Jews faced opposing attacks as both capitalist symbols and liberal values incarnate.

Evidence

Thus, the Jews became the object of a two-pronged, contradictory attack. By the middle class they were attacked as symbols of all that was rotten' in declining old-fashioned capitalismacquisitiveness, anti-social attitudes, cut-throat competition . . . At the same time, the Jews were attacked by protagonists of the new Fascism as embodying those values of liberalism which the movement’ aimed to destroy … non-conformism, self-determination, and minority rights. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1542

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the two-part structure of anti-Semitic ideology: Jews as capitalist rot for the middle class, and as liberalism’s defenders for fascists.
• XREF: connects to: Jews were attacked simultaneously from left and right as capitalist and liberal symbols — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 388; Jewish wealth simultaneously attracted anti-Semitism and shielded against it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 39; Conflating capitalism with Jews made anti-capitalist hostility emotionally anchorable — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 146 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Jewish economic roles made them appear as capitalism’s aggressive face to oppressed masses #expands (0.90)
• Conflating capitalism with Jews made anti-capitalist hostility emotionally anchorable #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 146
• Left and right alike justified anti-Jewish violence in economic-class terms #expands (0.82)
• Anti-Jewish prejudice attached to modernity and revolution across the political spectrum #expands (0.80)
• Jewish question became a catalyst for social unrest in bourgeois society #expands (0.78)
• Antisemites accused Jews of being simultaneously insular and cosmopolitan #expands (0.78) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 544
• Aristocratic antisemitism targeted Jews as symbols of the state, not as economic rivals #complicates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 132
• Jews faced the twin contradictions of equality-as-privilege and non-national existence in nation-states. #qualifies (0.70)
• Capitalist anti-Semitism is the bourgeoisie’s self-hatred displaced onto Jews #expands (0.70) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132