Anti-Semitism and COVID-Libels

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Among the troubling phenomenon to which we are witness at this most difficult time of COVID, is the appearance of anti-Semitic attitudes and actions – hearkening back to medieval accusations of blood libels well poisonings, and up to contemporary anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, Jews have often borne the blame of plagues which affected their host societies (even as they themselves were afflicted with black plague, cholera, or today’s coronavirus, in equal, or sometimes greater, numbers).

In light of these disturbing trends, and in the hopes that we might learn something about our current crisis from the study of history, we turned to Dr. David Berger, Dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, and a longtime member of TRADITION’s editorial board. Dr. Berger has dedicated decades of his distinguished academic career to the study of anti-Semitism and Jewish-Christian interactions. His writings on these topics have recently been gathered in Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations (Academic Studies Press).