8147–4945–6 (ebook)
1. Protocols of the wise men of Zion. 2. Antisemitism.
I. Landes, Richard Allen. II. Katz, Steven T., 1944–
DS145.P7P37 2011
305.892’4—dc22 2011028192
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
1 Introduction: The Protocols at the Dawn of the 21st Century 1
Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz
Part I. Conceptual Prelude:
On Paranoid Politics and Apocalyptic Violence
2 The Melian Dialogue, the Protocols, and 23
the Paranoid Imperative
Richard Landes
3 The Apocalyptic Other: On Paranoia and Violence 34
Charles B. Strozier
Part II. Medieval Prologue:
Cosmic Christian Anxiety and Global Modern Paranoia
4 The Devil’s Hoofs: The Medieval Roots of 49
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Jeffrey R. Woolf
5 Thomas of Monmouth and the Protocols of 56
the Sages of Narbonne
Johannes Heil
Part III. The Early Years:
The Apocalyptic Matrix of Genesis and Launch
6 “The Antichrist as an Imminent Political Possibility”: 79
Sergei Nilus and the Apocalyptical Reading of
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Michael Hagemeister
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7 Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Thoughts on the 92
French Connection
Jeffrey Mehlman
8 “Jewish World Conspiracy” and the Question of Secular 100
Religions: An Interpretative Perspective
Paul Zawadski
9 The Turning Point: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion 112
and the Eschatological War between Aryans and Jews
David Redles
Part IV. Post-Holocaust Protocols: Non-Western Variations
10 The Protocols in Japan 135
David G. Goodman
11 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: An Authentic 152
Document in Palestinian Authority Ideology
Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Part V. Protocols at the Turn of the Millennium:
The Return of the Repressed
12 Anti-Semitism from Outer Space: The Protocols in 163
the UFO Subculture
Michael Barkun
13 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the Contemporary 172
American Scene: Historical Artifact or Current Threat?
Deborah Lipstadt
14 Protocols to the Left, Protocols to the Right: 186
Conspiracism in American Political Discourse at the
Turn of the Second Millennium
Chip Berlet
Part VI. Quo Vadis?
How to Respond to the Return of the Protocols
15 Conspiracy Then and Now: History, Politics, and 219
the Anti-Semitic Imagination
Stephen Eric Bronner
vi | Contents
16 Jewish Self-Criticism, Progressive Moral Schadenfreude, 229
and The Suicide of Reason: Reflections on the Protocols
in the “Postmodern” Era
Richard Landes
About the Contributors 251
Index 255
Contents | vii
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1
Introduction
The Protocols at the Dawn of the 21st Century
Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz
This volume of essays results from a conference held at the Elie
Weisel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University with the collaboration
of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University a century after the
publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Protocols stands out as both one of the most malicious forgeries in
history—“an atrocity-producing narrative”—and the most widely distributed
forgery in the world. Soon after publication, believers translated its “reve-
lations” about an international Jewish conspiracy to enslave mankind into
dozens of languages and spread the text from its Russian foyer to the rest of
Europe, the Americas, and as far as Japan. At the height of its first wave of
influence (1905–1945), it played a key role in inspiring and justifying the Nazi
attempt at genocide of the Jews.
After the catastrophe wrought by a great and powerful nation seized by
a genocidal paranoia in response to the conspiracy it perceived via the Pro-
tocols, those who vanquished it renounced and denounced the mad text.
Modernity had won, and the broad public consensus held that “Nie Wieder”
[Never Again] would we see either the “bloody tide” or the forged fantasies
that fueled it. The Protocols quickly became a taboo subject in the West. Any-
one who referred to it incurred the stigma of both ignorance and hate-mon-
gering. Civil society, with its egalitarian rules, its scientific skepticism, and its
high levels of tolerance for the “other,” had won the battle against xenopho-
bic paranoia. New, unthinkable institutions of international cooperation—
the United Nations, the European Union—arose and survived in this new
dispensation.
One might call this postwar attitude, embodied in Norman Cohn’s path-
breaking and disturbing study, Warrant for Genocide, the “modern” solu-
tion to the Protocols. “Positivist historiography,” dedicated to find out “what
really happened” (however the scientific chips about objective reality fall),
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