This chapter is a philosophical essay, divided into seven numbered sections. It analyzes the psychological, economic, theological, and political foundations of antisemitism in Western civilization.

Section I

The authors open with two competing doctrines about antisemitism: the fascist claim that Jews are an “antirace” whose destruction is a precondition for human happiness, and the liberal claim that Jews form a group defined solely by religious tradition. They claim both are simultaneously true and false.

Horkheimer and Adorno argue that fascist doctrine is “true” because fascism has imposed it. Jews have become the designated scapegoat for the destructive energies of a dysfunctional social order in which workers are exploited. The image projected on Jews reflects the fascists’ own craving for total possession and unlimited power. The authors redefine race not as a natural feature but as a regression to nature as pure violence—the bourgeois individual’s self-assertion within a barbaric collective. Jewish persecution cannot be separated from a social order whose underlying substance is violence.

Section II

As a mass movement, antisemitism is driven by a leveling impulse: the insistence that no one should fare better than ordinary people. Its economic gains for ordinary participants are negligible; its real reward is collective permission to attack others.