The Most Dangerous Enemy Jews Have Ever Faced

When Jews turn on Jews, everyone loses. And yet we keep making the same ignorant mistake.

In recent years, research has suggested that Anne Frank’s betrayer was another Jew. (photo: Ronni Kurtz/Unsplash)

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The story of Anne Frank is one of history’s most searing reminders of human resilience — and human betrayal.

For decades, scholars and readers alike have wrestled with the haunting question: Who gave Anne and her family away? Who, in an occupied Amsterdam brimming with fear, dared to inform the Nazis about eight Jews hiding in a cramped secret annex behind an office?

In recent years, research has suggested a painful possibility: The betrayer may not have been a non-Jewish Nazi sympathizer or an opportunistic Dutch collaborator, but a Jew — a man named Arnold van den Bergh, a member of Amsterdam’s Jewish Council, who may have provided names of hiding places to the Nazis in an attempt to save his own family.

While the evidence is debated and far from conclusive, the mere suggestion strikes a nerve because it reflects a truth deeper than any single case: When Jews betray Jews, the price is catastrophic, and collective.

Jewish history is not short on internal betrayal. From the internecine rivalries during the destruction of the Second Temple to the informers who, under medieval persecution, delivered fellow Jews into the hands of the Inquisition, these acts were often driven by desperation, fear, or a misguided hope of self-preservation. But they never ended well — not for the victims, not for the informers, and not for the Jewish People as a whole.

The Nazis understood this all too well. They weaponized the moral anguish of Jews, forcing some into impossible roles as members of Judenrat¹ or as camp functionaries, exploiting their instinct to save a few by sacrificing others. These were no ordinary choices; they were engineered nightmares. Yet history shows that collaborating with those who seek our destruction, even under duress, does not protect the individual. It accelerates the machinery of death for all.

Van den Bergh, if guilty, may have believed he was buying safety. But in the Holocaust, there were no true bargains, only delayed sentences. His family was murdered, just like that of Anne Frank. His alleged betrayal did nothing to dismantle the Nazi killing machine; it only deepened the tragedy.

This tragic pattern did not begin in Amsterdam. Jewish history, across millennia, bears the scars of internal betrayal. During the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Jewish factions (Zealots, Sicarii, moderates) fought each other with more ferocity than the Romans. They burned each other’s food supplies, weakening the city and sealing its doom. The enemy outside did not destroy Jerusalem alone; Jewish infighting opened the gates.

Centuries later, in medieval Europe, some Jews under torture by the Inquisition turned informant, revealing names of fellow Jews. They believed this would spare them from the flames. It rarely did. Their neighbors perished, and so did they. Again and again, history testifies: When a persecuted people fractures from within, it accelerates its own destruction.

Why does this pattern repeat? The psychology of survival under terror offers clues. Facing annihilation, some cling to the illusion of control: If I comply, if I give them what they want, I might live. It is a false bargain with a ruthless oppressor, but fear is a powerful deceiver.

There is also what scholars call “moral injury” — the deep spiritual wound inflicted when people are forced to act against their core values. Those who inform often do not live free; they live tormented, or they perish anyway. And yet, desperation blinds reason. This explains why Van den Bergh, if guilty, might have believed betrayal could buy time.

History proves that the price is always higher than imagined, and the lesson is clear: In times of existential threat, the fantasy that one Jew can save himself by sacrificing another is an illusion. Those who attempt it not only condemn others, but invite destruction upon themselves. The oppressor does not distinguish between the “loyal” and the “dispensable.” To the Nazis, a Jew was a Jew. Today, history reminds us that in moments of crisis, solidarity is not optional; it is survival.

And yet, the temptation persists. Sometimes it takes subtler forms: Jews publicly vilifying other Jews to gain favor in political or social circles, aligning with ideologies that target their own people in hopes of avoiding criticism, thinking, If I distance myself from them, I’ll be safe.

But safety never comes that way. Those who demonize fellow Jews in the name of moral purity or political expediency may win applause from the mob, but they feed the same fire that will eventually consume them.

This is why the story of Anne Frank still matters. It is not just about the cruelty of Nazis or the fragility of life; it is about the peril of forgetting who we are to each other. When Jews fracture, when fear or ego makes us turn on our own, the consequences are never limited to one person or one moment. They ripple outward — across families, across generations, across history.

We live in an age where antisemitism wears new masks like “Anti-Zionism” but carries the same old hatred. Today, we see echoes of this same delusion: Some Jews align with movements that antisemitically demonize Israel and excuse antisemitic violence, thinking that by joining the chorus they will escape its wrath. Groups like “Jewish Voice for Peace” claim moral high ground while amplifying the very narratives that endanger Jewish lives worldwide.

Others throw fellow Jews under the bus in politics, media, or business to appear virtuous or gain social currency. The logic is the same as Van den Bergh’s imagined calculus: If I distance myself from them, I’ll be safe. But appeasement does not buy safety. It buys contempt — from the enemy and, eventually, from history.

We cannot pretend this is only a Diaspora problem. Even in the State of Israel, the one place where Jews hold sovereignty, Jew-on-Jew animosity runs deep. The venom hurled between religious and secular, Left and Right is not mere disagreement; it often crosses into contempt.

Look at Israeli politics: Rivals accuse each other not just of error, but of treason. Protest movements have paralyzed cities. Families split over ideology. After October 7th, a day that should have united Israel in grief and resolve, internal blame games erupted within weeks.

This is not new. In Israel’s early years, the political party Mapai crushed Revisionist opponents; Yemenite children were separated from parents; kibbutzim ostracized those with different visions for the Jewish state. Today, the rhetoric may be sharper because the microphones are louder, but the impulse is ancient: If my vision of Judaism, Zionism, or democracy does not prevail, then the other side is a danger to the nation.

History tells us what happens when this logic metastasizes: Jerusalem fell not only because of Rome, but because Jews turned on each other inside the walls. We cannot afford to repeat that inside the borders of the only Jewish state on earth.

Of course, the lesson of betrayal against Anne Frank and her family is not simply to condemn one man; it is to remember that in a world that targets Jews, our strength is our unity. Our survival depends on resisting the urge to seek safety by sacrificing solidarity.

Anne famously wrote: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” Her faith in humanity remains one of the most quoted lines in literature. And yet, her fate was sealed by the very opposite: the failure of solidarity, the triumph of betrayal. What would Anne say today, watching Jews once again turn on each other in a world that still debates our right to exist?

None of this is black and white. It is tempting to frame Jew-on-Jew hate as sheer betrayal, but life (and identity) is rarely that simple. The Talmud states that “All Jews are guarantors for one another,”² which Jewish tradition interprets as a sacred duty to protect one another. It is a beautiful ideal, but reality is messier.

Not every Jew feels this command equally. Some Jews are more universalist than particularist, more liberal or [insert nationality] than Jewish in their core identity. Others see their Jewishness through the lens of ethics or politics rather than peoplehood. These layers of identity matter, because they often explain why Jew-on-Jew hostility erupts: It’s not just Jew against Jew, but worldviews colliding within Jewish skin.

Still, recognizing this complexity should not necessarily lead us to excuse venom. It ought to make us pause. Before we spit fire at another Jew, whether online or in the streets, perhaps each of us can ask themselves: Why am I so eager to hate? Whose talking points am I amplifying? Am I, even unwittingly, echoing antisemitic tropes?

Disagreement is natural. Debate is Jewish. But the willingness to dehumanize each other, especially when our enemies are taking detailed notes, is something else entirely. That is not righteous dissent; it is self-destruction.

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1. An administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities

2. Shavuot 39a