Fantastic post. There are so many connections in here that I hadn't made before. Fascism's discrediting is a hugely important question and one I'd never thought of before.
In reality, the relationship between fascism and the Jewish community were always been ambiguous, even before the racial laws. Already in 1919 Mussolini wrote an article in which he accused the Bolshevik revolution to be a Jewish conspiration: http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-accomplices.html?m=
Although it is nevertheless true that the regime was quite tolerant of Jews and had not included state anti-Semitism in its ideology before 1938, there had already been tensions with the Jewish community over their support to zionism: http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/response-to-zionists.html?m=1
Finally, I am not sure that Mussolini passed the racial laws to please Hitler is correct. Several historians agree that it was an autonomous choice, and Hitler never pressured Italy to discriminate against Jews. In conclusion, the relationship between Fascism and Jews was ambiguous from the beginning, but while until '38 it could be considered normal dialectic similar to that between the regime and the Catholic Church, after the war well... we all know the history
Mussolini was certainly not a philosemite. Still, his early attitudes toward Jews reflected vulgar ignorance rather than Nazi-style pathological loathing. My favorite quotation on the subject comes from "Mussolini and the Jews" by Meir Michaelis: "Mussolini went so far as to believe that there existed 'heads' of international Jewry and instructed Sacerdoti [leader of the Italian Jewish community] to organize a meeting with them for the purpose of reaching an agreement between Hitler and the Jews; the unfortunate rabbi was forced to inform him that, in fact, there were no such heads, the Jews not being organized on an international level."
His tensions with Zionism make sense in the context of the totalitarian ideal (as articulated by the Duce: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”). Understandably, he was suspicious of Italian Jews backing a cause outside of the Italian state. But at the same time, Mussolini also supported the establishment of a Revisionist Zionist naval academy in Italy, since he was keen to undermine Britain's influence in the Middle East. He met with Chaim Weizmann (Israel's future first president) and even declared himself a Zionist in 1934.
Mussolini's turn against the Jews was partly a consequence of his own paranoia and the regime's radicalization after the Ethiopian invasion. But it's no coincidence that racial laws were introduced at the same time that Fascist Italy formally allied itself with Nazi Germany. Ultimately, he was an amoral cynic and opportunist who made a terrible geopolitical bet.
Fantastic post. There are so many connections in here that I hadn't made before. Fascism's discrediting is a hugely important question and one I'd never thought of before.
In reality, the relationship between fascism and the Jewish community were always been ambiguous, even before the racial laws. Already in 1919 Mussolini wrote an article in which he accused the Bolshevik revolution to be a Jewish conspiration: http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-accomplices.html?m=
Although it is nevertheless true that the regime was quite tolerant of Jews and had not included state anti-Semitism in its ideology before 1938, there had already been tensions with the Jewish community over their support to zionism: http://bibliotecafascista.blogspot.com/2012/03/response-to-zionists.html?m=1
Finally, I am not sure that Mussolini passed the racial laws to please Hitler is correct. Several historians agree that it was an autonomous choice, and Hitler never pressured Italy to discriminate against Jews. In conclusion, the relationship between Fascism and Jews was ambiguous from the beginning, but while until '38 it could be considered normal dialectic similar to that between the regime and the Catholic Church, after the war well... we all know the history
Mussolini was certainly not a philosemite. Still, his early attitudes toward Jews reflected vulgar ignorance rather than Nazi-style pathological loathing. My favorite quotation on the subject comes from "Mussolini and the Jews" by Meir Michaelis: "Mussolini went so far as to believe that there existed 'heads' of international Jewry and instructed Sacerdoti [leader of the Italian Jewish community] to organize a meeting with them for the purpose of reaching an agreement between Hitler and the Jews; the unfortunate rabbi was forced to inform him that, in fact, there were no such heads, the Jews not being organized on an international level."
His tensions with Zionism make sense in the context of the totalitarian ideal (as articulated by the Duce: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”). Understandably, he was suspicious of Italian Jews backing a cause outside of the Italian state. But at the same time, Mussolini also supported the establishment of a Revisionist Zionist naval academy in Italy, since he was keen to undermine Britain's influence in the Middle East. He met with Chaim Weizmann (Israel's future first president) and even declared himself a Zionist in 1934.
Mussolini's turn against the Jews was partly a consequence of his own paranoia and the regime's radicalization after the Ethiopian invasion. But it's no coincidence that racial laws were introduced at the same time that Fascist Italy formally allied itself with Nazi Germany. Ultimately, he was an amoral cynic and opportunist who made a terrible geopolitical bet.