On the Origins of Anti-Semitism
A Short History of Jew Hatred
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Jews on the Left who march against Zionism, Israel, and the right of Jews to defend themselves, are Jews who fear the world imposed stigma of being a Jew or being labeled as “the other.” These people come to think of themselves as “citizens of the world” and substitute liberalism, political correctness, and multi-culturalism for Judaism. It is easier to stand up with a majority that hates you than to stand with your own minority. Yet none of them accept the idea that all the ideas they proclaim about the brotherhood of man, peace, the rights of the worker, etc., etc., were all ideas that came out of their Judaism.
Something must also be said about modern European Jew hatred masked as anti-Zionism. The philosopher, Emanuel Kant posited a world were there were no borders and people moved freely from place to place. Nationalism kept that philosophy at bay until the European Union which incorporated many of Kant’s ideas. Modern Europeans are anti-Israel because Israel had the opportunity to become an open nation reflecting the European Union but did not. Ironically, Europeans totally dismiss the fact that several Arab nations came to destroy this new state at the moment of its birth and have continued their efforts to this day. But reality has never been Europe’s strong suit, and not only do Europeans at large support the Arab narritive, the shame that Europeans do feel for their willingness and eagerness to give up their Jewish population to the Nazis, is projected onto the Israelis and Jews in general for doing to the Palestinians what Europeans did to the Jews. What they don’t realize is the Europe gave up its Jews to the gas chambers, and the Israelis have to maintain control of Judea and Samaria for survival’s sake. In the final analysis, Jew-hatred stems from the anger of others who did not get the support they needed from our ancestors to legitimatize their own faiths. These ancient hatreds have come down as it is in their DNA. But we know that hatred is not genetic; it is taught. Modern Jew-hatred has its roots in centuries past, and as those who hate often do not know the reasons for their hate, many Jews today also do not know the history of why the hatred is there. Jew-hatred, any hatred for that matter, is taught as part of a person’s socialization into a family or into a group. When hatred is taught by those who give us life and/or by those who have power over us, where is a child to go other than to accept the teaching? A child can as much reject the teachings of what the parent or those to whom they ascribe power teach, as a fundamentalist can reject the word he believes is God’s word. Martin Luther also looked to the Jews for validation of his improved version of Christianity, believing that the Jews had not previously converted to Christianity because they, too, saw the corruption of the Catholic Church. But when the Jews of his day also refused to validate this Protestantism, he, like the Gospel writers and Mohamad before him, turned on the Jews with vitriolic writings that would also become religious fuel for the Holocaust. But what of the non-religious Left in the United States and in Europe? Their caustic condemnation of Jews and of Israel is just as damaging. Jew hatred on the Left is the legacy of Karl Marx and French Socialism. Marx, in his essay entitled, On the Jewish Question, equated all Jews and Judaism with the despised capitalism system, and went so far as to suggest that the only way mankind could free itself was to abolish Judaism. Hitler used this essay as one of his inspirations. France, the cradle of Socialism, was also the cradle of Leftist Jew-hatred. Charles Fourier, one of the founders of French Socialism, considered the emancipations of the Jewish People as both a shame and a vice. The idea of the Jew trying to dominate the world was introduced by another socialist, Alphonse Toussenel in the nineteenth century, and spread in the twentieth century through The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery used by Hitler as justification for genocide. Pierre Leroux, the man who coined the word “socialism,” was a devout Christian who believed that the only solution to the “Jewish Problem” was to convert all Jews to Christianity. Pierre Joseph Proudhon, an important theorist, out “heroded Herod” by calling the Jews the “enemy of the human race” and demanded its extermination. People such as Marx and Proudhon gave the world socialism and the legacy of hate for Jews that the Leftists still embrace. Voltaire, the father of the Enlightenment, also wrote horrendous pamphlets against the Jews of his day, and his legacy is just as damaging. Nations at the extreme Left also hate Jews. Russia and her ideological partners support those who would destroy Israel by their continued support for anti-Israel resolutions in the U.N. and through their support of confrontational terrorists states. In fact, The Great Soviet Encyclopedia defines Zionism as “a reactionary movement...which denies the class struggle and strives to isolate the Jewish working masses from the general struggle of the proletariat.” Zionism was also describe by Yry Ivanov as an ideological offshoot of Nazism. It is to be noted that so call “liberation movements”of the 1960's that brought revolutions to South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East were KGB inspired proxy armies against the West and Western interests. The PLO was created in Moscow, and its leaders were also trained there as well as in Viet Nam and Roumania. Nothing needs to be clarified about Jew-hatred on the extreme Right. You know the history of the Nazis, the camps, and the ovens. In order to destroy the values, and morality of Judaism, you had to destroy the Jews. The Nazis were pagans and wanted to return to a pagan society were Judeo/Christian morality and values would not be an incumbrance. It must also be remembered that Germany was fifty percent Catholic, and fifty percent Protestant. The rest of Europe were Catholic and Protestant in different percentages. But all had the legacy of suspicion and hatred for the Jews, a legacy that began centuries ago with the purposeful denial of Judaism as a valid religion, and of Jews as being less than human. Jews on the Left who march against Zionism, Israel, and the right of Jews to defend themselves, are Jews who fear the world imposed stigma of being a Jew or being labeled as “the other.” These people come to think of themselves as “citizens of the world” and substitute liberalism, political correctness, and multi-culturalism for Judaism. It is easier to stand up with a majority that hates you than to stand with your own minority. Yet none of them accept the idea that all the ideas they proclaim about the brotherhood of man, peace, the rights of the worker, etc., etc., were all ideas that came out of their Judaism. Something must also be said about modern European Jew hatred masked as anti-Zionism. The philosopher, Emanuel Kant posited a world were there were no borders and people moved freely from place to place. Nationalism kept that philosophy at bay until the European Union which incorporated many of Kant’s ideas. Modern Europeans are anti-Israel because Israel had the opportunity to become an open nation reflecting the European Union but did not. Ironically, Europeans totally dismiss the fact that several Arab nations came to destroy this new state at the moment of its birth and have continued their efforts to this day. But reality has never been Europe’s strong suit, and not only do Europeans at large support the Arab narritive, the shame that Europeans do feel for their willingness and eagerness to give up their Jewish population to the Nazis, is projected onto the Israelis and Jews in general for doing to the Palestinians what Europeans did to the Jews. What they don’t realize is the Europe gave up its Jews to the gas chambers, and the Israelis have to maintain control of Judea and Samaria for survival’s sake. In the final analysis, Jew-hatred stems from the anger of others who did not get the support they needed from our ancestors to legitimatize their own faiths. These ancient hatreds have come down as it is in their DNA. But we know that hatred is not genetic; it is taught. Modern Jew-hatred has its roots in centuries past, and as those who hate often do not know the reasons for their hate, many Jews today also do not know the history of why the hatred is there. Jew-hatred, any hatred for that matter, is taught as part of a person’s socialization into a family or into a group. When hatred is taught by those who give us life and/or by those who have power over us, where is a child to go other than to accept the teaching? A child can as much reject the teachings of what the parent or those to whom they ascribe power teach, as a fundamentalist can reject the word he believes is God’s word. We Jews throughout our history refused to give up our laws, our traditions, our God, and our sense of peoplehood. We also refused to give up the dream of Zionism with is the dream of returning to our ancient land that was given to us by God. Jew-hatred is the result of Jews unwilling to give up their Judaism so others might feel validated and secure. For some reason, they have ascribed to us some magical power that their validation could only be achieved if we gave up being who we are. Jew-hatred has more to do with what we have refused to do than what we as a people have actually done. The hatred of others is not our fault. It comes from something within them. We have a right to believe as we choose to believe, and we have a right to bring our dreams to fruition. The Rabbis of the Talmud made virtually no reference to Jew-hatred except to say, “the hatred came from Sinai.” They knew that the cause of the hatred was the moral imperative that came into the world with the Torah commandments. What more was there to say? It is a simple idea and a simple truth, and the tragedy is that the vast majority of the people were murdered not knowing why they were being murdered; not knowing that they were being murdered because they created and carried the idea that gave Western Civilization its morality and the right of its members to call themselves civilized. That may be too abstract for some, preferring to believe in the scapegoat theory. But you keep scapegoats alive so you can continue to beat up on them. And the economic theory was equally flawed. They murdered very rich Jews and Jews who were destitute. The underlying cause for the Holocaust is far more insidious. You can only get rid of an idea by murdering the people who taught the idea and carry the idea. But morality truly works only when it is extended to all people and not only to the people who belong to a particular group that espouses it unless of course, this another group is trying to destroy you. Otherwise, if it applies to only one group, it will lead to evil. This is what happened in the Holocaust. Christianity has a morality, but it was not applied to Jews in most cases. Radical Islam has a morality, and it is not applied to people of other faiths and cultures. The same thing happened during the Crusades and the Inquisition. God is a universal God and gave a universal morality. The Christians of Europe did not hear that message. Again, any religion that has a morality that is applicable only to its own adherents and to no one else, will allow evil to thrive. Christians who hate have consistently missed the point of Jesus’ message. |