Emancipated Jews misread organized political persecution as a judicial error

Evidence

For centuries, Jews were safely isolated in partly enforced, partly freely chosen enclosures; now they emerged from their seclusion, bought property and rented houses in once uniformly Christian districts, became part of daily reality and partners of diffuse discourse unconfined to ritualized exchanges. For centuries the Jews were distinguishable on sight: they wore their segregation, so to speak, on their sleeves, symbolically and literally. Now they dressed like all the others, according to social station rather than caste membership. For centuries Jews were a pariah caste, legitimately looked down upon by even the lowliest of the low among the Christians. Now some of the pariah moved into positions of social influence and prestige – through intellectual skills or through money, now accorded full status-determining force and ostensibly unconstrained and unqualified by considerations of rank and pedigree. Truly, the fate of the Jews epitomized the awesome scope of social upheaval and served as a vivid, obtrusive reminder of the erosion of old certainties, of melting and evaporating of everything once deemed solid and lasting. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 143 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Assimilated Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred; Jewish emancipation removed visible markers of difference and so made Jews newly threatening — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 143

Related

• Jewish emancipation removed visible markers of difference and so made Jews newly threatening (similarity 0.84)
• Racist hatred inverted the Jewish chosenness myth into fear of Jewish victory. (similarity 0.80)
• Even well-meaning emancipation advocates reduced the Jewish question to a social one (similarity 0.80)
• Assimilated Jews feared equal rights because equality erased their exceptional status. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Assimilated Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred #expands (0.85)
• Jewish emancipation removed visible markers of difference and so made Jews newly threatening #qualifies (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 143