Confessions of a Recovering Anti-Semite

Growing up in southeastern Turkey, the first book Abdullah Antepli ever read was an illustrated children’s version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, given to him by his parents; before he was fifteen he had read Henry Ford’s The International Jew and Mein Kampf, both widely available in Turkish. Few Muslims today, adds Antepli, haven’t been exposed to the sorts of ideas about Jews found in such works. In conversation with Bari Weiss, Antepli—an imam and professor at Duke University—explains the seductiveness of anti-Semitism, its grip on the Muslim world, what can be done to repair this “Muslim shande,” and the need for even those like him who are fiercely critical of Israel to recognize Zionism’s benignity. He also explains how his embrace of religion helped him, in his own words, become a “recovering anti-Semite.”