Jews’ economic roles made them scapegoats for capitalist misery.

Evidence

The reasoning ran as follows: the Jews were particularly exposed owing to their role as money-lenders, merchants and traders, occupations which were more available to them than other people and in which, since they were forced to enjoy taking risks, they took more risks and were more successful in those they took than non-Jews. To the oppressed masses, they seemed to be the immediate cause of their misery and appeared to be displaying the expansionist and unsympathetic face of capitalism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1539

Categorization

• XREF: This is the classic Marxian analysis of antisemitism as displaced class hatred, elaborated later by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Connects to the broader Critical Theory reading program. — connects to: Jewish economic roles made them appear as capitalism’s aggressive face to oppressed masses; Petty-bourgeois resentment of free trade made Jews a ready scapegoat for industrial capitalism; Jews drew hatred because they carried capitalism into pre-capitalist economies — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Petty-bourgeois resentment of free trade made Jews a ready scapegoat for industrial capitalism #corroborates (0.95)
• Petty bourgeois resentment blamed Jews for the competitive system that displaced them #corroborates (0.90) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 142
• Jews drew hatred because they carried capitalism into pre-capitalist economies #expands (0.88) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132
• Conflating capitalism with Jews made anti-capitalist hostility emotionally anchorable #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 146
• Jews were hated because they were secretly envied for embodying wealth without work #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 698
• Jews were scapegoated in financial scandals they only mediated #exemplifies (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 140
• Jews’ state-loan role fused lower-middle-class resentment with politics #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 145
• Capitalist anti-Semitism is the bourgeoisie’s self-hatred displaced onto Jews #expands (0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132
• Eastern European Jews formed a parasitic seeming middle class that blocked capitalist development #qualifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 125