Risky Jews

Abstract

Focusing on many previously untranslated articles in popular national magazines and newspapers, as well as works by prominent racial theorists, this chapter traces how outrage was systematically fomented against Jews in Nazi-era Germany, creating perceived imperatives for drastic discriminatory measures. Rather than locate the core of Nazi antisemitism in historical or psychological factors, this study approaches antisemitism using the theoretical framework of risk communication. The heuristics of risk perception reveal an array of rhetorical tactics that fomented visceral aversion impervious to logical refutation. Portraying Jews as embodying maximal and uncontrollable risk, political, academic, and mass media discourse converged on the theme of Jews as posing unacceptable dangers that required progressively more drastic measures to control. The principles of risk communication, especially the means of inflaming outrage, could furnish useful interpretive frames for analyzing current antisemitism and other types of repressive discourse.