Holocaust memory has skewed antisemitism scholarship toward teleology and away from contextual comparison

Evidence

The following chapters deal with only those elements in nineteenth-century history which indeed belong among the “origins of totalitarianism.” A comprehensive history of anti-semitism remains still to be written and is beyond the scope of this book. So long as this lacuna exists, there is enough justification even in terms of mere scholarship to publish the following chapters as an independent contribution toward a more comprehensive history, although it was originally conceived as a constituent part of the prehistory, as it were, of totalitarianism. Moreover, what is true for the history of antisemitism, that it fell into the hands of non-Jewish crackpots and Jewish apologetics, and was carefully avoided by reputable historians, is true, mutatis mutandis, for nearly all elements that later crystallized in the novel totalitarian phenomenon; they had hardly been noticed by either learned or public opinion because they belonged to a subterranean stream of European history where, hidden from the light of the public and the attention of enlightened men, they had been able to gather an entirely unexpected virulence. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 21 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern scholarship downplays antisemitism’s unique ideological role in the Holocaust; Holocaust exceptionalism hinders understanding antisemitism as racism — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 171; The Holocaust was not the logical culmination of prior antisemitism (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Antisemitism scholarship has neglected comparison with other racisms #corroborates (0.93)
• Antisemitism’s core elements long hid in a subterranean European stream unnoticed by scholars #complicates (0.74) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 21