Hate: The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism in France (and What It Means for Us)

3.7/5 ( ratings)

"All those who care about France, Jews, East-West relations, and, indeed, our entire modern culture, must read this book." --Tom Reiss, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

What is the connection between a rise in the number of random attacks against Jews on the streets of France and strategically planned terrorist acts targeting the French population at large? Before the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan night club, and others made international headlines, Marc Weitzmann had noticed a surge of seemingly random acts of violence against the Jews of France. His disturbing and eye-opening new book, Hate, proposes that both the small-scale and large-scale acts of violence have their roots in not one, but two very specific forms of populism: an extreme and violent ethos of hate spread among the Muslim post-colonial suburban developments on the one hand, and the deeply-rooted French ultra-conservatism of the far right. Weitzmann's shrewd on-the-ground reporting is woven throughout with the history surrounding the legacies of the French Revolution, the Holocaust, and Gaulist "Arab-French policy."

Hate is a chilling and important account that shows how the rebirth of French Anti-Semitism relates to the new global terror wave, revealing France to be a veritable localized laboratory for a global phenomenon.

"[An] excellent and chilling report-cum-memoir about one of the most unsettling phenomena in contemporary Europe." --The Wall Street Journal

"[Hate has] an often illuminating intensity as it grapples with an unresolved French and European quandary . . . Cleareyed." --
The New York Times Book Review

"Weitzmann's absorbing reckoning carries urgent lessons and warnings for us all." --Philip Gourevitch, New York Times-bestselling author