American social anti-Semitism was more pervasive but softer than European varieties.

Evidence

What was omitted was the question of the characteristics, causes and significance of the `social anti-Semitism’ typical in the United States: unofficial but unquestionably valid and unavoidable regulations such as the exclusion of Jews from certain clubs, hotels or student organizations; or the percentage of positions given to Jews at most of the important universities or in a series of professions. Elsewhere, in his lecture at the Psychiatric Symposium on Anti-Semitism in San Francisco, Horkheimer had claimed that social anti-Semitism was much worse in the USA than in Europe, leading one to suppose that, in spite of the obvious differences between the USA and the Third Reich, the difference between their psychological bases was dangerously small. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1545

Categorization

• XREF: Horkheimer’s claim that American exclusionary anti-Semitism outstripped Europe’s connects to critical-theory debates about whether liberal democracies can harbor fascist potential. — connects to: American anti-Semites scored as rigid, conservative, and nationalistic; Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hostility have become normalized across Europe; German popular antisemitism was weaker than in several other European countries. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 115 (+4 more)
• SEED: A potential essay angle: the difference between violent and ‘social’ forms of group hatred, and whether softer structural exclusion may be more pervasive than overt violence.

Broader Connections

• American anti-Semites scored as rigid, conservative, and nationalistic #expands (0.80)
• European Islamophobia is deeper and more institutionally embedded than America’s. #corroborates (0.80)
• American workers’ anti-Semitic image of Jews omitted the radical-communist stereotype #expands (0.80)
• Nearly half of Americans held low opinions of Jews in 1938 #corroborates (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 272
• German popular antisemitism was weaker than in several other European countries. #contradicts (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 115
• American anti-Semitism included lynching and night-rider violence against Jews #qualifies (0.75) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 268
• Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hostility have become normalized across Europe #qualifies (0.72)