From Koestler to Schlein, the anti-Semitic use of the term “Ashkenazi”

Since Elly Schlein became a leader capable of winning the Democratic Party primaries, her Jewish identity has become a source of insults on social media, in which the “Ashkenazi” origin of the family is often underlined. A neutral definition in itself, but which refers to some particularly repugnant conspiracy theories that it is good to know given that the term has bounced on social media up to the pages of newspapers. Yesterday, for example, a biorgaphic profile was published in the Fatto Quotidiano – not exactly kind towards her – in which Schlein was depicted with an enormous caricature that mangled her physical characteristics according to some stereotypes that recall, perhaps unintentionally, propaganda anti-Semite. The underlining of the Jewish origins was clearly visible in the caption and in the text, with these words “Elena Ethel Schlein, known as Elly, was born in Lugano in the cocoon of the elite, in 1985. Her father Melvin is American, Ashkenazi Jew, teaches Political Science at John Hopkins University”.