President Donald Trump has brought the mental habits of anti-Semitism from the political fringe into the White House. And yet this is the same Trump who agreed to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, greatly pleasing Israel’s government. Trump’s broader political affinity with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is well known. At the United Nations, his first ambassador, Nikki Haley, gave impassioned speeches denouncing the UN’s obsessional attacks on Israel. Closer to home, Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner. How can we reconcile this seeming contradiction? To do so, we must remind ourselves of how anti-Semitism in the Western tradition has really worked. Historically, anti-Semitism is the conviction that Jews, though few in numbers, are a uniquely powerful and evil...

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