Professor Richard Landes, “Deutsch’s Pattern and the Antisemitic Turn of the 21st Century”

30 October, “Deutsch’s Pattern and the Antisemitic Turn of the 21st Century”

Professor Richard Landes, Historian and Author

Location: ISGAP Center, 165 E. 56th St., 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10022
Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Time: 2:00 P.M. – 3:30 P.M.

Physicist David Deutsch has identified a “Pattern” that he cannot explain, but claims that these patterns characterize behavior about the Jews over many cultures and many millennia: the legitimacy of harming Jews. One need not act out that legitimate deed, but one must, at all costs, even to oneself, establish that legitimacy. This seemingly innocuous insistence, so slight in comparison with the genocidal hatreds of Nazis and Jihadis (which in many cases those conforming to the Pattern oppose), may seem of little importance. But further reflection suggests it’s a key to understanding some of the more  profound dimensions of “the longest hatred.” This talk will a) describe the pattern, b) use it to understand the stunning rise of Jew-hatred in the 21st century precisely when the phenomenon seemed to be fading, and c)  explore some explanations for this Pattern.