My fellow jews: if nothing else , say Never Again to traveling to Spain. Between the Inquisition and their butchery in the new world and now their choosing to side with hamas and Iran, not seeing or spending time in Spain is a sacrifice all proud jews can make.
Spain was on our travel agenda….not any more. Or Ireland, or England, France…. Come to think about it I’ll just stay home, but not wear my Star of David. How do you fight back against an ideology that has so demonized an entire civilization? F em all. It’s our land. Done explaining.
I totally agree. We travelled to many of these countries in times when we falsely/naively thought "antisemitism" (anti-Jew specifically)--was no longer "a thing". We won't go today to ANY country you listed and then some--like Canada and Australia.
I believe the answer to this riddle lies in the theories advanced by theologian Rene Girard. Your essay appears to be saying something similar to the way his ideas can be applied to the scapegoating of Jews. Namely, that human communities, when plagued by intense internal rivalries and mounting violence, unconsciously unite against a single, arbitrary victim (or minority group) to restore peace. This mechanism is rooted in what Girard terms "mimetic desire", which turns the Hobbesian "war of all against all" that our species suffers from when there is no Superego mechanism in place to repress it (Girard was a Freudian), into a "unanimity of all against one". In other words, it provides an outlet for built-up aggression, which serves to unite disparate parties (e.g. today it's Leftists and Islamists, and in the past it was Christians and Muslims), and at the same time vents the aggression in a socially acceptable manner that is given the veneer of respectability by the prevailing faith, being Christianity, Islam, Nazism, or Leftism.
The scapegoat is often someone perceived as different: an outsider or someone who is simultaneously integrated yet distinct from the community. This describes diaspora Jews well: they are a minority in a gentile majority society, usually educated people, not brutes, and thus more vulnerable. Jews have served as a prime candidate for this mechanism in Christian and Muslim societies for over two thousand years, and still do today under the guise of anti-Zionism. The scapegoating of Jews relies on contradictory accusations, such as being too rich and too poor, too secretive and too controlling, which shows that the target is not about objective guilt but about projecting internal community chaos onto a demonized" image. During crises (plagues, economic depression, wars, or, in our day and age, cultural social decay), the community redirects its chaotic fear and rage onto the Jews, who are framed as the hidden architects of that disaster. A good example of this mindset today is Tucker Carlson's infamous scapegoating of Israel, and by extension, all Jews -- though he refrains from stating the latter overly; however, his followers have no problem doing so.
The scapegoating mechanism allows individuals and society to manage internal conflicts without addressing their real causes. When a community suffers from internal frictions (rivalries, economic stress, societal breakdown), the tension is unbearable. Rather than facing their own complicity, the community finds it easier to believe that an outsider is responsible. The scapegoating makes the community feel united, virtuous, and peaceful again, temporarily ending their inner strife. For the mechanism to work, the perpetrators cannot know they are doing it. It is unconscious. They must believe their target is genuinely guilty, framing their violence as a necessary act of justice or cleansing. By demonizing the victim (e.g., picturing Jews as an existential, non-human threat), the persecutors turn their aggression into a moral crusade. This converts negative feelings like fear, guilt, or inadequacy into satisfying, righteous vengeance. The scapegoat provides a convenient outlet for aggression through demonization by acting as a cathartic release valve for the pent-up anger and resentment accumulated within a society.
All the rivalry and envy created by mimetic desire are channelled onto one target, discharging the community’s violent energy, which is then expelled. However, this is a false and temporary peace. The victim is sacrificed (excluded or destroyed). In the aftermath, the community feels a sense of relief and calm for a time, wrongly attributing this peace to the removal of the scapegoat, rather than acknowledging it as a result of shared violence. So the cycle continues, leading to more attacks, pogroms and murders. The scapegoating of Jews has provided a recurring, historical solution to existential fear, to avoid facing their own internal divisions and failures by projecting their sins. Islamists in particular have a lot of aggression towards one another, but are united through a common Jew-hatred.
Supersessionism also plays a part in their antisemitism. Christian supersessionism through Replacement theology has, in the past, led to Christian violence against Jews. Now, with the emergence of a relatively new 'religion' - Leftism - antisemitism has found a new outlet through anti-Zionism. But the underlying dynamic in all these examples is scapegoating. Other groups can and have been scapegoatied throughout history, but Jews are the target frequently, perhaps because they are typically more intelligent than the host society and thus resented. The same thing happened to East Indians and whites in Uganda in 1972. The same thing is happening to some white people in South Africa right now. Centuries ago, some women were scapegoated and burned as witches. It's a pattern found all throughout history.
Melissa, no doubt about it. I’ve said for the longest time that if someone were creating the perfect formula for a scapegoat, the Jews would tragically fit it. We are a very small demographic, yet highly visible everywhere. We are disproportionately successful in many fields. And historically, Jews were seen as a people unlikely to physically fight back in large numbers.
That combination makes Jews the perfect target for societies looking to dump their frustrations, failures, and anger onto someone else. A small minority that is visible, successful, and isolated becomes an easy symbol for people looking for someone to blame instead of confronting their own problems.
Exactly. The great psychologist/philosopher Carl Jung gave the phenomenon you describe so well a name: "projection." When we "project," we see all of our own unrecognized faults in the object onto which we project our shortcomings.
Quite the compelling argument, especially the last paragraph. Fortunately, the Jews are no longer impotent to the attacks. Welcome the Mossad and the IDF.
Welcome! :) But seriously, it’s time all Jews finally understood this. It’ll break many out of the trap of ‘what can Jews do differently’ or ‘if we just assimilate more.’
Douglas Murray, one of the few sane , decent writers and commentators of our time, brilliant and outspoken, has said this many times: look at what you accuse the Jews of and then look at what is wrong with you. It's been like this since Christianity, which based its Pauline religion on the fabricated hatred and vindictiveness against all Jews everywhere and of all times. For them it was also a question of identity and the affirmation of an insecure faith, contrasted with the certainty- considered arrogance and blindness by them- of the Jews . But the ferocity of their slaughtering and martyring or Jews allowed their own barbarism and decay to be projected on them. Islam followed. Two sick daughter religions, a case of matricide. I wonder what Freud would have thought. Perhaps he did tie Jew-hatred to personal shortcomings and religion. I need to look it up.
This is a fascinating, well researched and thought-through exploration of the hidden dynamic driving the hatred of those on the outside of Jewish existence.
But why doesn’t the author consider and address two obvious questions… A) Don’t those same traumatic drivers exist within the Jewish community’s own internal experiences? How come we don’t cope with our, arguably more justified trauma, by manufacturing our own scapegoats?
B) In what way, if any, does this inoculation against playing our own blame game, contribute to the documented successes that free, unsullied Jews bring to their wider communities?
I’m not qualified to answer these questions - I’m not even positive their suppositions are valid. But what I’m feeling is that the overarching solution may be to somehow bring everyone into our long-suffering, but impervious, Jewish tribe. Wouldn’t it help if everyone was on the same page?
Proselytizing is forbidden within Judaism, yet Google’s AI answered: “Yes, evidence suggests that a growing number of people are converting to Judaism or exploring conversion, with many rabbis reporting increased conversion rates, especially following the events of October 7, 2023.”
Which then leads to two other questions… A) Doesn’t this contradict the increase in antisemitism? B) Doesn’t “the same page” sound awfully like the objective of the Islamists’ Caliphate obsession?
Beautiful essay !!!!!!! So truthful !!!!!!..... It's haŕd to believe how antisemitism had spread all over the world again !!!!!!!......Am Israel Chai!!!!!....
"A child fails a class; the teacher is incompetent. A child racks up unexcused absences; the school’s policy is unreasonable. A child can’t keep up, can’t focus, can’t follow basic instructions — certainly not because of anything happening or not happening at home, certainly not because the parent hasn’t shown up in any meaningful way. It’s the teacher, the administration, the system. Anyone and anything except the person raising that child and the choices being made inside that house every single day.
The teacher becomes the scapegoat. The school becomes the scapegoat. And the parent walks away with their self-image perfectly intact and their child completely unprepared for what’s coming."
The US Government School System is run by American hating Leftists. If a child can't sit still in class listening to a low IQ Communist School Teacher trying to brainwash him/her, the medical profession medicates the child into a stupor. "Education" and Social Work Majors have the lowest entrance examinations into US colleges.
Randi Weingarten who runs the Teachers Union is a Left Wing, child hating tyrant. She is someone who believes teachers should by rights have total control of children. She can go to Hell.
Sorry, but on this example you drank a gallon or two of the Kool-Aid.
Great article and these same themes have been expressed many times by the likes of Rabbi Sacks British Chief Rabbi, Professor Ruth Wisse and others. If Jews didn't exist, humanity would have had to invent them to deal with its failings.
That´s exactly what I told a f*ckpiece at a Berlin Underground Station who attacked and insulted me "because" I was wearing an Israel Flag.
I shouted at him very loudly (in German):"Jew Hate is only for pitiful b*tches like you who don´t get along with themselves".
The audience applauded.
But I think it was only for the show. Which ends at latest when they have to look in the mirror themselves.
My fellow jews: if nothing else , say Never Again to traveling to Spain. Between the Inquisition and their butchery in the new world and now their choosing to side with hamas and Iran, not seeing or spending time in Spain is a sacrifice all proud jews can make.
Spain was on our travel agenda….not any more. Or Ireland, or England, France…. Come to think about it I’ll just stay home, but not wear my Star of David. How do you fight back against an ideology that has so demonized an entire civilization? F em all. It’s our land. Done explaining.
Consider visiting Panama! Wonderful, Jewishly friendly.
I totally agree. We travelled to many of these countries in times when we falsely/naively thought "antisemitism" (anti-Jew specifically)--was no longer "a thing". We won't go today to ANY country you listed and then some--like Canada and Australia.
I believe the answer to this riddle lies in the theories advanced by theologian Rene Girard. Your essay appears to be saying something similar to the way his ideas can be applied to the scapegoating of Jews. Namely, that human communities, when plagued by intense internal rivalries and mounting violence, unconsciously unite against a single, arbitrary victim (or minority group) to restore peace. This mechanism is rooted in what Girard terms "mimetic desire", which turns the Hobbesian "war of all against all" that our species suffers from when there is no Superego mechanism in place to repress it (Girard was a Freudian), into a "unanimity of all against one". In other words, it provides an outlet for built-up aggression, which serves to unite disparate parties (e.g. today it's Leftists and Islamists, and in the past it was Christians and Muslims), and at the same time vents the aggression in a socially acceptable manner that is given the veneer of respectability by the prevailing faith, being Christianity, Islam, Nazism, or Leftism.
The scapegoat is often someone perceived as different: an outsider or someone who is simultaneously integrated yet distinct from the community. This describes diaspora Jews well: they are a minority in a gentile majority society, usually educated people, not brutes, and thus more vulnerable. Jews have served as a prime candidate for this mechanism in Christian and Muslim societies for over two thousand years, and still do today under the guise of anti-Zionism. The scapegoating of Jews relies on contradictory accusations, such as being too rich and too poor, too secretive and too controlling, which shows that the target is not about objective guilt but about projecting internal community chaos onto a demonized" image. During crises (plagues, economic depression, wars, or, in our day and age, cultural social decay), the community redirects its chaotic fear and rage onto the Jews, who are framed as the hidden architects of that disaster. A good example of this mindset today is Tucker Carlson's infamous scapegoating of Israel, and by extension, all Jews -- though he refrains from stating the latter overly; however, his followers have no problem doing so.
The scapegoating mechanism allows individuals and society to manage internal conflicts without addressing their real causes. When a community suffers from internal frictions (rivalries, economic stress, societal breakdown), the tension is unbearable. Rather than facing their own complicity, the community finds it easier to believe that an outsider is responsible. The scapegoating makes the community feel united, virtuous, and peaceful again, temporarily ending their inner strife. For the mechanism to work, the perpetrators cannot know they are doing it. It is unconscious. They must believe their target is genuinely guilty, framing their violence as a necessary act of justice or cleansing. By demonizing the victim (e.g., picturing Jews as an existential, non-human threat), the persecutors turn their aggression into a moral crusade. This converts negative feelings like fear, guilt, or inadequacy into satisfying, righteous vengeance. The scapegoat provides a convenient outlet for aggression through demonization by acting as a cathartic release valve for the pent-up anger and resentment accumulated within a society.
All the rivalry and envy created by mimetic desire are channelled onto one target, discharging the community’s violent energy, which is then expelled. However, this is a false and temporary peace. The victim is sacrificed (excluded or destroyed). In the aftermath, the community feels a sense of relief and calm for a time, wrongly attributing this peace to the removal of the scapegoat, rather than acknowledging it as a result of shared violence. So the cycle continues, leading to more attacks, pogroms and murders. The scapegoating of Jews has provided a recurring, historical solution to existential fear, to avoid facing their own internal divisions and failures by projecting their sins. Islamists in particular have a lot of aggression towards one another, but are united through a common Jew-hatred.
Supersessionism also plays a part in their antisemitism. Christian supersessionism through Replacement theology has, in the past, led to Christian violence against Jews. Now, with the emergence of a relatively new 'religion' - Leftism - antisemitism has found a new outlet through anti-Zionism. But the underlying dynamic in all these examples is scapegoating. Other groups can and have been scapegoatied throughout history, but Jews are the target frequently, perhaps because they are typically more intelligent than the host society and thus resented. The same thing happened to East Indians and whites in Uganda in 1972. The same thing is happening to some white people in South Africa right now. Centuries ago, some women were scapegoated and burned as witches. It's a pattern found all throughout history.
You are conflating anti-Isreal with anti-Semitism. Not the same!!!!!
Melissa, no doubt about it. I’ve said for the longest time that if someone were creating the perfect formula for a scapegoat, the Jews would tragically fit it. We are a very small demographic, yet highly visible everywhere. We are disproportionately successful in many fields. And historically, Jews were seen as a people unlikely to physically fight back in large numbers.
That combination makes Jews the perfect target for societies looking to dump their frustrations, failures, and anger onto someone else. A small minority that is visible, successful, and isolated becomes an easy symbol for people looking for someone to blame instead of confronting their own problems.
Exactly. The great psychologist/philosopher Carl Jung gave the phenomenon you describe so well a name: "projection." When we "project," we see all of our own unrecognized faults in the object onto which we project our shortcomings.
Quite the compelling argument, especially the last paragraph. Fortunately, the Jews are no longer impotent to the attacks. Welcome the Mossad and the IDF.
You’ve hit on a lot of truth here. Very well said. The accountability part in particular is terrific.
Welcome! :) But seriously, it’s time all Jews finally understood this. It’ll break many out of the trap of ‘what can Jews do differently’ or ‘if we just assimilate more.’
Excellent thinking.
Douglas Murray, one of the few sane , decent writers and commentators of our time, brilliant and outspoken, has said this many times: look at what you accuse the Jews of and then look at what is wrong with you. It's been like this since Christianity, which based its Pauline religion on the fabricated hatred and vindictiveness against all Jews everywhere and of all times. For them it was also a question of identity and the affirmation of an insecure faith, contrasted with the certainty- considered arrogance and blindness by them- of the Jews . But the ferocity of their slaughtering and martyring or Jews allowed their own barbarism and decay to be projected on them. Islam followed. Two sick daughter religions, a case of matricide. I wonder what Freud would have thought. Perhaps he did tie Jew-hatred to personal shortcomings and religion. I need to look it up.
This is a fascinating, well researched and thought-through exploration of the hidden dynamic driving the hatred of those on the outside of Jewish existence.
But why doesn’t the author consider and address two obvious questions… A) Don’t those same traumatic drivers exist within the Jewish community’s own internal experiences? How come we don’t cope with our, arguably more justified trauma, by manufacturing our own scapegoats?
B) In what way, if any, does this inoculation against playing our own blame game, contribute to the documented successes that free, unsullied Jews bring to their wider communities?
I’m not qualified to answer these questions - I’m not even positive their suppositions are valid. But what I’m feeling is that the overarching solution may be to somehow bring everyone into our long-suffering, but impervious, Jewish tribe. Wouldn’t it help if everyone was on the same page?
Proselytizing is forbidden within Judaism, yet Google’s AI answered: “Yes, evidence suggests that a growing number of people are converting to Judaism or exploring conversion, with many rabbis reporting increased conversion rates, especially following the events of October 7, 2023.”
Which then leads to two other questions… A) Doesn’t this contradict the increase in antisemitism? B) Doesn’t “the same page” sound awfully like the objective of the Islamists’ Caliphate obsession?
All good questions and you've given me some things to think about and respond to...if I can! Thank you.
If you like the Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, I recommend you also read:
Sao Tome' by Paul D. Cohen
I’ll add that to my list, thank you.
What is being described here is the psychological defensive mechanism of displacement: I am not the cause of my suffering: You are!
Very convenient. Very soothing to the one who feels himself victimized and persecuted by others. Very infantile.
Beautiful essay !!!!!!! So truthful !!!!!!..... It's haŕd to believe how antisemitism had spread all over the world again !!!!!!!......Am Israel Chai!!!!!....
Awesome read. Thanks 🙏. Shabbat shalom
"A child fails a class; the teacher is incompetent. A child racks up unexcused absences; the school’s policy is unreasonable. A child can’t keep up, can’t focus, can’t follow basic instructions — certainly not because of anything happening or not happening at home, certainly not because the parent hasn’t shown up in any meaningful way. It’s the teacher, the administration, the system. Anyone and anything except the person raising that child and the choices being made inside that house every single day.
The teacher becomes the scapegoat. The school becomes the scapegoat. And the parent walks away with their self-image perfectly intact and their child completely unprepared for what’s coming."
The US Government School System is run by American hating Leftists. If a child can't sit still in class listening to a low IQ Communist School Teacher trying to brainwash him/her, the medical profession medicates the child into a stupor. "Education" and Social Work Majors have the lowest entrance examinations into US colleges.
Randi Weingarten who runs the Teachers Union is a Left Wing, child hating tyrant. She is someone who believes teachers should by rights have total control of children. She can go to Hell.
Sorry, but on this example you drank a gallon or two of the Kool-Aid.
Great article and these same themes have been expressed many times by the likes of Rabbi Sacks British Chief Rabbi, Professor Ruth Wisse and others. If Jews didn't exist, humanity would have had to invent them to deal with its failings.