In his 1933 novel “The Oppermanns,” Lion Feuchtwanger did what all great writers do: He captured the specific to reveal the universal.
The book represents a dual tragedy, fictional and real, for the author is eerily prescient in his depiction of a Jewish family in Germany. It is a hard read because we know what will happen in the world beyond the fiction. A nation will succumb to hate, and millions of people will perish as a result.
The Oppermanns can be seen, in retrospect, as a warning, a siren alerting the country — and the world — to the evil in their midst. Some listened, but many more did not. The death camps emerged, and the victims multiplied: men, women and children, their bodies stacked in the fields outside Auschwitz and Belzec and Treblinka and…
America is not Nazi Germany, and a second Holocaust is not looming. But the rhetoric of 2022 bears a chilling resemblance to the rhetoric of 1934. Vile words lead to vile deeds. Antisemitic attacks are on the rise — and must be condemned at every turn.
We have heard vile words recently. When celebrities utter these comments, it adds poison to an already toxic environment. It corrodes our national spirit, legitimizing in the minds of some attitudes that have no legitimacy in a just and caring society.
Kanye West, the rapper who calls himself Ye, may be a gifted artist, but talent is no shield against the malignance that can rot a person’s soul. Ye, who sported a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at a recent fashion show, tweeted he would go “death con 3” on Jewish people — an ugly comment that sparked a rally in which white supremacists hung a banner from a freeway overpass in Los Angeles: “Kanye is right about the Jews.”
Unlike the response in 1933 Germany, the reaction here has been swift, just and decisive, especially among the business community. Companies associated with West — Adidas, Balenciaga, CAA and MRC — cut him loose, although we would say it took too long. West claimed he lost $2 billion in one day.
“We cannot support any content that amplifies his platform,” CAA and MRC executives wrote in a joint memo.
Before West unleashed his tirade against Jews, former President Donald Trump said American Jews “better get their act together,” a comment critics decried as condescending and antisemitic.
“No President has done more for Israel than I have,” Trump, who has a daughter who converted to Judaism and Jewish grandchildren, posted on his media platform, Truth Social. “Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.”
In another incident, Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving promoted “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake up Black America,” an antisemitic movie based on the book of the same title.
“The Brooklyn Nets strongly condemn and have no tolerance for the promotion of any form of hate speech,” the team tweeted.
Each incident has occurred against the backdrop of rising antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League reported 2,717 antisemitic incidents in 2021, three years after 11 people were killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue; the figure represents a 34% increase over the previous year.
“You had Jews being beaten and brutalized in broad daylight, say, in the middle of Times Square or Los Angeles or the Strip in Las Vegas, where people who were simply identified as Jewish came under assault and attack,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, told PBS. “That was new.”
When antisemitic incidents arise, the entire community must respond in full force.
In a 1933 review of “The Oppermanns,” the New York Times said it was aimed at both Germany and “the world outside.”
“It is… bearing the message, ‘Wake up! The barbarians are upon us!’”
Almost 90 years later, Joshua Cohen expressed a similar sentiment in the New York Times.
“His (Feuchtwanger’s) example shows that art can challenge power, as it were, ‘powerfully,’ and yet have no political effect,” he wrote.
Antisemitism does not sprout from a single seed; it is sown and nurtured across communities and across nations.
Yes, 2022 is not 1933. But the real-life tragedy of “The Oppermanns” is that it may be as relevant now as it was then.
San Antonio Express-News
