Share, share, share! Every Jew should see this.
How different we Israelis are from what much of the world today chooses to believe about us!
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When our sages considered the interaction in Breishit (Genesis) between Yaakov and Eisav, they concluded “Eisav hates Yaakov.” It was said to be halacha, law. Not in the sense of a commandment for something we Jews had to do, but as a descriptive reality that had to be accepted.
Yaakov was, of course, the father of the Jewish people. Eisav was considered the progenitor of Rome, and following from this, the Western world.
Many commentators today would say that there are certainly non-Jews in the Western world who do not hate Jews, indeed may genuinely befriend or support Jews. Nonetheless, what the broader concept of “Eisav hates Yaakov” addresses is a reality that has persisted in the Western world across the generations: the slaughters during the Crusades; the Spanish Inquisition; the banishment of Jews from England, Spain and Portugal; the pogroms of eastern Europe; the Shoah; etc. In this sense, “Eisav hates Yaakov” is not only accurately descriptive, it is cautionary.
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We encounter a similar cautionary description of reality in the liturgy of Pesach, in the Haggadah. In V’he she’amda we are told: “not only one arose and tried to destroy us, rather in every generation they stand up to destroy us.”
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Why do I mention all of this now? Because I, along with so many others here in Israel, have been struggling to comprehend the reason for the vile anti-Semitism that has arisen since October 7, 2023. A hatred of such proportions as to take the breath away. It defies logic, and yet the need to understand it is powerful.
Oh, there are answers, plenty of them. But it is difficult to find an answer that quite satisfies. For anti-Semitism is shape-shifting: In different times and different places, the rationale presented for hating Jews shifts; it is not a constant. This means that none of these reasons provided is the “real” reason for Jew-hatred.
In fact, sometimes the reasons advanced for hating Jews conflict with each other: Jews are bad because they are communists; they are evil because they are capitalists. Jews insist on being a people apart and will not participate; Jews stick their noses in where they are not wanted and try to control things.
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Ofttimes the reason is inadequate to explain the virulence of the hatred. For example, that Jews are resented because they are so successful academically.
At other times, a reason is powerful and might explain a good deal but can be applied only within one specific historical context. There are, for example, analysts who believe that Europeans harbor an unconscious guilt about the Shoah and so project their sins upon the Jews. If the Jews are themselves capable of genocide in Gaza, well then, the guilt about what was done to the Jews is dissipated. This resonates with me, but it applies only to one historical time period of some decades.
Commentator Melanie Phillips discusses this phenomenon and similar issues within a broader context. You might well find her thoughts worth considering:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/172NJwrWnz/
Another explanation that speaks to me is with regard to the fact that the Jews introduced the concept of moral accountability into the world.
This surely has made matters more difficult for those who prefer to do as they please without being told that they are morally accountable. It could have engendered serious hostility and very likely still does.
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And here we come to the heart of the matter. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardoza has written an article, “There is something about Israel that makes people furious.”
In it, he quotes British journalist Allister Heath (pictured), who is not Jewish. Heath writes:
“The real reason why Israel is vehemently attacked has nothing to do with Gaza, genocide, settlements, or wars. All that is a cover for something deeper: A discomfort not with what Israel does, but with what Israel is.” (Emphasis added here and below)
Continues Heath:
“’A nation this small should not be this strong,’ Heath writes. And indeed, Israel has none of the attributes typically associated with world powers—no oil reserves, no vast population, no global alliances that fully defend it. Surrounded by enemies, condemned by international institutions, slandered by celebrities, and yet… it thrives.
“It thrives in military innovation, in medicine, in security, in technology, in agriculture, in intelligence—and in sheer, unbreakable will. It intercepts rockets mid-air, turns deserts into farmland, rescues hostages with impossible missions, and wins wars it is supposed to lose.
“And the world cannot cope with this.
“So, Heath explains, the world reaches for false explanations: ‘It must be cheating. It must be lobbying. It must be theft. It must be oppression. Because heaven forbid it’s real. Heaven forbid it’s earned. Or worse—destined.’”
“What drives the world mad, he writes, is the possibility that the Jews really are chosen. That history is not random. That evil does not get the final word. That God still keeps His promises.”
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And so there you have it, my friends. This antipathy on the part of the world arises again and again, and each time it is attributed to a different cause, thus the shape shifting. But this is what underlies it. This is why our sages warned about the hatred of Yaakov and why our Pesach liturgy says forces will rise against us in every generation.
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We cannot eliminate this hatred. To attempt to mitigate it by trying to act more like other nations would be a betrayal of what we are meant to be.
Yes, and yes again, we must fight the anti-Semitism when it arises – whatever shape it takes. We should broadcast the truth and demand legal protections. We should stand tall, always. But we should not delude ourselves that we can make all of the hatred go away. It is like a cultural miasma that exists always and flares up with fury from time to time. Logic will not defeat it.
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There is a second part to the quote I provided above from V’he she’amda in the Pesach liturgy:
“And the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.”
This is true. History stands as witness. With all of the calamities the Jewish people have endured, none has succeeded in eliminating us, as our enemies would wish. What we have survived defies historical comprehension. There are historians who have confessed that they are confounded. Other peoples who were powerful at different periods in history have disappeared, but we have not. How could it be that three years after the Shoah, when one-third of the world’s Jews had been annihilated, we founded a Jewish State, a state that has flourished over time?
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There is great suffering today – because of our soldiers who have been killed and injured, because of the hostages. But we will rise above this horror ultimately. And I believe we will be stronger: Jews from other nations will have come to be part of our nation here. While the nations these Jews left behind will be weaker without their various contributions.
There will still be tears, and sleepless nights, and furious anger at the injustices of the world, before this horrendous war is over. But it will be over.
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Please, pray with full hearts, my friends, for the strength and wisdom of our leaders, the safety of our fighting troops, and the rescue of our hostages.
©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
