Shabbat Reading: Looking for an Enemy

#whatireadovershabbat Looking for an Enemy: 8 Essays on Antisemitism, edited by Jo Glanville (W. W. Norton, 2022)

It’s been hard to set aside time to read, even on Shabbat. I started Looking for an Enemy a few weeks ago and just finished it. Obviously the topic is timely. Given the nature of 10/7 and its aftermath I’m disappointed by how little the book deals with Left and political antisemitism and radical Islam. Still, except for Tom Segev’s rambling contribution, the essays are solid and informative. My biggest takeaway is that the book, published two years ago, already feels dated. Like even people who took antisemitism seriously lacked a sense of urgency. As if no one thought a 10/7 could happen or expected the full-throated cheers it elicited. No one but David Nirenberg, who asks how Jews or Israel became “a convincing explanation of what is wrong with the world.” That’s the question that faces all of us—and that’s killing some of us.