The Secret History of Leftist Antisemitism Exposed

Modern antisemitism in France and Germany emerged within left-wing circles, which perceived Jews as symbols of the bourgeois class, wealth, and capital of the Post-Napoleononic order.

Karl Marx and Bruno Bauer, founding fathers and architects of socialist thought, along with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, held distinctly antisemitic positions. Their views were rooted in the belief that Jews represented the old order, financial power, and economic domination. Bauer even argued that Jews could not truly integrate into a free, modern society so long as they maintained a distinct religious and national identity.

In the left’s view, Jews were not merely an ethnic or religious group but rather a "meta-oligarchy", perceived as standing above ordinary economic elites, dictating a separate world order that threatened the collective.

Indeed, the roots of the modern Jewish conspiracy theory, portraying Jews as a secretive, cosmopolitan, all-powerful force manipulating global political and economic systems, are firmly planted in 19th-century economic leftism.

Only later was this theory adopted by the nationalist right, whose own ideological roots lay in an anti-monarchical reaction that had originally emerged from the left.

In other words, the economic left created the image, and the nationalist right later disseminated it on a mass scale once it abandoned it's monarchistic roots.

However, there is a deep historical irony here: the extreme nationalist right, which embraced the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, had itself shifted ideologically to the left - not necessarily in economic terms, but ideologically - through a complete adoption of secular, centralized, mobilized nationalism, often even anti-traditional in nature.

Thus, this new right became a force that internalized the socialist suspicion toward the Jews, though couched not in terms of class, but of nation.

In this sense, modern antisemitism is not solely a phenomenon of the left or the right - it is the product of a fusion between them: a place where leftist ideas of social justice merged with right-wing ideas of national identity.

The Case of Nazism

Although commonly labeled as extreme right-wing, Nazism was in fact the product of an ideology that fused characteristics more typical of center-left movements prior to the 20th century (before World War I, nationalism was generally regarded as part of the left).

Later, with the rise of nationalist and fascist currents in the early 20th century, the Jewish conspiracy theory was embraced by the right, framing it as a tool against the liberal-cosmopolitan order. Thus were born myths like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which turned the Jewish conspiracy into a globalized idea.

In terms of antisemitism, Hitler effectively unified the two antisemitic traditions, the leftist one of Bauer and Marx, and the rightist one of Fichte and Wagner, into a total ideology of hatred.

A similar synthesis of left and right into an antisemitic framework can also be seen in the Palestinian case, which combines elements of Jewish world domination theories (originating from the Marxist left) with violent nationalist resistance (rooted in the new European right and in Arab Islam, which adopted the Marxist conspiracy narrative).

Criticism Without Vision

As with early 20th-century Marxist thought, today's radical right-wing circles often articulate sharp and sometimes justified critiques of current economic, political, and cultural systems. Yet beyond the criticism, they frequently lack the second half of the equation: a productive, positive, forward-looking vision for society.

The Deeper Distinction Between Right and Left

Here it is fitting to adopt Yoav Netzer's broader distinction between right and left: the right, fundamentally, is about business and productive engagement with reality.

To which I add:

The Position of Jews in the Antisemitic Imagination

Moreover:

Conversely: