Commentary: Myths,Narratives,and Patterns of Rumors: The Construction of ‘Jewish Subversion’ and Retributive Violence in 1940—41 Romania

Sen and Wagner (2009) advance the thesis of the centrality of fundamentalist belief systems in violence. I provide further explication of their thesis by looking at the Romanian case. The explosion of violence around 1940—41, the years when Romania joined the Axis and entered the Second World War cannot be understood without taking into account the historical, political, social, and cultural factors that created the radical atmosphere of xenophobia, mass psychosis, and mobilization against Others . Rumors emerge as the most powerful psychological means of spreading the official master narrative of ‘domestic Jewish treason’. Reinterpretation of various cultural symbols also played an important role in excluding the Jewish Other from the national community.