- Summary
- During World War II, the millennia-old spiritual malady of anti-Jewish hostility culminated with the annihilation of 6,000,000. Immediately thereafter, the defamation and persecution of Jews was condemned by the vast majority of the world. However, as few as forty years later, the Jewish respite from mass persecution and discrimination has ended. Jews today in Communist and Muslim-dominated lands are targets of blatant discrimination, harassment, and persecution. The United Nations has become a veritable breeding ground for the dissemination of virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli misinformation. In American, the radical Right and Left are highly inimical towards both Jews and Israel. The objective of the present study was to analyze both historically and empirically the anti-Jewish prejudice phenomenon over a period of four millennia to the present. The two major goals were: (1) to locate common and unique anti-Jewish themes throughout history, in an attempt to create a more comprehensive and cohesive theory of anti-Jewish hostility than has heretofore been presented. A thorough and inclusive theory was deemed the most appropriate response for dealing adequately with the present and future anti-Jewish phenomenon, and (2) to lay the foundations for successfully exposing contemporary anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli propaganda, based on historical and empirical data sources. Data were obtained through structured telelphone interviews completed on 1,211 respondents from Chicago proper. Two types of interviews were instituted where Jewish (N = 811), and non-Jewish (N = 400) samples were investigated separately. Results showed that major changes have taken place in the Jewish community over the last generation, and that a large behavioral, cognitive, and attitudinal schism presently exists between Orthodox Jews and Jews of other orientations. The results lent support to the present overall theory of anti-Jewish hostility, its origins and objectives. In addition, the results confirmed the relationship between attitudes towards Jews with attitudes toward Israel, the pervasive ignorance of crucial Mideast issues, the relationship of lack of knowledge to attitudes towards Israel, the news media's bias, and the slight but significant relationship between psychological and demographic variables with attitudes towards both Jews and Israel.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Allswang, Benzion.
- Published
- [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1985
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-358).
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Loyola University of Chicago, 1985.
Photocopy. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Dissertation Services, 1997. 23 cm.
Dissertations and Theses
