Child of our time
Malcolm Elliott reviews a powerful personal narrative
It is hard to explain anti-Semitism. The Christian church once held the Jews responsible for the death of Jesus, despite the fact that his execution was carried out by Roman authority. Antipathy toward the Jewish race has persisted throughout European history, denying citizenship and restricting Jews to ghettos where they had no chance of making a living except by money-lending – a trade forbidden to Christians by the church’s fatuous refusal to allow the charging of interest. Jews were thus obliged to live apart from the rest of society, envied for their wealth and blamed for all manner of crimes that they almost certainly didn’t commit.
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