The world keeps punishing Jews for surviving.
Antisemitism forces Jews into survival mode — and then condemns us for how we survive.
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This is a guest essay written by Toba Hellerstein, a strategic advisor specializing in psychological and sociological approaches to communication, negotiation, and public perception.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Jewish history isn’t just a record of survival; it’s a blueprint of what trauma does to a people.
And trauma is not just a past we endured; it’s a force that rewired us. It didn’t move through us; it built us. It shaped how we see the world and, just as powerfully, how the world misreads us.
Throughout it, every Jewish generation has learned the same brutal truth: Safety is temporary, powerlessness is fatal, and survival demands vigilance. Outsiders can turn on us in an instant. So we learned. We built strong communities, stayed prepared for anything.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s survival.
For centuries, we were expelled, scapegoated, and massacred. We adapted. We saved money in case we had to flee overnight. We built close-knit networks because history proved we couldn’t trust anyone else. We sought proximity to power because we knew — without power — we would perish.
But here’s the cruel irony: The very survivalist instincts that kept us alive became the next accusations against us.
Jews save money? Greedy.
Jews rely on their own networks? Disloyal. Insular. Conspiratorial.
Jews engage in politics? Manipulative. Controlling. Plotting world domination.
A people trained by history to be wary of outsiders will always look insular. A people forced to defend themselves for generations will always appear defensive.
For thousands of years, we lived at the mercy of rulers who could expel or slaughter us at will. So we built a nation — a place where Jews would never again have to beg for the right to exist.
And now, the same warped logic is used against Israel. In fact, the very things that made Israel necessary — self-determination, self-defense, the refusal to be powerless — became the reason it is condemned as racist, aggressive, and oppressive.
Israelis, shaped by the trauma of war, terrorism, and the ever-present fear of annihilation, forced into pragmatism and stoicism by a history that has punished Jewish softness at every turn, are labeled cold, calculating, and cruel.
This is the trauma trap: Antisemitism forces Jews into survival mode — and then condemns us for how we survive.
But what if the world stopped treating Jewish behavior as the reason for antisemitism — and started recognizing it as the scar that persecution left behind?
Antisemitism doesn’t just punish Jews for surviving; it weaponizes survival itself. It turns the very instincts that keep us alive into proof of wrongdoing. It creates the need for Jewish self-protection — then condemns us for defending ourselves. This distortion plays out in countless ways, but some of the most insidious examples include:
1) The ‘Greedy Jew’ Trope versus the Scarcity Mentality of a Persecuted People
Accusation: “Jews hoard wealth and manipulate economies.”
The reality: When Jews were exiled, stripped of assets, and banned from professions, financial security became a survival priority. Generations of resourcefulness and prudent planning were twisted into an accusation of greed.
2) The ‘Power-Hungry Jew’ Trope versus the Need for Protection
Accusation: “Jews seek control over politics and media.”
The reality: Powerlessness has always been deadly. Jews learned that advocacy, diplomacy, and political engagement were essential for survival. Instead of recognizing this as self-preservation, antisemites framed it as a global conspiracy.
3) The ‘Disloyal Jew’ Trope versus the Commitment to Community Survival
Accusation: “Jews only look out for themselves.”
The reality: Jews have been betrayed by host nations time and again. Loyalty to each other wasn’t exclusionary; it was necessary. When the world repeatedly proved unreliable, Jews relied on each other, only to be accused of subversion.
4) The ‘Secretive Jew’ Trope versus the Trauma of Forced Hiding
Accusation: “Jews are clannish and operate in secret.”
The reality: For centuries, Jewish survival depended on discretion — hiding religion, identity, and assets from those who sought to confiscate, convert, or kill. What was once a survival instinct became the basis for conspiracy theories.
5) The ‘Paranoid Jew’ Trope versus the Trauma of Repeated Expulsions
Accusation: “Jews exaggerate antisemitism and always claim victimhood.”
The reality: History has shown that words precede violence. Every major expulsion, pogrom, and genocide was foreshadowed by rhetoric that Jews were a threat. Jewish vigilance isn’t hysteria; it’s pattern recognition.
6) The ‘Jews Control Everything’ Trope versus Survival Through Adaptability
Accusation: “Jews dominate finance, media, and business to control society.”
The reality: Jews were systematically barred from land ownership, guilds, and countless professions, leaving them with few paths to survival.
So they adapted. They built industries where they could and pioneered fields where no one else would let them in. Money-lending in medieval Europe, Hollywood in 20th-century America, retail and entrepreneurship wherever they were excluded from stable careers. What began as necessity turned into success — then was weaponized as conspiracy.
7) The ‘Cold, Militaristic Israeli’ Trope versus the Survival Mode of a Besieged Nation
Accusation: “Israelis are cold and indifferent to suffering.”
The reality: A nation under constant threat focused on results, actions, and doesn’t have the bandwidth to emotionally process the extent of fear and heartbreak they experience. Centuries of Jewish trauma, compounded by wars and terrorism, have conditioned Israelis to prioritize pragmatism over emotion. This isn’t callousness; it’s survival.
Trauma doesn’t just scar; it rewires. It doesn’t just shape individuals; it imprints itself on entire cultures. It sharpens instincts, instills vigilance, and prioritizes survival. And when those instincts are misread, resilience is twisted into guilt, and victims are cast as villains.
Nowhere is this more evident than Israel.
Israel was not founded as an empire; not as an expansionist force. It was a last resort. A homeland built by a people who had just learned — in the most brutal way possible — what happens when Jews trust the world to protect them.
And yet, the very thing that made Israel necessary — the refusal to remain defenseless — became the reason it is condemned. The same world that told Jews to “go back to Palestine” before 1948 now tells us that we don’t belong there either.
This is the final twist of the antisemitic cycle: It turns Jewish survival into Jewish culpability. It punishes Jews for the very instincts history forced upon them. It twists our trauma response and survivalism into proof that we were the villains all along. A people determined to survive is cast as ruthless. A nation that uses stoicism to keep from falling apart in heartbreak is called heartless.
Because, when you don’t live with the fear of annihilation, it’s easy to judge the actions of those who do.
Until this is understood, Jews will keep preparing for the next disaster — and the world will keep blaming us for expecting it.
At its core, antisemitism erases Jewish humanity, reducing us to symbols — of power, greed, and conspiracy. Likewise, Israel is not seen as a nation of people, but as the ultimate villain, an empty projection for others to define.
That’s the clincher. Symbols, not humans. Because symbols don’t bleed. Symbols don’t grieve. Symbols don’t deserve compassion.
But people do.
The key to breaking this cycle is simple yet powerful: humanizing Jews and Israelis. Everything shifts when people encounter raw, unfiltered Jewish and Israeli experiences — not arguments, not justifications, but real human stories. Fear. Love. Loss. Resilience. Hope. These emotions cut through politics and ideology. They create connection.
This is a key finding from “American Perceptions of Jews & Israel: Narratives of Antisemitism, Insights & Strategies for Change” — the first study of its kind. This landmark research provides an in-depth analysis of how antisemitism, particularly “anti-Zionism,” takes root in Western culture — and how to dismantle it through emotional resonance.
But here’s the paradox: Trauma makes it nearly impossible to do the one thing that would actually allow people to see us — be vulnerable.
Instead of exposing our pain, fear, and heartbreak, we intellectualize. Trauma forces people to suppress emotions because they are too overwhelming to process. On top of that, Jewish history has taught us that vulnerability makes us a target.
So we turn to history, statistics, and logic, hoping they will make others understand. We armor ourselves in facts, trying to prove what should be self-evident: that our suffering is real, that our fears are justified, that our survival is not a crime.
Because trauma demands a witness. It seeks to be known, seen, and heard. And when media and cultural narratives distort reality, that need becomes even more urgent. We feel gaslit, unseen, desperate to make the truth undeniable.
And so, we tirelessly combat propaganda and correct false narratives. We respond with facts and logic, but we’re not just arguing; we’re pleading. See us. Acknowledge our pain. Recognize what’s happening.
Yet, endlessly correcting facts is like drinking salt water to quench a thirst: It only leaves us more desperate, more parched, more unheard. The only way to dismantle a lie is to tell a truth so raw, so undeniable, that it forces the world to see us — not as symbols, not as projections, but as people.
Because the greatest trick antisemitism ever pulled was convincing the world that Jews exist only in stories — never as the ones who tell them.
A version of this essay appeared in The Times of Israel.
This is really good theory and I would have agreed with you before I saw the world's reaction to 1) the rape/murder/mutilation of Jewish woman on 10/7 and 2) the strangulation of the Bibas children. I now don't think it's possible for the world to empathize with Jews because *they don't want to*. There are exceptions, there are Righteous Gentiles, and they are treasures, but the default setting for the world is to be incapable of empathy for Jews. It would work for any other people on the planet but there is a double standard applied against us, for everything, and the tropes that say that all evil on the face of the earth is our fault are taught young and run deep. Those tropes are the reason why so many of us have learned that people we have known for a long time, who know us well, who know our humanity, who might even have said they love us, still hold us and Israel and The Jooz responsible for all evil.
Strong, insightful overview of Jewish survival historically and up until today.