The Question of Race and Sex: Jewish Men and Race Defilement

By 1900, antisemitism had evolved from a religious-based ideology to one based on modern pseudo-science and racial discourse. To stigmatize, ostracize, and discriminate against Jews, the National Socialists invested considerable energy in canonizing some of the established textual and figurative variations of racial antisemitism. Using mass media, the Nazis hoped to increase an awareness of Jewish “otherness.” This chapter examines one such antisemitic discourse: Jewish race defilement and the effects it had on Jewish masculine identity. The Nazis misused the Jewish male body and allegedly criminal mind to convince German society of a Jewish sexual-racial threat. At the same time,