The Jean Améry meme

I notice that both the Flesh is Grass piece I linked to yesterday, and the Modernity piece I linked to last week, highlight the extraordinary intellectual Jean Améry, Resistance fighter, camp survivor, and wonderful writer. Mod said he got to Améry via here, but I've never blogged about him, but I realise he featured in this debate, where CT cited him.

Améry also appears in the Your Revolution is No Liberation reader, writing presciently in the 1960s on the resurgence of respectable left/liberal antisemitism:

“The classic phenomenon of anti-Semitism is taking a new shape. The old one still exists, this I call coexistence….To be clear: anti-Semitism, included in anti-Zionism as the thunderstorm is part of the cloud, is again respectable.”

“Anti-Semitism was once the socialism of the stupid guys. Today it is about to become an integrating ingredient of socialism as such, and thereby every socialist turns himself, by his free will, into a stupid guy. Anti-Semitism has become respectable again, but there is no such thing as respectable anti-Semitism!”

Related: Eamonn McDonagh, sharpening the debate on the new antisemitism.