Guest Blog: Understanding the Holocaust: the Shoah in historical context

"One estimate suggests that had Diaspora Jewry not faced two thousand years of Christian wrath our present population would have equaled that of the entire British Isles."

Anti-Semitism is called The Longest Hatred. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and author, refers to the Shoah as unique and "mysterious." What purpose do such descriptions serve, what are their implications? If, for example, anti-Semitism has been around so long, is it a "universal," a culturally neutral response to Jewry and Judaism? Or is the phenomenon culturally specific, the belief system of a specific group at different points in time and history? Who is responsible for holding to, or acting on that hatred; Hitler, Germany, Europe, or Christendom entire?

Is the Holocaust truly a mysterious and unique event in history? Or is it explicable, an event generations in the making, the dark heart of a religion of "love" and "forgiveness"?

Perhaps the best way to distinguish anti-Judaism/anti-Semitism from pre-Christian prejudice is to ask how polytheistic, pre-Christian pagan society viewed their monotheistic neighbors. To the Greeks and Romans Judaism was certainly different and strange. But so, to some extent, were the various pagan belief systems strange to each other. Jews asserted a single, invisible deity and this, combined with dietary and other rituals, set them apart. But overall, Jews living either as a state among neighboring states, or in Diaspora among polytheistic neighbors, were just another people in the mix.

In fact, within the Diaspora, and particularly in Rome itself, many of the Jews' pagan neighbors found Judaism attractive due to its one god and ancient history. In the decades before the destruction of the Temple many converted to the religion, while many others, the so-called "God-fearers," chose to live as Jews without taking the final step of conversion. The appeal of Judaism even reached into the Imperial Roman household itself, where history records several conversions.

It was in the Diaspora that the new and soon to break away sect of messianic Judaism, future Christianity, was to take root.

Modern anti-Semitism owes its origins to the efforts of that newly-emerging sect, a sect born in the despair leading up to and following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. In an effort to distinguish itself from Judaism for purposes of legitimacy, and in competition for converts, nascent Christianity exonerated Rome for the crucifixion of Jesus and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Jews.

Over the past two thousand years, with few notable exceptions, Diaspora Jews living as tiny minorities among their various hosts were the objects of religious superstition and xenophobic prejudice. Persecuted as deicides, they faced periodic episodes of communal murder, expulsion from their homes and theft of their belongings and wealth. When seen as merely one (albeit the most "successful") event in a long and ongoing historical process, the Holocaust is not "mysterious" or unique. Or rather, its uniqueness lay in the fact that 20th century technology provided the tools by which the final solution to the West's two thousand year old Jewish problem was nearly achieved.

In the post-Shoah world, Jewry and Christianity both prefer to view the past as "The Past"; to deny anti-Semitism its historical consistency and future continuity. For Christianity, this makes sense: to accept that its theology and history are responsible for the Holocaust is to force the expunging of anti-Judaism from its scriptures, which would call into question their divine authorship and the very foundation of the religion.

According to Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, "anti-Judaism [may be] too deeply embedded in the foundations of Christianity to be rooted out entirely without destroying the entire structure." (Faith and Fratricide, 1974, p. 228).

Which leaves the easier choice, the one taken by the Catholic Church in 1965. Nostre Aetate left intact the anti-Jewish references in the gospels while encouraging clergy to interpret them more moderately. But this change was cosmetic and affected little in practice: anti-Semitism among Catholics, and Christians in general, has increased in the decades since. The more important issue for Christianity is the contradiction between its profession of "love" and "acceptance" and the reality of the Shoah. For how reconcile the ideal of Christian love with the demonization of Jewry, to assert forgiveness while inspiring and promoting contempt and hatred in the faithful and their secular children?

For we Jews the issue is far more important since it is we who are the victims, the target of Christian fear and doubt. One estimate has it that had Jewry not been victimized by two thousand years of Christian wrath, our present population would have equaled that of the British Isles. Yet we choose to live as though the Shoah were unique, a mysterious event.

German Jewry was the most assimilated and intermarried community in the world. With reason, they considered their fatherland exceptional. And it was, until 1933. Jewry today, in Argentina, the United States and throughout our Christian dispersion, have the benefit of our German community's experience. But rather than accept the significance of the Shoah we choose to reinterpret, falsify and deny its implications for ourselves and our children. As did the Jews of Germany, we place comfort and convenience above the hints in our surroundings of danger. We live with the awareness that the other shoe, at a time and in a manner not of our choosing, will drop. Not only our own lives, but those of our children, or theirs, or their children's children, will be the cost of our denial and complacency.

Anti-Semitism in Art demonstrates via images and words spanning two thousand years the history of this consistent prejudice, this chronic and repetitive - but hardly mysterious - assault on Jews by their neighbors, friends and even intermarried relatives. It is not a pleasant survey, and is intended not to entertain but to sensitize the viewer to a past, present and continuing lethal threat to all persons considered Jews, even, since Hitler, persons with a single Jewish grandparent.

David Turner blogs politics at: America, Israel and the "Special Relationship."