JOLLY DAYS

Heroes

Growing up, you come to terms with the ambiguities which inhabit all things — even that which you most admire. The heroes of my youth, the great artists, time slowly washed over with new knowledge of them as people and further exposure to their work; they became more complicated, their work more complex; their lives sometimes dubious — they turned out to be most human — all the more their achievement.

But some suffered badly. The anti-Semitism of many fine artists still troubles me. Cézanne, and Degas and…well you could go on and on. Was it only “of the time” — to be dismissed? I don't know. I do know I was especially saddened to read of TS Eliot's infection.

Anthony Julius is not swinging wildly here — he clearly sees the demarcations of Eliot's greatness; but he doesn't allow himself the easy and chummy denials that anti-Semitism often paternalistically elicits.

It was said against me that by describing Eliot as an anti-Semite I was implicating him in projects of terror and murder. This was taken to be terribly unfair to Eliot. The holding of anti-Semitic views has become more culpable since the second world war, apparently. This is partly because it is thought the Holocaust for the first time exposed the extent of anti-Semitism's capacity to harm Jews, and partly because anti-Semitism is no longer a general feature of the times. It is now a personal decision and not a prejudice unavoidably “in the air”.

I think this is wrong. anti-Semitism continues to contribute to the general “climate”. It has not dwindled to a marginal, limited phenomenon. Anti-Semitic propaganda is in global circulation, both on the internet and in printed form. Israel's very right to exist is routinely challenged and the project of Jewish self-determination denied. It is the wish of many to deny to Jews those collective rights freely given to others (or urged for them). Jews are still being killed for the fantasy offence of being Jewish. Moral resolution is still required if one is not going to adopt anti-Semitic positions.