I don’t know enough about Chesterton to assess his record on this issue, but Solzhenitsyn struggled mightily and sincerely with the tangled issues of Russia, Jews, and communism. To what extent his analysis is correct is hard to say, because his book on the subject has not been translated into English, so far as I know. I do know enough to believe his effort was to analyze, not to anathematize. Here is an interview that gives a flavor.

Antisemitism, like rape, is an easy accustation to make, and a hard one to disprove. The charge should therefore be approached with caution.

Unfortunately the pairing of these two just highlights how tangled up anti-modernity is with anti-semitism (and, conversely, how modernity is tangled up with Jewishness).

Funny.

“Pairing Chesterton and Solzhenitsyn can’t help but remind one of the streak of anti-semitism that mars the repuatation of both.”

If that’s what comes to your mind about mentioning Chesterton and Solzhenitsyn together, I would suggest that your perspective is rather limited. One can’t help but think that your acquaintance with both is superficial in the extreme.

Pairing Chesterton and Solzhenitsyn can’t help but remind one of the streak of anti-semitism that mars the repuatation of both.

“This is a kind of fortitude for which we do not have any facile name. The simplest way of phrasing it is to say that Solzhenitsyn lived “as if.” Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on “as if” he were a free citizen, “as if” he had the right to study his own country’s history, “as if” there were such a thing as human dignity.”

One might say that Solzhenitsyn lived “as if” he would be judged and held to account for his life, and not by any judge in this world, because he belieived precisely that, but the irony would be lost on Mr. Hitchens.