Adorno and Activist Social Science

Within public debates and academic research, Jews are excluded from the multicultural space of other-dominated ethnic groups, such as Blacks, Latinos, and Muslims, and are reframed as part of the oppressive and racist majority. This representation poses the “Jewish question” anew, although on a seemingly anti-racist basis. In this discursive situation, turning to critical theory, and especially to Adorno’s works on antisemitism (The Dialectic of Enlightenment) and his essays on critical social science (Critical Models), is crucial in order to disentangle antisemitism from racism (and from color) and to understand that linking Jews with whiteness not only equates them with power and influence, but also transforms them into the epitome of power, a well-known trope of classical antisemitism.