Adorno traced anti-Semitism to the Jews’ refusal of settled work and civilized repression

Evidence

At a very early stage of the history of humanity, the Jews either scorned the transition from nomadism to settled habitation and remained nomadic, or went through the change inadequately and superficially, in a kind of pseudomorphosis. The biblical story ought to be analysed in detail for this. It seems to me to be full of hints on it. The most important of these are the exodus from Egypt and the prelude to it, the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, together with the brevity of the Jewish kingdom and its immanent weakness … The survival of nomadism among the Jews might provide not only an explanation for the nature of the Jew himself, but even more an explanation for anti-Semitism. The abandonment of nomadism was apparently one of the most difficult sacrifices demanded in human history. The Western concept of work, and all of the instinctual repression it involves, may coincide exactly with the development of settled habitation. The image of the Jews is one of a condition of humanity in which work is unknown, and all of the later attacks on the parasitic, miserly character of the Jews are mere rationalizations. The Jews are the ones who have not allowed themselves to be `civilized’ and subjected to the priority of work. This has not been forgiven them, and that is why they are a bone of contention in class society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1143

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A striking speculative thesis: anti-Semitism as punishment for the refusal of work-civilization, grounded in the nomadism-settledness transition — dense and paradigm-shaped enough to sit with.
• XREF: Connects to Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment thesis about work, repression, and instrumentality against nature. — connects to: Anti-Semitism originates in repressed envy of Jews’ persistent nomadism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1143; Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147

Broader Connections

• Anti-Semitism originates in repressed envy of Jews’ persistent nomadism #corroborates (0.92) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1143
• Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim #expands (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147