248 pages
192 color illustrations, 86 b&w illustrations
Today e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter are sometimes used to spread hateful messages and slurs masking as humor. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries postcards served this purpose. The images collected in this volume make it painfully clear that anti-Semitic propaganda did not simply begin with the Nazis. Nor was it the sole province of politicians, journalists, and rabble-rousers. One of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism during this time was spread by quite ordinary people through postcards. Of the millions of postcards exchanged during their heyday of 1890 through 1920, a considerable percentage carried the anti-Semitic images that publishers churned out to meet public demand, reflecting deep-seated attitudes of society.
Over 250 examples of such postcards, largely from the pre-Holocaust era, are reproduced here for the first time—selected, translated, and historically contextualized by one of the world’s foremost postcard collectors. Although representing but a small sample of the many thousands that were in print, these examples nonetheless offer a disturbing glimpse—one shocking to the modern sensibility—into the many permutations of anti-Semitism eagerly circulated by millions of people. In so doing, they help us to better understand a phenomenon still pervasive today.
“Among the best ways to determine the nature and degree of bigotry in a society is through its popular folk culture, and there are few better sources of such culture than picture postcards. As a postcard collector myself, I can only marvel at what Salo Aizenberg has collected in this volume. These remarkable postcards will make you laugh, cry, and clench your fist in anger.”—Alan Dershowitz, author of The Trials of Zion
"This is a book that teaches us how easy it was to spread hatred in the absence of critical thinking and questioning. This is a lesson for us all that we ignore at our own peril."—Marty Zelenietz, Israel Philatelist
Foreword by Michael Berenbaum
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Dreyfus Affair
Chapter 2: The Main Stereotypes and Canards
Chapter 3: Postcards from Germany
Chapter 4: Postcards from France
Chapter 5: Postcards from Great Britain
Chapter 6: Postcards from the United States
Chapter 7: Postcards from Other Countries
Chapter 8: The Little Cohn, an Anti-Semitic Hit Song
Chapter 9: The Spa Towns of Karlsbad and Marienbad
Chapter 10: Nazi Era Postcards
Chapter 11: Anti-Israel Postcards
Appendix A: Anti-Semitic Quotes from Germany
Endnotes
Bibliography
