A French Scholar Tries, and Fails, to Understand Anti-Semitism in America

Pierre Birnbaum’s Tears of History: The Rise of Political Antisemitism in the United States, was published in English last summer, after first appearing in French in 2022, so it can be forgiven for the fact that the picture it paints of anti-Semitism in the U.S. looks very different from the picture that has come into focus after October 7. Yet the distinguished historian of French anti-Semitism makes errors of analysis that are less excusable, beginning with his theory that the presence of Jews in prominent positions in the Obama administration—like, in his view, the presence of Jews in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration—has been a major catalyst for political anti-Semitism in America. Allan Arkush writes in his review: