Degenerate and Lustful

Jewish Culture in the Anti-Jewish Discourse of Unitas

Abstract

This article analyzes how Jewish culture, from the perspective of sexuality, was represented in Unitas magazine, a Catholic periodical from Rio Grande do Sul, during the first decades of the 20th century. From a historical-discursive approach, it investigates how this migration trajectory became the target of a narrative marked by moral, sexual, and cultural prejudice. By attributing to Jews characteristics of degeneration, immorality, and lust, the texts disseminated by the Catholic press constructed a social imaginary aimed at the exclusion and delegitimization of the Jewish community. The study is grounded in theoretical contributions from Foucault (1971), Sartre (1978), and Delumeau (1989), among others, to understand the mechanisms of production and maintenance of this discourse. It also highlights the association between Jews, communism, and amoral liberalism, as well as the identification of film industry, as a space for the propagation of Jewish immorality.