A Brief History of Jew-Haters
Antisemitism is never about the Jew. It is solely about the antisemite.
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This is a guest essay written by Masha Kleiner, a Canadian Zionist writer.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
I often receive messages from antisemites: “Everyone hates you, Jews, don’t you think there is a reason?”
Or: “The whole world is against you, the entire world cannot be wrong.”
Up until very recently, the entire world believed the Earth to be flat, I usually reply, and so far not a single antisemite has found how to counter.
It is harder to console my sad fellow Jews saying that antisemitism has always existed and will exist forever. I recently read a story about a Rabbi, whose name I unfortunately forgot:
“I imagine telling my great grandpa about antisemitism at Harvard. He is surprised — there are Jews at Harvard?! Yes — I sigh and continue — but some of them really hate Israel. He is completely shocked — there is an Israel?”
A hundred years ago it was hard to imagine Israel existing, but it exists. Today it is impossible to imagine that there were times when antisemitism did not exist, or that one day it will be gone. Will it?
Ancient History
In Biblical times, all peoples, except Jews, practiced polytheism. When worshiping many gods, one can borrow a few more gods from their neighbors and reconcile them all with each other. A neighboring people could be conquered and their gods forced to serve. Since the beginning of time, Jews were perceived as weird: They had just the single invisible God. They never depicted him. Only the clergymen were allowed to enter the Temple, and so forth.
Many of the neighbors considered the Jews to be godless or atheists, and still they treated them the same as other neighboring peoples. The Jews fought with their neighbors, and their neighbors fought with the Jews, just as all different peoples fought with each other. There was neither a special hostility, nor systemic antisemitism.
Throughout the existence of the Roman Empire, Roman rulers were increasingly deified, initially only after their death and later during their lifetimes as well. All the subjugated peoples reluctantly agreed to place statues of the Roman Emperors in their temples. For a while an exception was made for the Jews, for whom statues in the Temple were completely unacceptable. This exception greatly irritated other communities.
Even in the ancient world, we can find certain indications resembling the signs of a modern antisemitism. In some texts, Jews are reproached for distinguishing themselves from others and keeping to themselves; in others, Jews are accused of trying to assimilate for the sole purpose of gaining trust.
Greeks attacked the Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE, as soon as the Roman authorities showed a glimpse of disfavor towards the Jews. This was the first documented Jewish pogrom in history. However, a few years later, with the rise of a new emperor in Rome, some Jewish privileges were restored, and then it was the Jews who took their turn attacking the Greeks.
Antisemitism did not appear to exist in the ancient world, but political conflicts between different communities did occur.
Christianity and Antisemitism
Early Christians were too preoccupied with their own persecution to focus on the Jews. After Christianity was legitimized and spread, Jews were no longer unique in their monotheism, but they still remained alien among the surrounding Christians.
For example, as financial dealings evolved and became more complex over the centuries, and while the Church prohibited usury, Jews filled this niche. There still was no systematic state antisemitism in the early Middle Ages, but the suspicions towards those who felt foreign laid the groundwork for its emergence.
The accusations of the crucifixion of Christ began to emerge around that time. Christ was crucified by the Romans, but the ancient Romans were no longer around, and the Jews were. The rare instances of antisemitism initially came not from the common people, but rather from the elites, and even those texts by 9th and 10th centuries clergy that preached relentless hatred of Jews indicate that Christians and Jews lived fairly peacefully.
The Crusades, starting at the 11th century, were a significant milestone. Very different motivations led very different people to embark on these expeditions: religion, desire for power or greed, intolerance or bloodthirstiness.
Not all crusaders were noble knights in shining armor; several fanatical preachers led crowds of commoners. Some were so ignorant about the world’s history and geography that approaching any reasonably sizable city, they would ask: “Is this Jerusalem already?” A bloody trail of terrible Jewish pogroms followed along their path.
Each of the continuing Crusades was accompanied by Jewish pogroms. Around this time, the blood libel about Jews torturing Christian children emerged. The charge of ritual child murder was first used against early Christians by the Ancient Romans, but now fanatical preachers were using this accusation to incite the crowd against the Jews.
Pogroms had not yet become a normal occurrence and some Church and authorities representatives, or even ordinary citizens would protect and hide the Jews on occasion. Nevertheless, when the horrifying wave of violence accompanying the Crusades began to wane, the memory and the habit of bloodshed remained.
The Church went through various crises in the 13th century: The Crusades dwindled, and universities emerged in Europe, bringing with them rationalist teachings and a general atmosphere of heresy. It was at this point that the Church designated the Jews as the enemies of Christianity.
The 14th century brought climatic changes, cold, rain, and, as a consequence, poor harvests, and famine. Then, the weakened population was struck by the plague, the Black Death, which claimed a third of Europe’s population. Disasters and epidemics always provoke xenophobia, and the 14th century was no exception.
It did not help that Jews were less affected by the plague than others. Following their religion, Jews wash hands regularly and bury the dead promptly, but nobody cared about objective reasons, instead, Jews were accused of poisoning wells, and terrible pogroms swept through Europe.
Survivors always trigger irritation and an even greater hatred in perpetrators by reminding them of their cruelty and guilt. After the pogroms the situation for Jews continued to deteriorate significantly and irreversibly. The Inquisition emerged and gained power in Spain, and antisemitic popes were prominent in Italy.
The incitement against Jews was ubiquitous and hatred spread quickly. Local clergy often encouraged various groups — youth, servants, and vagrants — to commit pogroms. The pogroms and expulsions led to the mass migration of Jews from Western Europe to Eastern Europe — into Poland and Ukraine.
From the Middle Ages and up until the 18th and 19th centuries, Jews were allowed to be baptized, and so they could overcome restrictions and pursue careers; Benjamin Disraeli becoming the Prime Minister of Great Britain is a notable example. Embracing Christianity helped but gave no guarantees. Even converted Jews still evoked distrust, faced oppression, and were often barred from important positions.
By the 19th century, antisemitism was evident in both Western Europe, where Jews had been assimilated, and in Eastern Europe, where they were segregated and marginalized. Sometimes antisemitism originated from the authorities, like in Tzarist Russia or the Dreyfus affair in France; sometimes from the common people with the authorities turning a blind eye.
Antisemitism in Islam
Christianity and Islam both have bloody histories, but the core difference is that the New Testament preaches love and forgiveness. Returning to the basics, to the text, we find kindness and mercy in Christianity. Christianity arises from weakness. Christ was crucified. Early Christians were being persecuted, oppressed, and exterminated.
Quite different for Muslims. During his lifetime, Muhammad waged many wars and defeated many enemies, killing them and taking their daughters as wives. From its very beginning, Islam was accompanied by incredible, dizzying military success. Soon after the Prophet’s death, Muslims conquered a larger amount of land than they could anticipate. Islam comes from a position of strength.
Under Sharia law, all non-Muslims living in Muslim-controlled territories were referred to as “dhimmis.” Authorities were to grant them protection of lives and property, but in return, the dhimmis had to acknowledge the absolute dominance of Islam, pay a special tax, and were subjected to endless discrimination.
Dhimmis were prohibited from engaging in any political activity, holding government positions, serving in the military, possessing weapons, riding horses, marrying Muslims, and numerous other restrictions.
A popular myth claims that Jews thrived under Muslim rule. Everything is relative, and while the Inquisition flames were not blazing on Muslim lands, there could be no real safety in a situation of total inequality. In all parts of the Muslim world, throughout the centuries, Jews were routinely subjected to forcible conversion to Islam, confinement to ghettos, expulsion, or even massacres.
Nationalism and Antisemitism
Meanwhile, in Europe, the early 19th-century ideas of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience evolved towards the end of the century into nationalistic ideas and movements. There is nothing inherently wrong with nationalism, but it turned out to be a short step away from chauvinism and antisemitism.
By the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, racial prejudices emerged and intensified, and antisemitism transformed from a religious bias to a racial one.
Previously, it was possible to distance from Judaism by converting, but abandoning Jewishness was harder. Various 20th-century ideologies approached this issue differently.
In the Soviet Union, during certain periods, rejecting and condemning the Jewish identity could help fit into the system and advance a career. In Nazi Germany, antisemitism reached its extreme — there was no way to rid oneself of or be redeemed from Jewishness.
But even in Nazi Germany, the Holocaust didn’t start overnight; it developed gradually. Restrictions were incrementally introduced, starting with meaningless yet humiliating ones: bans on pets, jewelry, and bicycle riding. These early restrictions resemble the humiliating dhimmi conditions under Muslim governance: unpleasant but mostly not fatal.
Jews grew accustomed to enduring them, and German society became accustomed to Jewish humiliation. The natural progression led to bans on professions, marriage to non-Jews, and loss of citizenship.
The initial plan assumed deporting all Jews to Madagascar, and only by 1942 was it decided to exterminate the Jews in concentration camps instead. Unlike earlier antisemitism, used as a means of managing the crowd’s anger, in Nazi Germany, the persecution and annihilation of Jews served as an idea and a goal in itself.
Antisemitism did not begin with Hitler and did not end with him. Antisemitism chooses the forms that are convenient for the antisemite. Jews have been hated for being poor and for being rich, for being powerless and for being powerful, for having no state and, after 1948, for having one.
The hatred towards Israel manifests itself in a similar fashion. In 1948, Egypt saw the Soviet Union as Israel’s ally, so the Egyptian parliament justified voting to declare war by claiming that Israel was communist. Just a few years later, Israel would be perceived in the Arab world as an ally of the United States, and hated for imperialism instead.
Islam After 1948
It is hard to imagine more miserable and helpless people than the early 20th-century Jews fleeing from pogroms in Eastern Europe or the mid-20th-century Jewish Holocaust survivors.
When, despite all the unrelenting efforts of Muslims, these wretched and destitute Jews succeeded in establishing the state of Israel in 1948, they inflicted a humiliating defeat upon modern Islam — a defeat like Islam had never experienced before.
In the past, Jews were allowed to live in Islamic society as lower-class citizens who could be humiliated at any moment. Weak infidels could be graciously permitted to live, but the weakness of Muslims could only mean that God had turned away from them. Non-Muslim rule over Muslims is utterly inconceivable for Muslims.
It was barely tolerable to be ruled by the mighty and powerful British Empire, but to be defeated by Jews, by the world’s ultimate refugees? It contradicted the very foundations of the religion. To become closer to God again, Muslims need to be strong, to conquer and subdue their enemies.
The painful humiliation of 1948 stands in the way of Islam’s regaining its former greatness. If Muslims could have destroyed Israel, they would not have had the need to do so; but having attempted and failed, they shall continue trying by any means. For Muslims, the conflict with Israel is neither territorial nor political.
For example, from Hamas’ perspective, this conflict is not at all about “Palestine.” Hamas was repeatedly criticized for never raising the Palestinian flag. For contemporary Islam, the conflict with Israel is the main theological issue.
The New Testament teaches us: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.”
For Muslims, a synonym for closeness to God is power. Unlike Christianity, where antisemitism developed centuries after the religion's inception, Islamic antisemitism is defined in the Quran. Muhammad fought against infidels and killed many Jews. Even among the atrocities committed by ISIS, there is no deed that Prophet Muhammad did not himself commit in the Quran.
The path to restoring Islam’s dignity is to crush Israel and the Jews, who have inflicted humiliation on the Muslims. This is not the only possible interpretation of Islam, but it is impossible to prove that this interpretation is incorrect by relying purely on the text.
Conclusions
Like home repairs, the text on antisemitism can never be completed, only interrupted. Therefore, a few practical conclusions to finish with.
First, the reasons for antisemitism tend to seem uninteresting in the moment; I myself am guilty of this. The reasons why someone wants to kill me do not feel all that important. However, without understanding the motives of hatred, it is impossible to challenge them and defending effectively against hate is harder without understanding the nature of these motives.
Second, people often dismiss specific instances of antisemitism as insignificant, thinking it's easier and safer to endure rather than push back. Enduring is unsustainable; submission leads to habituation, and habituation is a one-way street.
Third, antisemitism is never about the Jew; it is solely about the antisemite. A Jew cannot look or behave in any particular way to please the antisemite. The fight against antisemitism is ultimately an internal struggle of the antisemite. The single thing we can strive for is building a society where antisemitism is unacceptable and punishable.
And perhaps most importantly: Many believe that antisemitism cannot be defeated. If defeat means the disappearance of every last antisemite, then this is probably correct.
However, more often, the impossibility of overcoming antisemitism is used to justify the reluctance to fight it. We must fight. Death has also never been defeated, but that does not mean we shouldn’t be fighting for life.
Lovely and simply put. The takeaway: Israel has to utterly defeat the Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, obliterate southern Lebanon, destroy Beirut and environs, and take out Iran, with nuclear strikes if necessary. Then the antisemites the world over, and especially in the West, can think about what they did to produce such an outcome; and if they still don't get it, their societies will simply self-destruct.
Your piece was very interesting in various respects Masha, and I think it would be wonderful to sit and explore the subject further with you. But, this will have to do.
As a Christian Zionist; one who loves the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Land of Israel, and the Chosen People worldwide, I appreciate the nuanced and fair way you portrayed Christian anti-Semitism, and the tragic and inexcusable history of the professing Church and the Jewish People. That history is both shameful and abhorrent to me.
That said, I would like to point out, for the benefit of some who might be unaware and interested, that there is a corresponding history of Christians persecuting and killing other Christians. In many cases in was the Catholic Church versus Protestants, but it was also Protestants against Protestants. In the latter case, those who were persecuted and put to death were generally Christians for whom the Bible was the ultimate authority in all matters it touched upon - not any Tradition(s), Religious Institution, or Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. The point is that these were Christians who held truer to the teachings and prophecies of the entire Bible, as understood through the grammatical, historical, and literal hermeneutic. And that made them lovers of Israel (which they understood would be restored by G-d), lovers of the Chosen People, and serious threats to those who had gained control over Christendom and corrupted the Christian Faith.
“…without understanding the motives of hatred, it is impossible to challenge them and defending effectively against hate is harder without understanding the nature of these motives.”
I believe you have well described many of the ‘motives of hatred’ that energize and propel anti-Semitism, but only on the natural/materialistic level. And I submit that ‘the Longest Hatred’ cannot be truly understood without recognizing the greater, spiritual origins that underlie, empower, and direct its course.
It is understood that many readers may be, or consider themselves to be, secular atheists, humanists, or agnostics. Many others who identify as Christian or Jewish persons of faith, probably would not agree that the entire Tanakh, or the Tanakh and Brit Hadashah, is the inspired, authoritative, Word of G-d.
But, for those who have reached that point; those who do regard, and honor, the Bible as the ultimate, authoritative source of Spiritual Truth, a clearer, deeper understanding emerges from the texts. And, here it is:
1) A spiritual war has been raging in the Universe, commencing sometime prior to the Creation of mankind on Earth. That warfare has been waged between the forces of G-d, and ‘the Adversary’; the fallen Angel originally known as ‘Lucifer’ (Light Bearer), who was transformed into Satan when he rebelled against G-d, taking one-third of the angelic hosts with him in that rebellion.
2) The creation of mankind was in response to this rebellion, and intended by G-d to be the means by which it would ultimately be defeated, and the will and purposes of G-d fulfilled. Satan was aware of this, and promptly began efforts to destroy mankind, to thwart his own defeat and doom.
3) In the progressive revelation of the Bible, it eventually became clear that G-d’s intention was to fulfill His will through the seed of one man; Abraham, with whom He entered into an unconditional Covenant; ‘the Abrahamic Covenant’. The terms of that Covenant were reiterated to Isaac, then to Jacob, and then extended to the entirety of the twelve Tribes. This focused Satan’s hatred of G-d, and his efforts to escape his doom, on the Chosen People, and it is only through the power and grace of G-d that they have survived.
4) Over the course of Biblical time, many prophetic pronouncements, linkages and ‘clues’ made it abundantly clear what the course of history would be. Most importantly, it became crystal clear that Satan’s upcoming defeat and doom was inextricably linked to the Jewish people being back in the Land from the Dispersion, in full control of the Jewish nation and, specifically, in control of the Temple Mount. And it is that fact alone, which undergirds the fierce and unrelenting hatred of ‘the world’ against the Jewish people - inspired by Satan, manipulating the weaknesses of fallen human nature, with the ultimate goal of destroying Israel and, thereby, ‘defeating’ the prophecies. As strange and difficult as it may be to believe, everything that is currently happening in the world is ultimately related to that one singular goal; the destruction of the Jewish State, and Jewish control over Temple Mount.
For the benefit of any who have followed me thus far, the Biblical record also makes it clear that Satan will fail, and all of the promises G-d made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will be fulfilled to the finest detail. Between here and there, however, lies the ‘time of Jacob’s travail/trouble’; the greatest testing of the Jewish people in their long and storied history.
So, what can be done about it? These things are written; they will come to pass. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t bother to, fight against this evil scourge upon the world. On the contrary, G-d is bringing many adopted sons and daughters to glory, and ‘the just shall live by their faith (Habbakuk 2:4). We are to trust in Adonai, love Him with all our heart, mind, and strength, and yield our very lives to His Providential care.
May G-d Almighty give Israel might, power, protection, provision, wisdom, discernment, and victory over her enemies, whether from within, or without, the Land of Israel.