Christopher L Schilling - Böcker

This book develops “emotional state theory” as a new contribution to international relations theory (IR). The text addresses the State of Israel vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The rationale for this research perspective stems from the trajectory of Israeli state-building since its foundation in May 1948 to the present date. This trajectory is constructed reflecting the trauma of the past and dreams about the future. Both contribute decisively to a better understanding of the current image and position of the state of Israel. The reference builds on two great Jewish thinkers’ works,Theodor Herzl and his book The Jewish State and Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. The author argues that despite the fact that both never met, taken together their ideas lend themselves to shed light on and offer an explanation for Israel’s troubled and uncertain position in current international relations. The resulting question underlying this work on the emotionality of states and its impact on international relations is therefore “whether Israel is still in a process of dreaming” and whether it is therefore to be understood a “state which has not yet woken from the trauma of the Jewish past. Not a dream’s fulfilment of an end of the Diaspora, but a nightmare based on this experience.” Drawing on these two parallel and rather influential texts, Schilling rephrases the leading questions of this book as this: “Has Israel developed an understanding of itself which sees the country as a modern state among the nations, which is dealing with its neighbors, or rather, does Israel understand itself more as being like a ghetto that is still surrounded by a hostile world? Has Israel become a strong, self-confident country, or has it continued with the nervousness of the Diaspora Jews to become a state with an emotional problem?”.

The image of Jews in East Asia is a strange mixture of opposites, a paradoxical blend of admiration and mockery, identification and denial. This book explores what 'Jew' means to many East Asians, and whether it is anything that Jewish people themselves would recognise. There is clearly a positive fascination: various bestsellers entitled Talmud are found in vending machines and public schools, while private 'Jewish education' institutions have opened across South Korea, claiming to improve children's IQ. People can stay at the Talmud Business Hotel in Taiwan, or attend Chinese centres for Jewish Studies with academics who have never met a Jew. There is a legend that Japanese people are a Lost Tribe of Israel, and 'Anne's day', named after Anne Frank, is a euphemism for menstruation. Yet the region also shows some of the world's highest rates of antisemitism, manifesting in disturbing ways: Taiwan's concentration camp–themed restaurant, or South Korea's 'Adolf Hitler Techno Bar & Cocktail Show'. By integrating scholarship on antisemitism, East Asian Studies and cognitive science, Schilling uncovers antisemitism's global, sometimes dualistic nature; not Western, and always persistent. He offers ground-breaking insight, redefining how we understand East Asia, antisemitism, and Judaism as a globalised religion.

Contemporary Judaism is transforming, especially in America, from a community experience to more of a do-it-yourself religion focused on the individual self.

The Therapized Antisemite determines the failure of psychology in the understanding and punishment of antisemitism. For over a hundred years, psychology’s vision – understanding the mind and conquering feelings with thoughts – has remained a myth in much of Western societies. Despite its theories and concepts being widely criticized and often proven wrong, it remains part of our culture, academia, and legal systems. Instead of hoping for the field of psychology to one day solve the problem of antisemitism and how to punish it, we must ask ourselves how much it has not helped but rather harmed the fight against it. Through exploring social, clinical, and forensic psychology, as well as psychohistory and the intrusion of psychology into criminal law and policymaking, The Therapized Antisemite argues that we don’t yet understand what causes antisemitism in psychological terms, let alone how to go about solving the problem. The Holocaust, the Nuremberg Trials, Hitler biographies, the Halimi murder, Hate Crime, Mental Illness, False Memory, and Criminal Profiling are all discussed within the book. The Therapized Antisemite looks to change the way readers think about antisemitism, psychology and law, and will be of interest to legal and social science academics and students researching and practicing within the fields of criminal law, criminology, antisemitism studies, Jewish studies, and psychology.