Anti-Semitism, history and denial

According to one respondent to my recent article, Understanding the Holocaust: Shoah in Historical Perspective, Jews should "seek the causes (for anti-Semitism) in our own acts." Self-blame is not an uncommon response to tragedy. Rape victims come immediately to mind. But what motivates the idea that we Jews, by our own actions, invite anti-Semitism and are somehow responsible for the Holocaust?

Several years ago, a prominent Israeli rabbi attributed the massacre of a busload of children by terrorists as divine punishment for the "sins of Israelis." As if god targets children, using terrorists to carry out his will. In the wake of the Shoah, seeking to somehow explain the inexplicable, some orthodox Diaspora leaders suggested that the Holocaust was god's punishment for the sins of our people in Europe. But as in the Israeli bus massacre, most of the Jews who fell victim to the European slaughter, during and for centuries before the Shoah, were mostly the pious and the poor, those least likely to be halachic "transgressors." And was the hand of god also present in the elimination of eastern Europe's famed Hassidic centers? The murder of orthodox communities dedicated to a life of learning and Halachic tradition?

Jews have experienced anti-Judaism during most of our Diaspora existence, and at great cost in life. As I observed in my earlier post, one prominent Holocaust research center suggests that, had Jewry not been subject to two millennia of European persecution our numbers today would equal that of the entire British Isles!

Since we had never before experienced anything on the scale of Shoah, though, we could not have anticipated, taken evasive or direct action to the emerging danger. Yes, there were those few, Jabotinsky and Abba Kovner, for example, who by intuition born of their Zionist background were more sensitive and alert to the unfolding events. But Martin Buber was more typical of general Jewish understanding and response: anti-Semitism was a pendulum that was now at its extreme. Germany would, he believed, sooner or later pass through that terrible period and life would return to normal for the Jews. Buber urged German Jewry to remain in place, to wait out the storm.

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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.

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To your question, Quentin

Quentin Tarantino arrived in Tel Aviv last month for the glorious premiere of Inglorious Basterds. "I am here to find out how the Jewish people might feel when they see my new film," he was quoted saying. Well, Quentin, without further ado, to your question. (Or: this is what a Jew might feel when she sees your film.)

Of Inglorious Basterds. Were Richard Goldstone (of the UN Human Rights Council) to walk out of your movie, just a few days after releasing his bashing report against the Jewish State, he'd probably be saying to his wife, "See darlin', Quentin is as right as I was. These Jews are all about 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.'"

Only while Goldstone has accused the Jewish state of purposely targeting the Gaza civilians during Operation Cast Lead, you, Quentin, have been slightly less imaginative, and contemplated a Jewish-American commando targeting the Nazis. Indeed, your ability to fathom and bring to life a concept as profound as Inglorious Basterds suggests that your decade's research of the Jewish psyche does deserve some serious acclaim.

For, in a two-worded, typoed nick-for-a-nation, you have plunged a finger into one of our nation's deepest, bloodiest wounds.

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Israel and the end of Zionism

For the second time in little more than a year an influential Israeli politician appears intent on turning Israel's Law of Return into a political football. This week Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit suggested revising or abolishing the Law. In December 2007, Knesset Constitution and Law Committee chairman Menachem Ben-Sasson decided he would rush a constitution through his committee in time for Israel's Independence Day. A key element of the new constitution was a modification of the Law of Return to conform to Halacha. As if all Jews living today, in Israel and the Diaspora, are Orthodox and share a single set of beliefs, rituals and traditions.

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The next holocaust?

A recent survey of Israeli high schoolers found that 82% believed another holocaust was possible. In light of the fact that Israeli education is justly criticized for not promoting Jewish and Zionist identity among our youth, the number is astounding. How is it that, if our young can clearly see the danger, that our leaders in Israel and in the Diaspora do not? Are we too timid, too concerned with offending non-Jews, to recognize and admit the danger, a danger which, if not appreciated may well exceed the price we paid in the previous effort at solving the Jewish Problem?

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