Jews and Ideology

Being Indian, I am familiar with the idea of religious persecution (although thankfully not through personal experience).  However, the systematic and longstanding anti-Semitism that has persisted in Western culture, is beyond anything I can understand or relate to.  This goes to the extent that Jews have been stereotypically associated with about almost anything.  It is possible to see a Jewish hand behind any ideology that you saw as nefarious depending on your tastes and inclinations, and has been done (and is still done) plenty of times.

I am not talking about medieval/pre-Enlightenment "the Jews poisoned the wells" hysteria here. I am talking about educated 20th century Europe (and America).  As middle-class Jewish intellectuals in Europe naturally gravitated towards leftwing ideologies ( Marxism, anarchism, different forms of socialism) in the late 19th c/ early 20th c, Jewish involvement was used to discredit these movements by Anglo-American and European commentators.  Marxism and Bolshevism were seen as largely Jewish inspired movements by the capitalist bourgeoise Western media.  Churchill commented on the heavy Jewish presence in the ranks of the Bolsheviks.  Some capitalists such as Henry Ford were rabidly anti-Semitic.  In America, which was seeing large scale Jewish immigration in the aftermath of the horrendous Russian pogroms, anarchist leaders and trade unionists (many of whom like  Emma Goldman also happened to be Jewish) helped anti-Semites cement the subversive anti-authority Jewish stereotype in the New World. Much later during the Mccarthy witchhunts, many Jewish intellectuals were again picked on for being a Communist fifth column.

On the other hand, the longstanding stereotype of the moneylending bloodsucking Jewish parasite had simply morphed into the stereotype of the filthy rich, capitalist Jew.  The Jewish lobby has long been held to be  a  powerful driving force behind the American economy.  Indeed there were many Jews who were enviably successful in the capitalist system, people like the Rockefellers, who would now face anti-Semitic working class wrath.  Jews dominated banking and other prosperous bourgeoise jobs in Europe, and this is said to be one of the reasons that ticked off Hitler.  Even today, "anti-imperialists" of various hues see the "Zionist hand" behind a lot of things.  So depending on your proclivities, you could accuse Jews of being "bloody commies" or "bloodsucking capitalists", and be ensured an admiring audience either way.

Today when you hear Ahmadinijad promise to "wipe Israel off the map", and when an Iranian apparitchik sees Jewish-inspired discourse in Disney's characters , you have to remember that such creative blame-laying was merely learned by the Iranians or other whackjobs that are trying to take credit by standing up for the unjustly treated Palestinians from centuries of Western tradition.