It is our general destructive behavior and the lack of confidence we manifest through this behavior that has driven this cycle of communal suffering into the present day. We must personally take responsibility and move forward through the fear and insecurity to reach inward for our strength in order to make a constructive impact on our society and communal life as Israelis and Jews.
A Classic Attempt to Attribute Anti-Semitism to Happenstance
In his book Why the Jews? author Dennis Prager cites a glaring example of an attempt to sell the public on the idea that there is nothing Jewish about anti-Semitism:
On April 11, 1944, in an observation that demonstrates an uncanny wisdom that far surpassed her age, Anne Frank wrote in her diary:
Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribl
y until now? It is God Who has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, Who will raise us up again.
Who knows – it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. We will always remain Jews.
Anne Frank made a point of stressing that Jews have something of special value to give to the world, and that is precisely what the world has resented, and that is why people have persecuted Jews. Anne Frank identifies anti-Semitism as a hatred of Jewishness, a loathing altogether different from the bigotry or racism that other peoples experience.
Yet, Dennis Prager points out, when Anne Frank’s story was reconstructed by Lillian Hellman into a Broadway play, her words were completely changed. “Why are Jews hated?” asks Anne. “Well, one day it’s one group, and the next day another…”
On Broadway, audiences were made to believe that Anne Frank felt that Jews have been hated just as any other people has been hated. Producers capitalized on the integrity of an Anne Frank to promote the view that there is nothing Jewish about anti-Semitism.
Scholars have made consistent attempts to prove that there is nothing uniquely Jewish that engenders Anti-Semitism. But what have anti-Semites themselves to say on the topic?
Let us see if comments from known Jew-haters reveal exactly what they find so objectionable.
Hitler’s Straightforward Approach
One individual never tried to hide the fact that his hatred of the Jews was simply because they were Jewish. Adolf Hitler, the man who alone was responsible for the most devastating scourge of anti-Semitism in the history of mankind, had no use for the multitude of whitewashed explanations offered by scholars.
Hitler viewed his hatred of the Jews as unique because he was the only Jew-hater of international repute who openly acknowledged the uniqueness of the Jews as a people. Hitler realized that Jews can never be successfully integrated with the rest of humanity, and he made it his objective to ensure that they never would be.
The anti-Semitism that Hitler professed was not a means to an end; it was a goal in and of itself. The Nuremberg Laws, established in 1935, effectively disenfranchised and dismantled the Jewish community of Germany – but this was not enough to satisfy Hitler.
In the late 1930’s, Germany was rebuilt and its morale restored, but Hitler’s eye remained trained on the Jews. Seven years after the Nuremberg Laws mangled and mutilated the Jews in body and spirit, the Final Solution was launched in the Wansee Conference of 1942. Hitler saw the Jews as something far more menacing than mere scapegoats; the Jewish nation was his mortal enemy, and so became his target for absolute destruction.
Hitler was very rational and, cannot be dismissed as simply a nut. What were the Nazis really after?
The New World Order
Said Hitler:
Do you now appreciate the depth of our National Socialist Movement? Can there be anything greater and more all-comprehending? Those who see in National Socialism nothing more than a political movement, know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than a religion – it is the will to create mankind anew.
How is this renewal of mankind to take place? To Hitler, it was obvious. He told his people:
The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between us – between Germans and Jews. All else is facade and illusion. Behind England stands Israel, and behind France, and behind the United States. Even when we have driven the Jew out of Germany, he remains our world enemy.
Why Did Hitler Target the Jews?
Eliminating the Jews was the key to Hitler’s utopia. Trained to hate at an early ageHis driving ambition was to free the world from the shackles of conscience and morality; to turn the world away from monotheism. He fashioned his own brand of religion out of a philosophy based on indulging all of man’s basest desires. The “Hitler Youth” sang this song:
We have no need for Christian virtue.
Our leader is our savior;
The pope and rabbi shall
be gone. We shall be pagans once again.
Hitler’s picture of the perfect world was a return to a state of jungle-type existence. “In a natural order,” he said, “the classes are peoples superimposed on one another in strata, instead of living as neighbors. To this order we shall return as soon as the aftereffects of liberalism have been removed.”
The only serious obstacle that stood in the way of Hitler’s success in implementing his “new world” philosophy was the existence of the Jews. Hitler knew that it was the Jews who carried to the world the message of one God; of equality of all men before God; of loving one’s neighbor; of helping the poor and the infirm.
Hitler hated the message of the Jews because it was in diametric contradiction to what he wanted to be, and hence, to his vision of what the world should be. “They refer to me as an uneducated barbarian,” Hitler said. “Yes we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians; it is an honored title to us. We shall rejuvenate the world. This world is near its end.”
Hitler told his people:
Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a false vision known as conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and personal independence which only a very few can bear.
Every Jew Has It … in His Soul
Regarding a Bible’s influence on culture, Hitler said,
“The Ten Commandments have lost their vitality. Conscience is a Jewish invention; it is a blemish, like circumcision.”
Hitler’s only real target was the Jews, because they were all that stood between him and success. So long as the Jews survived, Hitler could never triumph. The Jewishly-rooted concepts of God and morality had taken hold in the world, and Hitler knew that either his own ideologies or those of the Jews would prevail. The world would not abide both.
When Hitler professed his hatred for the Jews, he did not beat around the bush. He knew – and made no secret of it – exactly what the Jews stood for, and why he hated them. Furthermore, he knew that the Jewish threat to his ideals is embodied in every single Jew. He said:
If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a JewishEven Jewish children were the enemy family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If even one Jewish child survives, without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school – it is in his soul.
Hitler made it clear that Germany must be purged of Jews at all costs:
The internal cleansing of the Jewish spirit is not possible in any platonic way. For the Jewish spirit is the product of the Jewish person. Unless we expel the Jewish people soon, they will “Judaize” our own people within a very short time.
The Jewish spirit, Hitler explained, is the product of the Jewish person. Destroying their holy places alone would not be enough. In Hitler’s words,
“Even had there never existed a synagogue or a Jewish school or the Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and would exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning, and there is no Jew – not a single one – who does not personify it.”
The evil of Hitler lay not in his perception or his understanding of who the Jewish people are. His evil grew from his reactions to that understanding. Ironically, Hitler had a clearer understanding of who the Jewish people are, and what they have accomplished, than most Jews have today.
The Jewish View on Anti-Semitism
Hitler introduced to mankind a unique strain of anti-Semitism. To the world at large, this brand of anti-Semitism seemed new, but there was nothing revolutionary about it to the Jews.
Long before any practical manifestation of anti-Semitism made its appearance in the world, the Torah made it known that anti-Semitism would play an integral role in Jewish history. In fact, we were told, Jews would be hated for exactly the reasons Hitler so brazenly outlined.
The Talmud (Tractate Shabbos 89) cites the source of anti-Semitism using a play on words: The Torah – the source of the Jewish system of laws, values and moral standards – was received at Mount Sinai. The Hebrew pronunciation of “Sinai” is almost identical to the Hebrew word for “hatred” – sinah. “Why was the Torah given on a mountain called Sinai?” asks the Talmud. “Because the great sinah – the tremendous hatred aimed at the Jew – emanates from Sinai.”
At Sinai Jews were told that there is one God, Who makes moral demands on all of humanity. Consequently, at Sinai the Jewish nation became the target for the hatred of those whose strongest drive is to liberate mankind from the shackles of conscience and morality.
At Sinai the Jewish nation was appointed to be “a light unto the nations.” There are those who embrace Jews and the Jewish faith because of that light; but there are also those who want the world to be a place of spiritual darkness. They object to morality. Those would-be harbingers of darkness attack the Jews as the lightning rod for their hatred.
Herman Rauchning had been Hitler’s personal confidante, but he abandoned Nazism and attempted to alert the free world to the scope and danger of the Nazi threat. He wrote:
It is against their own insoluble problem of being human that the dull and base in humanity are in revolt in anti-Semitism. Nevertheless Judaism, together with Hellenism and Christianity, is an inalienable component of our Christian Western Civilization – the eternal “call to Sinai,” against which humanity again and again rebels. (The Beast From the Abyss, by Hermann Rauchning)
This “call to Sinai” – the message entrusted to and borne by the Jews – ultimately transforms the world. Yet it is this very message that draws forth the wrath of those who would give their last ounce of strength to resist it.
The Real Reason for Hatred of Jews
Why do people hate this message – the eternal “call to Sinai” – and harbor such animosity for those who carry it?
A great many people simply can’t cope with the burden of being good. However, when they act in ways that are bad, they can’t cope with the resultant feelings of guilt. Try as they may, they can never cut themselves loose from the standards of absolute morality dictated by the Torah. Stuck in this “Catch-22” situation, people turn with their mounting frustrations against the Jews, who they perceive as personifying humanity’s collective conscience.
Sigmund Freud recognized this tendency, and explained: “Jews are hated not so much because they killed Jesus, but because they produced him.”
Thousands of years ago, before the Torah was given, people built their livesPagan idolPagan idol around philosophies that were based on their own concepts of right and wrong. Then, when the Jews entered the theological arena, they showed people all the mistakes they had been making:
Pagan gods are nonsense – there is only one God for all of mankind, Who is invisible, infinite and perfect. Infanticide and human sacrifice are unacceptable. Every human being is born with specific rights. No one can live as he pleases, for everyone must surrender his will to a higher Authority.
On a certain conscious level, people recognize the Jews’ message as truth. Those unwilling to embrace the truth have found that the only way to rid themselves of it is to destroy the messengers – for the message itself is too potent to be dismissed.
That is what is so irksome about the Jews, and that is why, for some people, nothing less than total destruction of the Jews will do. If Judaism were just another ideology, people could laugh it off and continue on their merry way. But deep in his soul, every human being recognizes the essential truths of morality – people can’t just laugh it off.
Any individual’s claim to superiority bothers people only to the extent that they believe it is true. If someone who is indisputably ugly saunters up to a nice-looking fellow at a party and says, “I’m better-looking than you,” what would be the other’s response? More than likely he would simply shrug his shoulders and ignore him, because the comment would not bother him in the least.
If, on the other hand, the best-looking guy in the room comes up to the same fellow and makes the identical comment, that will raise his dander. The reason is that one doesn’t resent people who say they are superior; one resents people who are superior.
That is why the Christians’ hatred of the Jews was particularly intense. They, more than those of other religions, were threatened by the Jewish message. Jews said that Jesus was not God. This statement assumes a “wrongness” about Christianity. The Church Fathers understood that if the Jews are right, and they remain Jews, this implies that Christianity is bankrupt.
Therein lies Judaism’s colossal threat to Christianity. Other groups’ denial of Jesus is a great disappointment to Christians, but the Jews’ denial is intolerable. Jesus came to the Jews! The very group that produced him, those people who had the most knowledge and authority on such matters, those who represented the last word on religion – were the first to reject Jesus.
The Jewish threat to Christianity has nothing to do with their having “killed” Jesus. The source of Christian fear runs much deeper: Jewish existence invalidates the essential tenet of Christian theology.
What is this message that the Jewish people are bringing to the world, that so many find so threatening?
The Jews: Light Unto the Nations
The profound message that Jews bear to humanity has gained such widespread acceptance that people tend to take it for granted. Yet the ideas which originated at Sinai have literally changed the world.
Few people give much thought anymore to the source of the basic moral underpinnings of Western society. Concepts such as basic human rights, the notion that the sick and the elderly should be cared for – not murdered or left to die – and the idea of society assisting the poor and disadvantaged, all seem to “come naturally” nowadays.
In short, Jewish concepts have civilized the world.
Any serious student of history who has gained some awareness of what world standards were like before the Jews came along can easily recognize the enormous impact that Judaism has had.
How Do Non-Jewish Historians View Jews?
Those who understand world philosophic trends prior to the advent of the Jewish influence can identify clearly that it was the Jews who moved the world away from paganism and toward standards of morality and justice.
John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote to a friend:
I insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men that any other nation . . . they are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth … They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe, and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily, than any other nation, ancient or modern. (Letter of John Adams to F.A. Van der Kemp, 1808; Pennsylvania Historical Society)
Christian scholar and historian Paul Johnson wrote in his bestseller, History of the Jews:
One way of summing up 4,000 years of Jewish history is to ask ourselves, what would have happened to the human race if Abraham had not been a man of great sagacity; or if he had stayed in Ur and kept his higher notions to himself, and no specific Jewish people had come into being. Certainly the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place.
All the great conceptual discoveries of the intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the ideas of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience, and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience, and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal, and love as the foundation of justice; and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.
In Ancient and Medieval History, Hayes and Moon wrote:
Only if you have some knowledge of the human sacrifices, the vicious temple rites, the degrading superstitions and customs that were practiced… can you realize how much the modern world owes to the Hebrew prophets, whose monotheism and moral teachings entered into Christianity and Islam…
T.R. Glover highlighted this very idea in his book, The Ancient World:
“Mankind – East and West, Christian and Moslem – accepted the Jewish conviction that there is only one God. Today it is polytheism that is so difficult to understand, that is so unthinkable.”
This is not to say that Jewish morals and ideals have gained universal acceptance. There will always be resistance to the Jewish message. At the same time, however, there will always be non-Jews who recognize and appreciate what the Jews have to offer to the world.
Understanding Anti-Semitism / Understanding Being Jewish
Jews have proven that they can withstand almost any amount of persecution. Throughout history, Judaism has survived countless incidents of unspeakable prejudice and harassment. But there is one thing Jews cannot survive no matter how hard they may try, and that is ignorance.
Philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche once said, “A human being can survive any how, as long as he has the proper why.” That is to say, a person can tolerate any circumstance life sends his way, if only he understands that there is some meaning to that experience.
As you’ve seen through this seminar, for the last 2,000 years the Jewish people have gone through enormous amounts of persecution, hatred – ultimately leading to genocide. And through it all, the Jewish people always held onto being Jewish. And the reason why is that they really understood that it was worth it. They understood what the meaning of being Jewish was, and they were willing to pay the price.
The pain that is part and parcel of being Jewish is obvious; if people cannot see any meaning to that pain, it is unlikely that they will be willing to stand by their Jewish identity. That is why we find such widespread assimilation today – Jews do not see why they should “lose out” on life and set themselves apart from their host societies.
If we can come to understand why Jews are so hated, we can understand who Jews are and, more important, who Jews can be. A powerful effort has been made to remove the Jewish element from anti-Semitism, and in doing so, to ignore the critical message anti-Semitism teaches about the uniqueness and preciousness of the Jew. This alone is a compelling reason for Jews to learn about anti-Semitism and what it means to be a Jew.
As long as Jews have this understanding, they will resist anti-Semitism. There is, however, one factor that can truly decimate the Jewish people.
The Fatal Combination:
Anti-Semitism + Ignorance = Assimilation
Although we don’t live in Nazi Germany where they were actively hating us, we do live in a world that is very subtly anti-Semitic. Whether it’s the U.N., whether it’s newspapers, whether they’re dealing the State of Israel etc. We live in a world that is not screaming from the rooftops that “we hate the Jews,” but it’s there. It’s very subtle. And it’s very prevalent.
Take anti-Semitism and combine it with ignorance about being Jewish; the result is a very toxic mix. And the name of this potentially fatal formula? It’s called “Assimilation”.
Jews know very clearly the burden of being Jewish. Without the beauty, without understanding the benefits of Judaism, they are going to say, “Let’s get rid of this. Who needs this? I want to get out from under being Jewish.”
A fuller understanding comes through a telling metaphor.
Redheaded Metaphor – “Carrot Top”
Imagine you have a child, and finally the great day arrives when that child is ready to go into first grade; to join the outside world; to join society for the first time.
Like all young parents, you are nervous. You send her off to school, wondering: How will she be accepted? How will she fit in? Will she be socially adept and have friends, etc?
Coming home from work that day, you are excited to hear how your daughter’s first day was, and you say, “Beth, how was your first day at school?” And you see… she’s crushed. You ask, “What’s the problem?” She answers, “Well, I went to school and during recess all the kids made fun of me. They called me ‘carrot top.’ ‘Beth has red hair.’ It was terrible!”
You are devastated. Your child’s whole future, her self-esteem, is on the line. What’s going to be? So you ask, “What can we do about it?”
What’s the easiest solution to this problem? Everyone says, “The easiestPresto – no carrot top solution is: Dye her hair.” Presto! No longer a redhead, she’s a brunette. The problem is eliminated!
What’s the harder solution? To reframe it. To tell her: “No matter what they say about having red hair, it’s not so bad. It’s beautiful! It’s gorgeous! It’s fantastic! It’s unique. It has flair and individuality. It’s extravagant.” You reframe it! And she has no more problems. Because her problem was not really a problem, only the misconception of others.
So what’s really the worst solution? What’s the worst possible thing you can do to this child? To dye her hair. Why? Because you are confirming her fears. You are telling her: “They are right. There really is something wrong with red hair. Let’s get rid of it.”
That’s our situation. In one sense, being Jewish is like being born with red hair. It’s not popular. There are people who will degrade us for it.
Unless every Jew has a strong, alternative explanation to what the significance of being Jewish is all about, then, by definition, he is not going to like being Jewish. He is not going to like himself.
What’s the best way to get that alternative perception to being Jewish?
The Cause is the Solution
We have arrived at an understanding of anti-Semitism and its cause.
The solution to anti-Semitism is exactly the same as the cause: It is Jewish values and beliefs that cause anti-Semitism, and it will be Jewish values and beliefs that ultimately will eliminate anti-Semitism.
The message that the Jews bear is the recipe for conquering evil. The more effectively Jews transmit their special message, the closer they come to making a holocaust – whether aimed against Jews or against any other group – impossible.
Only when Jews act as Jews – only when the Torah’s message of ethics and morality is known throughout the world – can we ever hope to experience a world in which evil has been eradicated.
Therein lies the exquisite irony of Jewish history. Although Jews posed no military, political or economic threat,and were never more than a tiny fraction of the world’s population, they were always a major power in the eyes of mankind. Why? It is the message they carry – the Torah.
Jewish ideas influence the world, but the world cannot absorb the message properly unless the Messengers – the Jews – know it and teach it.
Instead of “Why The Jews”, the Question has become: Why Be Jewish?
Thank You to Aish for this important explanation of antisemitism.
