We are living through bewildering times. It seems like 15 million Jews are viewed as being at the heart of everything that is wrong in a world of 8.6 billion people, and from every conceivable side.
For the global left, we are the paradigm of oppressors, from which every other oppression follows. Every injustice is seen as “a boot on your neck, laced by the IDF”—a direct quote from the current mayor of one of the most consequential cities in the world. We are painted as the truest Nazis, to the point where some suggest the Bibas babies deserved their unfathomably tragic fate, or that a missing pet is far more deserving of our sympathy than kidnapped Jewish babies who were ultimately strangled to death by their captors.
For the political right, being called a Nazi is hardly a pejorative. Winston Churchill, of course, is painted as the real villain, and the core problem with the Jews is that we allegedly pervert and twist everything we touch. The poor Nazis are recast as victims whose reputations were soured by the ultimate demonic force: Jewish globalists seeking to destroy civilization. Instead, we are referred to as perverters of all that is good and pure.
Then there is the rising tide of Christian anti-Jewish sentiment. The truly bewildering thing is how anyone can think this is new. The official dogma of most Christians worldwide as recently as 1965 was that their God was killed by the Jews. That means for the first 20 years of my dad’s life, Jews were accused by most Christians of the most heinous crime of all: deicide. Deicide apparently begot genocide and infanticide.
So when the Spanish Prime Minister utters these smears, my visceral, involuntary reaction is to conjure up images of his ancestors burning mine simply for being Jewish, and to pray they lose the World Cup—which, given that they won, should probably be added to the list of tragedies associated with Tisha B’Av. To put this into context, I have met many people who knew people alive in May 1834. That represents just a single degree of separation between people experiencing the Spanish Inquisition and ourselves.
Last, and definitely not least, is the depth and scope of anti-Jewish feeling in the Islamic world. Mehdi Hasan likely spoke a rare truth about Jews when he noted that the dirty little secret is the prevalence of Jew-hatred in Muslim societies worldwide. Of course, for Jews, that wasn’t a secret at all; we have known it for a long time. The truly bewildering part is that this must not be acknowledged in the name of social cohesion. This is why I am rather pessimistic about what politicians will accomplish with the current Royal Commission: it is hard to cure a disease you refuse to acknowledge.
Speaking of the Royal Commission, I find it further bewildering when a Jewish individual who calls Israel and its supporters genocidal Nazis whinges about being called a kapo. I am not into name-calling full stop, but the sheer lack of perspective is truly boggling. Even more baffling is that anyone sane would defend her right to be embraced by the community, while expressing surprise that no one is interested in reading a self-righteous article about how “pluralistic” we must be—even toward those who willingly participate in the greatest attack on our community by far in our lifetime.
Yesterday was Tisha B’Av, and today in our tradition marks the second-saddest day since the fires were still burning in Jerusalem, so please accept my apologies for the bleakness thus far.
My real message, however, is how inspired I am by all of this. The enormity of the hate—its ubiquitousness, pervasiveness, and flexibility to stem from contradictory, mutually exclusive viewpoints yet arrive at the exact same destination of Jew-hatred—suggests something very deep to me. It tells me that Judaism began with Abraham, who preached morality to a people who practiced human sacrifice, which naturally drew the hatred of pagans.
Then, a Jewish man with Jewish followers preached Judaism with soul. He saw himself as a student of Hillel, but within a generation or two, his followers viewed him as the initiator of a “new” religion preaching confession, forgiveness, and salvation through Jesus. The good parts of this new religion were, of course, nothing new; Yom Kippur is literally the Day of Atonement, and confession is a requirement found throughout the Torah. It must also be said that their brand of forgiveness never quite extended to the Jews, who were cast as the eternal symbol of Cain slaying his innocent, unsuspecting brother Abel.
The only truly new element was the deification of a human being—a distinctly un-Jewish concept that, I would strenuously argue, has brought no goodness to the world. Sure, Christians—especially today—do wonderful things because of their faith, but this could be accomplished just as well without believing in the deity of a man. Had we avoided that belief, we might have also avoided the Crusades, blood libels, and the public burnings of heretic Jews.
In this light, Christianity is fundamentally insecure about its place, given that its origins are entirely Jewish yet of little interest to Jews a century after it began. The very name “The New Testament” stands as the greatest testament to this underlying insecurity.
Then came the figure who shall not be named. Initially, he was sure the Jews would be his allies, having drawn all his stories from Judaism, the Torah, and the Talmud. I have personally visited a mosque in southeastern Turkey built on the site where Abraham supposedly landed after being thrown into a fiery furnace. That narrative comes straight out of the Midrash, complete with its own unique ending of holy fish in a pond that doused the flames—a story for another time.
Yet the Jews were quite content with their own faith. In fact, we might have felt a certain pride, considering mimicry the greatest form of flattery, were it not for the death and destruction this new offshoot caused. From a Jewish perspective, it is hard not to arrive at the same conclusion regarding an insecurity of place: on one hand, the source of their entire religion is Judaism; on the other, it is rejected by that very same religion.
Thus, both Christianity and Islam developed theologies designed to demonize the Jews. Once you combine 2,000 years of Christian hostility with 1,400 years of Islamic hostility—both stemming from their respective insecurities—we arrive at all sorts of secular Jew-hatred, ranging from fascism to progressivism. The latter is particularly cute, as progressives view themselves as originators of something novel when all they have really done is change the vocabulary.
At any rate, I am getting at a very simple point. Judaism at its core is the inspiration of individuals thousands of years ago who took small steps, like ending human sacrifice, which proved to be giant leaps for humankind. These inspired people experienced an awakening of consciousness, realizing that human beings need at least one day off a week to enjoy all that is worthwhile. They formulated laws designed to make life better for everyone.
One such idea is the concept of a period of personal reflection and forgiveness—truly one of the greatest gifts we have inherited: the inspired belief that we are masters of our own spiritual destiny.
In our tradition, this is achieved collectively, not one-on-one behind a curtain, but together, singing the beautiful melody of Avinu Malkeinu that we all love. This is the foundational beauty of our tradition: an unwavering emphasis on family and community.
So despite all the name-calling leveled at us right now, or at any point over the past thousands of years, whenever I scratch the surface of our history, I find inspiration. When I am called an “adjacent racist child killer,” I am reminded that the first time in recorded history there was a belief in the equality of humankind across races and genders, it belonged—and belongs—to Judaism
Please join our community this high holidays as we celebrate our tradition by going deep and finding inspiration.
1 Comment. Leave new
Hi Rabbi,
I read your comments above and you write so wisely. I feel today that in so many ways what I am feeling and having to do, is what my great grandparents (and those before them) in Eastern Europe had to do- shrink into myself, not declare my faith too openly in case I too am labelled a ‘genocidal killer-etc. Perhaps it’s part of our survival skill set that we do this (not that we should have to of course). I remember very clearly as a 5 year old child (and I still see this image in my mind’s eye), standing in front of our house in North London and looking up at a very blue sky and asking G-d “why am I Jewish?” Why me, and not someone else? I am still waiting for a reply! I am very proud of who I am as a Jewess and of my Jewish heritage. To this day I still don’t understand why so many in the world hate us-there is no logic to it. And if there were no Jews in the world today, who then would be the world’s scapegoat? My very wise late grandfather, Maurice Prashker had many sayings such as “Jews are the canaries of the world” and “while they may come for the Jews first, it doesn’t end with Jews’ and Pastor Martin Niemoller’s poem confirms that. I will end there.
I made 2 submissions to the Royal Commission-it will be interesting to see what recommendations emerge. We have survived for thousands of years and please G-d, we will continue to do so. Shabbat shalom