The Real Reason People Hate Jews
In human history, the most persecuted minorities aren’t always the poorest or the weakest; they are often the ones who, against all odds, succeed.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Ask a Jew why we think people hate us, and you’ll get a range of answers, each shaped by time and politics.
On the Far-Right, we’re told it’s “replacement theory” — the fantasy that Jews are secretly importing immigrants to “replace” white Christians.
In Islamist rhetoric, it’s because we are supposedly “infidels.”
On the Far-Left, it’s because of Israel — the only Jewish state in the world, which, we’re told, is a “colonial oppressor” that must be dismantled.
In conspiracy circles, it’s everything from starting wars to spreading diseases to manipulating the media.
The surface-level accusations change with the times — in medieval Europe, we were accused of poisoning wells; in the 20th century, of orchestrating world wars; today, of controlling tech and finance. But beneath all of these shifting narratives lies one unchanging truth: Jews are hated not because we are weak, but because we are a successful minority.
That’s a dangerous thing to be. In human history, the most persecuted minorities aren’t always the poorest or the weakest; they are often the ones who, against all odds, succeed. The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The Chinese in Southeast Asia. The Igbos in Nigeria. Success makes a minority visible, independent, and self-sustaining. It removes the need for “protection” from the dominant powers, and — in the eyes of certain political movements — removes the need for them.
In much of today’s Western political discourse, the “progressive” Left positions itself as the champion of minorities. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find that certain factions have made it a policy to keep minorities dependent and unsuccessful. The logic is cynical but simple: A struggling group will keep voting for the people who promise them help; a thriving, independent one may not.
When Jews were poor immigrants on the Lower East Side, “progressives” claimed us as part of their coalition. We were “oppressed,” “in need of help,” and therefore politically useful.
But when Jewish communities in America began to dominate in business, medicine, academia, law, and culture — when Holocaust survivors and their children went from refugee camps to university chairs and boardrooms in a single generation — the tone changed. Suddenly, our success became suspicious. We were no longer a “minority” in their framework; we were “privileged,” “white-adjacent,” or worse, part of the oppressive class.
This is why Palestinians are often portrayed in simplistic, permanent victim terms, no matter the corruption, extremism, or self-inflicted wounds of their leadership. And it’s why Jews — despite being a tiny global minority and the target of the most documented genocide in modern history — are painted as “oppressors” the moment we show we can thrive without handouts or pity.
This dynamic isn’t unique to Jews. In the U.S., Asian-Americans face resentment for being a so-called “model minority.” In East Africa, Indians were targeted and expelled despite running businesses that fueled the economy. In Southeast Asia, Chinese minorities have been massacred during periods of nationalist unrest. In each case, the minority was not attacked for failure, but for success — for outperforming the majority and disrupting the narrative that they “needed saving.”
The Jewish story is filled with this pattern. In medieval Spain, Jews rose to prominence as royal advisors, physicians, philosophers, and merchants — until they were expelled in 1492. In Poland-Lithuania, Jews became indispensable in certain trades and finance — and were targeted in pogroms in the 17th through 19th centuries. In pre-World War II Germany, Jews made up less than one percent of the population but were disproportionately represented in academia, culture, and industry — a fact twisted by Nazi propaganda into accusations of “Jewish domination.”
Israel’s story, then, is not an anomaly. It’s the modern continuation of a centuries-old truth: Jews succeed, and then they are resented for it.
If Jewish success in the diaspora causes discomfort, Jewish success in our own homeland causes fury. After one-third of our people were annihilated in the Holocaust — six million murdered in six years — the survivors and their descendants built a state from sand and swamp, while fending off armies sworn to destroy them. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir put it with her characteristic humor and grit: “Moses led us to the one place in the Middle East without oil.”
Consider this: The modern State of Israel declared independence in 1948. Other nations founded in the 1940s and 1950s include Pakistan (1947), Burma/Myanmar (1948), Laos (1949), Indonesia (1949), Libya (1951), Cambodia (1953), Vietnam (1954), Sudan (1956), Morocco (1956), Tunisia (1956), Ghana (1957), and Malaysia (1957).
None of these countries receive even a fraction of the international scrutiny, condemnation, or obsessive media coverage that Israel does — combined. Many of them have experienced brutal wars, coups, ethnic cleansing, authoritarian rule, or human rights abuses on a scale far exceeding anything in Israel’s history. Yet Israel remains uniquely vilified. Why? Because it is uniquely successful — and uniquely Jewish.
The double standard is measurable: The United Nations passes more annual resolutions against Israel than against all other countries combined. Nations that occupy foreign land — Turkey in Cyprus, Morocco in Western Sahara, China in Tibet — draw barely a whisper compared to Israel. This isn’t about human rights; it’s about who is being judged.
Even now, when Israel announces plans to build new settlements east of Jerusalem as it did this week, international bodies and world leaders rush to declare that it will “kill the two-state solution.” Funny how those same voices never said a word about October 7th killing the two-state solution — or the Second Intifada, for that matter. The message is clear: Only Jewish actions threaten peace; Palestinian violence somehow leaves it untouched.
Truth be told, Israel should be celebrated as the global leader it is in technology, medicine, agriculture, and military innovation. But that kind of self-reliance, especially by a people who were supposed to remain victims, breaks the script. The world, and particularly the political Left, doesn’t know how to process a minority that can defend itself and thrive.
And yet, Golda Meir’s oil joke hints at a deeper truth: Israel was born in conditions that should have doomed it.
A landmass one-hour drive east to west and five hours north to south
Surrounded by hostile states
Lacking natural resources for most of its history
Burdened with waves of penniless immigrants, many deeply traumatized refugees
According to the economic theories beloved by leftist academics — dependency theory, post-colonial theory — Israel should have remained weak, poor, and dependent on others. Instead, it leapfrogged entire continents in innovation, GDP per capita, and life expectancy. That makes it a living refutation of their worldview.
Israel’s existence and success threaten not just antisemites, but entire ideological frameworks like post-colonialism and intersectionality. In these frameworks, Jews are painted as “white European colonizers” in the Middle East — despite the fact that over half of Israel’s Jews are Mizrahi, descended from families expelled from Arab and Muslim lands.
Israel’s thriving economy, democratic system, and military power undermine the narrative that “colonized” peoples can only succeed through liberation movements aided by the global Left. Israel succeeded without them — and in many cases, in spite of them.
Have you ever noticed that Holocaust survivors and their children were disproportionately successful in Western countries? This isn’t an accident. Survivors carried with them an unshakable survival instinct, a fierce work ethic, and a refusal to take safety for granted. Their trauma did not paralyze them; it propelled them.
Add to that centuries of cultural emphasis on literacy, debate, and scholarship. Jewish life built “portable capital” — skills, habits, and networks — that could be carried from country to country. Survivors arrived in the West with few physical possessions but with a toolkit for rebuilding. Education became the armor they could pass down to their children. Property, skills, and businesses became the fortresses that no one could burn down again.
In a single generation, these families often leapt from destitute refugees to community leaders. That kind of rise is not only admirable — it’s threatening to those who define “minority” as “perpetually disadvantaged.”
Golda Meir once said, “We have nowhere else to go.” This is not just a line of historical defiance; it is a permanent reality of Jewish life. We learned the hard way that safety in the diaspora is conditional, and that the world’s sympathy is fleeting.
Israel is our insurance policy, our refuge, and our proof that the Jewish People can build and protect a nation, even in the most hostile neighborhood on Earth. We are not perfect. We argue, we make mistakes, we struggle with our own divisions. But in the span of a single lifetime, we transformed from stateless survivors to citizens of a thriving, innovative democracy — without oil, without vast land, and without the luxury of friendly borders.
Our success is not just resilience; it is defiance. It says to the world: You tried to erase us, and we not only survived, we prospered. Perhaps that, more than anything else, is the real reason people hate the Jews. Because we refused to stay broken.
I agree! So many have such a jealousy of you. What you have accomplished in Israel over the years is miraculous. You excel in so many fields. The attacks against you are targeted. The way you have been treated recently is beyond belief. Of course you must build these homes, you have held back for years and now the threats against you increase. Israel plays by the rules, much of the world twist them and randomly accuse you of wrongdoing in everything. Do what is best for Israel! No matter what.
When Einstein was asked this question his response was "envy".