Anti-Semitism is an evil that still requires examination

Can you explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews? It’s an interesting question. My late mum was a bit anti-Semitic, and I always found her mild animus incomprehensible and indeed weird, as did my father. It surfaced during the Yom Kippur War, when I was 13: my dad and I were urging on the Israelis — in a slightly detached way, as if it were, say, Leeds playing Chelsea in a football match and through default one found oneself supporting the lesser of two evils, i.e. Chelsea. Mum was cheering on the Arabs because, she admitted, she wasn’t ‘keen on’ Jews. We were both surprised, my Dad and I. Not so much because she had shown prejudice per se — I think we largely concurred with her dislike of Japanese people, southern Europeans (especially the Spanish, but excluding the Portuguese), Finns, Biafrans, the Ceylonese, all Indo-Chinese and Irish Catholics.