Antisemitism is now a focal point in the impassioned debate over free speech in the United States as defined by the First Amendment in the constitution, contends James Loeffler in his bold and thought-provoking work, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America, published by Metropolitan Books.

This debate is at the center of current American politics. As he writes in his introduction, “American democracy stands at a precipice, besieged by authoritarian politics, resurgent nativism, and popular demagoguery. These forces, once relegated to history, now threaten our pluralistic society and its defining commitments to freedom and equality.”

Within the framework of these developments, the United States is consumed by a “national crisis” over free speech and antisemitism, argues Loeffler, a professor of modern Jewish history at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century.

Exceptional Hatred is constructed around three antisemitic incidents during which the United States confronted its “deepest contradictions” regarding race, religion and national identity.

The first incident occurred when anti-Jewish riots in Chicago led to two court cases – Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) and Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), both of which redefined the boundaries of free speech.

The second one took place in the late 1970s in Skokie, when neo-Nazis attempted to stage a provocative march through a Chicago suburb inhabited by a fairly substantial number of Holocaust survivors.

The third unfolded in 2017, when torch-bearing fascists at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted “Jews will not replace us.” This incident unfolded on the campus of the University of Virginia. Progressives, who were normally dedicated to fighting white supremacy in all its forms, refused to admit Jewish student groups unless they cut ties with a pro-Israel organization. Jewish students were therefore required to pass a special political litmus test, Loeffler says.

He skillfully frames these incidents within the historic parameters of antisemitism in the United States, a good starting point for an informed discussion on this fraught........

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