Historian on anti-Semitism: “What’s so kosher about anti-Zionism?”

taz: Ms. Porat, you grew up in Argentina?

Dina Porat: Yes, I was six years old when I left the country.

taz: Your parents emigrated from Eastern Europe?

Porat: The reason was the anti-Semitism prevalent there. My mother came from Lithuania from the Raczki municipality. She had studied languages ​​at university. In 1932 she was beaten by Nazi-minded students. Soon afterwards she left Lithuania and went to Argentina. My paternal grandfather was killed in one of the anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe during the First World War. Up to 200,000 Jews died back then. An older brother of my father was the first to go to Argentina, and my father followed him. The family came from a small town near Pinsk in Belarus.

taz: When did you first experience anti-Semitism yourself? Was that in Argentina?

Porat: I saw an inscription on a wall. It said: “Kill the Jews.” I was five years old, I couldn't read the label. I came home and asked what that meant. My father told me. He said, I remember clearly, that those who wrote that were not good people. And that it has nothing to do with me. Anti-Semitism is not the problem of Jews. The anti-Semites have a problem. They think they can solve it by attacking us.

Dina Porat, born in Argentina in 1943, is Professor Emeritus of History at Tel Aviv University with a focus on Holocaust research and anti-Semitism. She conducted research at Columbia and Harvard Universities in the USA, among others. Porat is a member of the Yad Vashem Scientific Advisory Board, the board of the International School for Holocaust Studies, and has served as the memorial's chief historian since 2011. She published “The Revenge is My Alone” in German in 2021, about Jewish retaliation plans against Germans after the Shoah.

taz: Why did your parents go to Israel back then?

Porat: They were convinced Zionists. My father was a leader in the Jewish community in Argentina. There he founded the Zionist youth movement, which later set up kibbutzim in Israel.

taz: How did you come up with the idea of ​​studying the history of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in Israel? In the 1960s and 1970s there was no such field of study in Israel, was there?

Porat: You are absolutely right. The study of the topic began at home in Argentina. I was born in 1943, so a few years later the first Jewish survivors came to the country. My parents ran an open house. The survivors sat in our living room and talked. My father also worked for the World Jewish Congress. Brochures on the subject were published there. Later he gave these to me to read. As a child, all I understood was that something very bad had happened.

Porat: When I started studying Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, I was already convinced that the Jew is not just an individual, but part of a collective, and that as an individual you are also responsible for this collective. My studies began in the mid-1960s. I discovered that there was no teaching about the Holocaust at all. I asked the dean. He told me not to approach this topic. I would go crazy if I studied the Holocaust. Later he never wanted to have said anything like that. So I started looking into the issue myself.

taz: Let's jump to today. There were recently state elections in Berlin. One of the elected representatives said that states have no right to exist.

taz: Yes. However, she is heavily involved in the Palestine solidarity movement. Another lady from the same party, The Left, said that a liberation of Palestine will only be complete when Tel Aviv is back in the hands of Palestine. Is this anti-Semitism?

taz: Anti-Semitism from the left is not a new phenomenon. Historical figures like Stalin had anti-Semitic beliefs. Today, representatives of this movement say that they are not anti-Semites at all, but merely anti-Zionists. Are you right? Or is anti-Zionism also anti-Semitic?

Porat: The latter is absolutely correct. For a long time I believed that wasn't the case. We all thought that. We thought we were being particularly accurate when we described one event as anti-Semitic and the other as anti-Zionist. But then the distinctions became blurred. This began back in Soviet times, when the USSR acted anti-Zionist, but did so using anti-Semitic terms. The importance grew after the Durban conference in 2001. I was at that UN conference at the time. In just two days, many participants forgot what they knew about racism. It became an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish event.

taz: At the conference, Zionism was defined as a form of racism.

Porat: It was about destroying Israel and killing the Jews. There was only one terminology, no longer anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. No more distinction.

taz: Is it true that many right-wing groups these days are emphatically pro-Israel and act as if they love all Jews...

Porat: It's a very thin, shiny surface. A thin layer that pretends to love Israel and defend the country. But beneath this thin layer the old hatred of Jews comes to the fore.

taz: On the other, left-wing side, they say that they have nothing against Jews at all, they just reject the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the war in the Gaza Strip, but fight for the freedom of the Palestinians. It almost seems like everyone loves the Jews.

Porat: It's just a tactical change, but it's not a real change in attitude. The image of the Jews has not changed. What has changed are the anti-Semitic tools used in politics. And if I may ask: What is so kosher about anti-Zionism? Why should it be better to be an anti-Zionist than an anti-Semite? Anti-Zionism is discriminatory against a single nation.

taz: Because you don't advocate a Jewish state, but states for all other peoples?

Porat: Exactly. Any small island in the Pacific can become a state, even if there have not always been long traditions there. Jews have been around for 3,000 years. We should prove that we are worthy of a state.

taz: The third anniversary of Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th recently happened. At that time, more than 1,200 people were murdered and hundreds were kidnapped. One would assume that such an act would result in a wave of solidarity with Israel. But the opposite is the case. There is no solidarity movement with Israel. Why did this happen?

Porat: I think the reasons are as follows. The crime is denied, just as the Holocaust is denied to this day. The bigger the crime, the stronger the denial and the faster this denial comes. This denial comes not only from Hamas, but also from those who support Hamas and see them as freedom fighters. These supporters were unable to admit that they were wrong after the October 7 massacre. That they supported murderers and rapists. So they decided to negate the crime.

taz: The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to wage a major war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Many thousands of civilians also died. Some people who feel solidarity with Israel believe that this war has encouraged the growth of anti-Semitism abroad. Is this view correct?

Porat: The war was not directed against civilians. The war was against Hamas. It targeted their headquarters and the underground tunnels.

taz: But many civilians also died.

Porat: Yes, unfortunately and unintentionally. But the war was not against civilians, but against Hamas. Civilians were killed. But Hamas is to blame for this.

taz: There are a lot of people in Europe - and by no means only Hamas supporters - who believe that Israel is responsible for the genocide of the Palestinians. Israel's image is worse than it has been in decades.

Porat: The same applies in the United States, in the film industry, among academics. We are trash cans. But why could this image change so quickly and easily? I think it's because the old anti-Semitism that sees us Jews as a world problem shines through.

taz: Ten to 20 percent of the population in Germany shares anti-Semitic sentiments. This percentage has hardly changed in decades, despite all attempts to do so. What do you think helps combat anti-Semitism?

Porat: It's very difficult to say, but I think one thing could help. If these feelings arise from ignorance about Jews, if you don't really know what Judaism is, if you can't appreciate what's actually going on in the Middle East, then you could do this: teach your children who we are. Who are these Jews?

taz: Theodor Herzl wrote in “Jewish State” that Jews must have their own country in order to escape global anti-Semitism. Now hatred of Jews has broken into Israel itself with Hamas. Are Jews still safe in Israel? Was Herzl wrong?

Porat: The state has certainly failed. This has nothing to do with Herzl. Herzl was right that the Jews needed their own state. But we failed that day. We have failed before. We didn't see it coming. We weren't vigilant.