Anti-Semitism, Its Origins and Prognosis

Recent noises made by the group of “independent Jewish voices” in Australia, the UK and Canada, who claim to have been silenced by the Jewish leadership because of their criticism of Israel’s policies and the failure to achieve peace, have brought into sharp relief the curious and perennial phenomenon of Jews attacking Jews. Attacking with the sort of ferocity and viciousness considered unconscionable in polite society. Attacking with the emotional intensity of adolescents, feeling that the expression of angst is their sacred right. Attacking fearlessly, with the pleasant feeling of a child’s impunity, knowing that no matter what, the love of the family is unconditional.

Of course, it is Jews, or to be politically correct, Zionists—who stubbornly refuse to be blown up by suicide bombers—who are the main obstacle to peace on our planet. So now we know who the real villains are, thanks to these fearless “independents”.

Believing themselves to be moved by the purest of motives, these “pathfinders” posture as the defenders of humanity, muzzled and threatened by a secret conspiracy. They refuse to recognise and acknowledge the real reason for their vitriol and their disregard of the facts of life.

I have to disappoint those knights of the truth: do not kid yourself, guys. It has all happened before and, I would melancholically hasten to add, most probably will happen again. All I have to do is look back, to observe Jewish history, uniquely intertwined with the history of all humanity, but nevertheless separate and often painfully aloof. Its separateness is based on The Book, on the unwillingness to surrender, and the bond of the blood lost by those who refused to be anything else but Jews.

Hence, to all committed independents, non-committed Gentiles, and the simply interested, I say: sit back and enjoy a bumpy time-ride along the sheer cliffs of the drama of raw emotion, unbridled passion, heroic pathos, exhilaration, and the despair of betrayal. It is all there in Jewish history. I will show you a minuscule part of it.

 

The Survival of Monotheism

From the beginning of recorded history, the anti-Semitism of pagan Greece and Rome was fuelled by the incredulity these mighty empires felt at the temerity of the Jews, who resisted the re-introduction of paganism with ferocity and stubbornness, which was as heroic as it was militarily hopeless. This incredulity of the strong and muscular was enhanced by their outrage that the Jews dared to declare the superiority of their religious beliefs and, in the end, refused to follow the conqueror’s ideology. This superiority of belief was staunchly adhered to, despite the inability of the Jews to prove the existence of their invisible God. I’d like to stress this important nuance—superiority of belief, not superiority of people, although there must have been an element of intellectual smugness among the carriers of a grain of truth in a sea of idolatry. I suspect that Christian evangelical proselytising might involve similar feelings among missionaries.

These stubborn Jews, like Bar Kokhba, the Maccabees and the Zealots, who fought against the mightiest empires of the day, saved monotheism for humanity. To be sure, the goal of the spread of monotheism was as low a priority in their struggle as to be non-existent. Nevertheless, as a result of the Jewish identity struggle, the survival of monotheism was assured. Had the Greeks or Romans been successful in stamping out Judaism (and try they did), Christianity would not have had fertile soil to grow in. There would be no Christianity. What would we have instead? Perhaps, instead of the internal combustion engine, we would have super horses, and instead of space exploration, lots of swimming pools.

Contrary to the fashionable debunking of monotheistic religion, I would like to offer an alternative view of the role monotheism has played in human development, and say some kind words about religion. However, before I deal with the intent and possible motives of the debunkers, I would like to address their most serious criticism of religion—the incredible, infuriating and seemingly incomprehensible God’s acquiescence in evil deeds. There are, in essence, two arguments. First, the debunkers say, “If God existed, He could not have allowed these horrors to happen.” Second, they say, “We cannot celebrate the dastardly deeds perpetrated in the name of God and recorded in the Bible, using these deeds as a moral compass.”

My response to the first argument is: let’s not forget the freedom of choice every human has. It is human choice to commit evil or not. God has nothing to do with this decision. Yes, it includes endless slaughter on the planet, oceans of blood, and the oppression of humans by humans in the past and, astonishingly, the present. How far from simple the moral/causative chain can be—endless wars mean technical progress and space travel, devastating epidemics mean the development of life-saving medicine, while prayers to a “non-existent“ God turn into a glittering array of art, music and literature, leading to the pinnacle of the human spirit, which, let’s not forget, is equal to God’s.

Accusing God of allowing evil to exist makes no sense, because good and evil are both contained in humans. It is the responsibility of humans to administer and allocate the moral resources made available to them by the grace of God.

If we are to imagine that God, in His infinite wisdom, will stop us from committing offences—would He not be depriving humans of their history? The history, covered in blood, slime, vomit and mud, but all our very own? Would He not be depriving humans of responsibility for their own actions—in effect preventing humans from becoming spiritually mature adults?

My response to the second argument of the debunkers, about the impossibility of celebrating the dastardly deeds in the Bible: let us not forget the level of education and knowledge and the general worldview of the potential consumers of The Book at the time the Bible was written. The interpreters of The Book were hardly literate people. Some, if not all, were traumatised by their experiences in the semi-tribal environment. To expect their interpretations to fit into our perceptions of the world is, to put it mildly, naive.

The uniqueness and the pricelessness of The Book lie not in the endless descriptions of this slaughter or that bloodshed. After all, how do we know that these descriptions are not metaphors of the angry and tired narrator, who, believing that he is translating God’s word, adds his own interpretations for good measure? Contemporary interpreters often sin in this regard—they interpret, instead of translating. The uniqueness of this Book is in the creation of a feeling of continuity of the human race, in telling us that the people of yore were the same as we are now, that our predecessors have suffered, were angry and funny, tired and lazy, honest and brave, kind and shifty—just like us. More than this—The Book gave us directions and examples in both good and evil, and left us to choose. Everyone reads his or her own Bible. Whatever you look for, you will find it there. How to apply it, is your choice.

To me, people who fearlessly debunk a religion are guilty of intellectual dishonesty and a narcissistic feeling of entitlement. Intellectual dishonesty is part of it, because of the denial of the obvious benefits humanity has had from monotheism. The denial of the only way available to the human race to have an independent history, a history which allowed humans to learn from their own, often bloody, mistakes, to make choices between good and evil, and to learn to be human in the process. There is no other way, if we are to be human—it is a painful process, a humiliating process, but it is a process of maturation, of spiritual development. A monotheistic religion gave the direction. Every time humanity loses this direction, it comes to grief.

The feeling of narcissistic entitlement is the false feeling of superiority the debunkers have towards common folk. The propagandists of the hostile anti-religious view feel entitled to remove the vital ingredient of the peace of mind that religious people derive from communion with God. Baruch Spinoza, who started this process, was kinder. He, at least, left room for doubt. Or hope. To be consistent, why not go to the hospice and read to the ly ill a couple of chapters from the debunking book as a service to humanity?

The introduction of monotheism was an important milestone in the history of humanity. For the first time religion playing the role of social glue, became portable and universal. Anyone can easily take their beliefs, instead of an idol, along on the voyage of physical or intellectual discovery. Monotheism liberated humanity from blind attachment to local “gods” and their topography, enabling humans to move freely, thus encouraging exploration, conquest and long-term settlement.

Even more importantly, this religion initiated the freedom and evolution of ideas. This religion allowed every human to have the narcissistic boost of the feeling of being a partner in creation. No pagan belief is capable of such liberation, because a physical or spiritual absence of local gods inevitably led to a spiritual void, geographic separation anxiety, and fear of intellectual exploration. The Jewish gift of monotheism and its offshoot, Christianity, could be described as the most successful ethical, commercial, cultural, artistic and scientific enterprise in history.

From the jaundiced point of view, Christianity is a perfect example of the “Jewish eternal intent to rule the world”, as conspiracy theorists are fond of implying. This conspiracy theory always mystified me—why Jews? Why not, say, Irish? Or Chinese? Or British? Or any other nation with a large diaspora? But one does not reason with the irrational.

In the process of the introduction and struggle for monotheism, Jews revealed another national quality, not immediately apparent in other nations at the time. It was the Jewish capacity for self-criticism. No text comparable to the Jewish Bible in terms of a national history reflection and record—no national epic as diverse as the heroic Iranian Gilgamesh, or plaintive Russian “Prince Igor’s army story”, or the entire body of the elegant Greek mythology, or the poetic Finnish “Calevalla”, to mention just a few—no known text went as far as the Bible did in acknowledging and documenting national group faults and shortcomings.

In the process of the self-disclosure of their own follies and misdeeds in the Bible, the Jews have given plenty of ammunition to anti-Semites. The Bible could be promoted as, “Read all about it! Jews condemn themselves with their own stories!” Nevertheless, repentance and remorse, however painful, remain a mainstay of moral improvement. Therefore, from the Jewish viewpoint, there is no redemption without acknowledgment of pre-existing misdeeds.

The Great Schism

The examples of the diversity in Jewish thinking, independence of thought, and no-holds-barred verbal and sometimes armed sparring do not stop there. The most famous dividers were Jesus Christ, Baruch Spinoza and Karl Marx. I am not talking about the string of false messiahs who were the product of mass Jewish despair at times of disaster. The constraints of space will not allow me to go beyond these three names, unfortunately.

The split of Judaism by the rabbi from Nazareth two thousand years ago brought about a convulsion and a schism, producing Christianity. From the point of view of Jewish hierarchs, Jesus was a traitor, a heretic, who implied inherent personal divinity. From the point of view of His followers, however, He is the most perfect man, Son of God. George Washington had a somewhat similar position in secular America—traitor in the eyes of the British and revered father of the nation for the Americans.

The founding Christians, all of them Jewish, had to find a yardstick, by which they could be differed from the rest of the Jewish crowd. It was not an easy task, because the liturgy, the places of worship, the rituals, and ethical precepts in mainstream Judaism as well as in the new sect were identical. At no stage of the early Christian narrative was it apparent that the followers of the rabbi from Nazareth as well as Himself believed themselves to be anything but Jewish.

To illustrate my point, let’s take a look at the well-known depiction of Christ and His followers at the table in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural, The Last Supper. Taking into consideration the time (Passover) and the place (Jerusalem, the capital of Israel) of the meal it appears that this supper was a Seder. This ritualised meal celebrates the Exodus, which commemorates the end of Jewish slavery in Egypt, and the divine deliverance of the fleeing Jewish slaves on the shores of the Red Sea from the pursuing Egyptian cavalry. What else but Seder could a supper in Jerusalem during the Passover at the time of Christ be?

If this supposition can be accepted as reasonable and logical, then it follows that the Passover celebration in this painting, a feast of freedom and remembrance, of which Seder is the major part, was presided over by Christ. I am saying “presided”, because it is a leader’s function to break matzos and distribute these pieces among the participants of the Seder. The bread, broken by Christ and distributed to his followers as pieces of His body, would have been, by necessity, pieces of matzos, traditionally distributed to all participants of a Seder by a leader of the ceremony. I am saying “by necessity”, because the use of leavened bread is strictly forbidden for observant Jews before and during Passover in remembrance of the haste with which Jewish slaves were required to leave Egypt. The biblical story of the Exodus tells us that all the fleeing Jews had the time to do was to take along plain flour and water, which they had to mix and bake on the hot rocks of the desert. Under Israeli law bakers were under the strictest religious injunction not to engage in their trade until the end of the feast of Passover; none would have dared to bake leavened bread.

This is, of course, just a small, obvious example of the intimate closeness and commonality of the sources of these two faiths. Early Christianity differed from Judaism in the only one essential, fundamental point—Christ’s divinity. The rest of the differences were inconsequential. However, the question of Christ’s divinity was a non-starter for the locals from the beginning.

How could a local man or a woman, especially a relative or a neighbour, accept this young man as the Messiah? Yes, there were points and rules for the recognition process. But points and rules notwithstanding, He had run around in short pants, played in the sandpit as a child there, grew up in the full view of the community, where everyone knew his parents, brothers, cousins and grandparents. It is rather difficult to be a prophet in the place of one’s birth. Not that Christ had any shortage of audiences—many would come and listen. But when it came to the sticking point of divinity, the majority would have baulked.

The early Christians, enraged by the scepticism of their Jewish brethren about Christ’s divinity, feeling abandoned and rejected by their own people, and traumatised by the manner of their revered leader’s death, responded with accusations of deicide, however unfairly and irrationally.

The emotional intensity of conflict within a family quite often is higher than in a quarrel with strangers. Christianity, being a proselytising religion, started to spread by the remaining disciples’ preaching. Their angst, hurt, pain of rejection and loss, anger at their ungrateful relatives and vindictive desire for revenge were spread in the same manner, along with the message of love.

Christian anti-Semitism, which at this stage could be called Jewish or home-grown anti-Semitism, was created and developed by the very people who were preaching universal love. The very few exceptions in the Christian writings just confirm the overall pattern. Universal love was not applicable to the very people they, the enlightened ones, had come from. The missionaries, spreading the message of universal love and brotherhood, had no reason to hide their anger and bitterness at their rejection by their Jewish brethren. Withholding of love is one of the most potent weapons in the emotional war between the parties in a damaged relationship.

Somehow, the early Christian messengers of hope, salvation and the life everlasting did not realise that to be hostile towards their own people must be insulting to their revered leader and His mother, who were Semites themselves. Many proponents of the new religion, it appears, did not have the emotional resources, wisdom and maturity to resist the vindictive urges so characteristic of the emotionally wounded individual. The injury was so great, that in decrying the Jews as God-killers, they were simultaneously punishing themselves, their leader, and His revered mother. Something like, “I love Jesus, but I hate His uncle. Or brother. Or cousin. Or stepfather. And the watermelon vendor around the corner and the janitor at the school next door.”

Here we came to the fundamental source of the Jewish tzores (Yiddish: troubles)—the trumped-up deicide charge carried by generations of innocent people. The charge stained by blood, fear, psychological trauma, enforced alienation, and unmistakable signs of group anxiety. The charge originally made by Jews against Jews.

The split did not establish a tradition of conflict within the Jewish commonwealth—these conflicts existed from time immemorial—but it did create a precedent of bitterness and ferocity with which such intra-Jewish conflicts were played out. Or was it patterned on the even earlier biblical relationship of two brothers, Abel and Cain?

With the passage of time and the intensification of Jewish group trauma, the conflict between those who maintained loyalty to their kin and those who went to the other side grew in intensity, proportionally to the emotional pain experienced by the protagonists of the drama. It began to be regarded as irreconcilable.

Putting Christ’s Blood on Jewish Hands

In the context of a charge of deicide and the Jewish role in it, the role of Pontius Pilate bears an additional examination. This insignificant Roman military bureaucrat undeservedly remained in history books as a prime example of a ditherer, a symbol of ambivalence, trapped in the intricacies of local politics, on the horns of a dilemma.

According to the surviving texts, Pilate offered to free a prisoner, one of the three condemned to die, to honour the holiday of the Passover. Curiously, he did not use his own power as the plenipotentiary of Rome, which he was perfectly entitled to do. Instead, the most powerful man in Judea meekly asked Caiaphas, a high priest of the local religious court, to make the decision for him. Like the Prime Minister asking Cardinal Pell whether Australian diggers should go to East Timor. It needs to be remembered that Pontius Pilate was not a shy pacifist democrat. He had used military force to quell real or imagined disturbances in Judea, slaughtering a number of innocents.

Pontius Pilate knew that in Judaism an implied declaration of one’s own divinity was a heresy of the most serious kind. He also knew that the prisoner had spent the previous night at Caiaphas’ stronghold, but was not harmed. For whatever reason, Caiaphas did not wish to be associated with the death of the rebellious rabbi and sent the prisoner to Pilate. Caiaphas could have killed Christ quietly during the night and nobody would have been the wiser. He did not. I would venture a guess—Caiaphas did not want Christ to die. Instead, Caiaphas brought him up in front of Pontius Pilate. However, when asked for a ruling, Pilate, instead of passing judgment, passed the buck. He palmed the decision back onto the high priest, knowing full well that the result could not be any other than a condemnation of the rebellious rabbi to death. From today’s political perspective—perfectly reasonable behaviour on a politician’s part. When a politician wishes to avoid involvement, he delegates.

Being put on the spot and facing the public, Caiaphas had no other recourse but to sentence the prisoner to death. To do anything else meant virtual acceptance of the heresy, with corresponding personal consequences.

Why did Pontius Pilate, this experienced politician, diplomat and military leader, appear to intentionally sacrifice someone so seemingly inoffensive and not of this world? To answer this question, we should ask ourselves—what was Pilate’s job description? My understanding—provision of taxes to the Roman empire and maintenance of peace in the province. Above all—no Judean burden on the Roman public purse. That includes avoiding sending troops to Judea, stretching Rome’s budget. That means giving priority to security considerations—expensive insurrections are to be avoided at any cost!

I believe that Pontius Pilate saw the seemingly innocuous rabbi as a security risk to the empire. Christ’s influence on multitudes, and His potential to become the leader of an insurrection, always on the cards in this troublesome province, marked Him as such a risk. Pontius Pilate’s likely fears were not unjustified. The hopes of Christ becoming the leader of an insurrection were publicly expressed by zealots, for example. Despite His own protestations that “My kingdom is not of this world”, He was regarded by many as a desirable candidate for the job of insurrection leader.

On the other hand, the rabbi’s death, seemingly by Jewish sentence, as a result of internal Jewish religious conflict, especially in such a horrible manner, would tie up the Jews in squabbles for a long time, thus giving Rome an opportunity to rule according to the tested formula, “Divide et Impera”.

Pilate succeeded. He manipulated a complicated political situation to advance Roman imperial interests. It was his job. To make it more elegant though, he put the high priest on the spot, bowling him a neat underarm ball. What a master of political dirty tricks Pontius Pilate turned out to be!

To imprint the image of himself in the crowd’s mind as an innocent victim of religious intolerance, Pilate washed his hands in grief. Wicked, but brilliant, showing remarkable understanding of crowd psychology. “I have nothing to do with it,” says Pontius Pilate, shaking his hands, drying them.

 

The Need to Belong

The purpose of my emphasis on the commonality of roots in Christianity and Judaism is simple. I wish to underline the curious, mostly subconscious, emotional unwillingness to let go in the case of Christianity and, in Judaism, the deeply felt need to be approved, to be loved, and to be regarded as one of the boys by the Gentile world.

One example of not being able to let go in the case of Christianity is the continuous use of the Old Testament. The translated Jewish Torah remains part of the core belief of the Christianity. Why would the new and successful religion continue to base its worldview on the discredited, despised and discarded Judaism if not out of a deep-seated, subconscious fear of losing its roots?

On the other side, the Jewish contribution to human civilisation, a contribution out of all proportion to actual numbers, is not difficult to understand as an expression of the urge to be part of the human family, to reclaim the rightful place of respect and relevance, to make the world of the Gentiles remember, and, at long last, reconcile.

Judaism, pregnant with a multitude of sects, opinions and schools of thought, was not able to accommodate this one sect. The tiny sect of Christ followers became a major proselytising religion, spreading the monotheistic message around the globe. In the process of becoming the dominant and by any measure the most successful belief system on the planet, Christianity’s struggle for a separate and independent identity brought it into conflict with its progenitor, Judaism.

It makes no sense to talk about young and old religions—both at the beginning were one and the same. The successful development of the separate paths, however, was not possible without the rebellion of the unorthodox Jewish movement against its roots, its sources, its teachers, parents and elders. The emotional intensity of the rebellion was similar to the rebellion of the little child, adolescent or a teenager against his/her elders.

In this context, the emergence and survival of Christian anti-Semitism is hardly surprising. The emotional intensity and the lack of factual substance of the adolescent angst of a teenager railing against parental authority is clear in the phenomenon of Christian anti-Semitism. The long process of gradual understanding that his/her parents are fallible as all people are, but still loving and respecting him/her, reflects the emotional maturation of the spiritual adolescent and the dawning of adulthood. The evolving emotional maturity, increased self-confidence and the acknowledgment of its roots, triggered by the Holocaust and Vatican II, have allowed a Christian spiritual adolescence to grow into a young adulthood of spiritual maturity. I hope to God that this is what the future holds.

Spinoza and Criticism

Another peculiarly Jewish trait, which greatly contributed to intra-Jewish conflicts as well as to the distinct lack of affection from Gentiles, is “accepted reality deconstruction”—an extreme degree of rationality and critique. The demolition of comfortable worldviews has earned many Jews an uncommon degree of hatred and suspicion, because of the unsettling effects this demolition can bring. Baruch Spinoza, the son of Spanish Marrano Jews, born in Holland in 1632, exemplified it. He believed that a state should encourage free thought, insisted that freedom of thought and religious tolerance should be an individual’s right, and attempted to deconstruct the Bible with numbers and geometrical designs.

His ideas about the duality of God and Nature, lack of free will and the immutability of the fate of people and nations inevitably brought Spinoza into conflict with both Jewish and Gentile authorities. The vitriol visited on Spinoza by fellow Jews was of a magnitude unheard of since. The current spat between “independent voices” and their antagonists looks less than feeble in comparison.

Spinoza regarded human emotions as an impediment on the path to understanding God. For this he was excommunicated and went through the awe-inspiring ceremony of Herem. During this ceremony the candles are gradually extinguished one by one, until complete darkness falls and the name of the transgressor is expunged from the scrolls of the living. Excommunicated, reviled, thrown out of the ghetto, homeless, Spinoza was something of a rarity among Gentiles—a man so bad even the Jews disowned him!

Spinoza, cursed and despised by his contemporaries, was the first to attempt to introduce scientific methods to Bible studies, influenced many leaders of the Enlightenment, and was one of the first well-known iconoclastic Jews. Even now, the breadth of his views is not fully understood. He assumed a calm demeanour while listening to his most virulent detractors, showing that human emotions are an obstacle to rational conversation. He never raised his voice in anger, however forcefully he was provoked.

His utter lack of fear, his incomparable ability to tell the truth as he saw it, make Baruch Spinoza a prototype of those iconoclastic Jews our civilisation owes so much for its development and regeneration. He is also a part of the long chain of truth tellers, ego-defence strippers, Cassandras of humanity—too advanced, too complicated, too humiliating or too destabilising to be believed and accepted by their contemporaries. As a rule, people like Spinoza do not fare well—those around them do not easily forgive hearing the truth about themselves or their world. No one likes whistleblowers, but they are essential to the process of improvement and regeneration, allowing the old to be replaced by the new.

Marx and Money

Karl Marx, darling of the anti-establishment Left, could only be nominally regarded as a product of Jewish history, because his father converted to Christianity before Karl’s birth. However, being genetically Jewish, he is commonly regarded as a Jew; his contribution to our worldview is regarded as Jewish by many. Frankly, I would rather do without this part of my historical inheritance, but, as Russians are fond of saying, one cannot delete a word from the song.

There is a poignant joke, popular in my childhood, when every person in the USSR lived in conditions I would not wish even on my enemies.

An old granny asks her grandson, “Who invented communism—communists or scientists?”

The young boy confidently answers, “Communists, of course!”

His grandma nods her head wisely and says, “I thought so. If communism had been invented by scientists, they would have tried it on dogs first.”

And so, boys and girls, Uncle Karl invented Scientific Communism, which explained the real reason for the development of humankind. One epoch is superseded by the other and the old is thrown into the dustbin of history. Our dear Communist Party, armed with the infallible theory, is leading our society to world revolution, when all the nations, all the proletarians will shake off the chains of capital and become free under the leadership of our omniscient and omnipotent Party.

This is how Soviet kids were taught at school, creating a belief in the scientific nature of the “most progressive system of philosophical thought in existence”. The teaching of sophisticated and worldly Westerners, convinced in the scientific truth of Marxism, was similar—although more complicated definitions and vocabulary were used.

Marx was obsessed by hatred of Jewish commerce and incessantly proclaimed the Jews and their money to be the root of all evil in the world. His persistent lack of money made him feel this hatred on a personal level. In his letters he pestered Engels with complaints about his lack of money. Neither did he refuse to accept Jewish money in order to maintain himself in the style that he felt society owed him. He never visited a factory, although Engels, a factory owner, invited him repeatedly.

The language Marx used in his early writings abounds in graphic descriptions of “infection, putrefaction, and miasmatic vapours, which contaminate everything and everyone”. Marx was quite clear that he meant the Jews in these descriptions. In this he was curiously similar to Hitler, who used similar descriptions. Upon Marx’s discovery of the concepts of class struggle, additional cost, and the exploited proletariat, he transferred his anti-Semitism to hatred of the bourgeoisie and calmed down.

Gradually, Karl Marx and his pseudo-scientific theory became the rallying point for “non-Jewish Jews”, burdened by their Jewishness, who were eager to free themselves from the narcissistic injury of anti-Semitism and to free the oppressed proletarians along the way. The fact that the proletarians had not asked for this favour was not going to stop the saviours of the oppressed.

Vladimir Lenin, an accomplished Marxist and extraordinary leader, understood the connection of Marxism with anti-Semitism, writing: “Anti-Semitism is the Socialism of fools.” Precisely. No wonder so many of the hard-core Left are so implacably anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitic and anti-globalisation. Moreover, by simple extension, anti-American. The simple truth is—they cannot be anything else. The fundamental focus of the Left is the fear of the “corrupting” power of money in other people’s hands—derived, curiously, from one of the earlier Christian writers, who proclaimed money to be the root of all evil. The logical conclusion is—the rich, by the virtue of money ownership, are corrupt. Thus, the rich are corrupting the world. Jews equals money, equals the United States, equals global corruption, equals the spread of wealth, equals moral degradation. Remarkable logic. It would be funny if it were not so dangerous.

Why have so many Jews been involved in Marxism then? It appears that the utopia of the classless, trans-national, anti-religious state, where everyone is equal, no one is hungry and everyone is brotherly, had a messianic appeal to the Jews. There have been a number of times when Jews have believed in false messiahs, usually at great cost to themselves. Marx’s theory is no worse than any of those. It appears to be even better, because it promises a workers’ paradise or kingdom of heaven on this planet, during this life and not in the next one. It promises paradise for everyone, not only for the Jews. Being attuned to the idea of the kingdom of heaven and social justice, the Jews bought it.

Can you imagine how religious Jews cursed their secular brethren who became Marxists? No, you cannot. Curses flew, disputes raged, accusations were traded and even blows were freely exchanged. Religious Jews immediately saw Marxist theory for what it was—hogwash. The road to damnation (there is no hell in Judaism) is paved with good intentions, as the religious Jews said at the time.

Is It the Jews’ Fault?

My reader may be quietly wondering—do I mean to say that the phenomenon of anti-Semitism is wholly Jewish in its origins after all? Instead of answering yes or no, in the time-honoured Jewish tradition I would start my reply with a question: Remember the infamous Moscow trials of the 1930s? These trials were stage-managed by Stalin to absolve him and his henchmen from responsibility for the failures of the ill-conceived and badly administered five-year plans.

During these trials the accused, all innocent men, were put in a terrible dilemma: accept your guilt and your family will be spared. Of course, nobody except the accused knew it at the time. The behaviour of these people during the trial was extraordinary. As soon as they were allowed to talk about themselves, their assumed guilt and especially about their fellow prisoners, their faces, their voices, their whole demeanour would become filled with hate. They would accuse their comrades with extraordinary venom.

Why would these intelligent, well-educated people behave in this strange manner? They knew they were going to die, so why not behave in a civilised way, and die with dignity? I think George Orwell understood the significance of this kind of behaviour when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. The hate sessions conducted by the Ministry of Love are remarkably prescient of the angry mobs of Muslim fanatics protesting against harmless cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, or the knighthood of a writer condemned to death for an attempted laugh.

Now, imagine yourself overflowing with negative emotion—grief, loss, anxiety, depression, fear, humiliation. You feel the necessity to spill it onto somebody else or explode. How can you do this? On whom could those unfortunates during the Stalin trials safely spill the terrible stress they were under, except their fellow prisoners? Look at the hysterical mobs of demonstrators in Arab countries, cursing Israel and USA for their lives—who else could they safely curse? Their rulers? The excess of uncontainable negative emotions is inevitably spilled in direction of the significant “other” least likely to hit back.

Starting as a powerless cry of an oppressed minority, anti-Semitism evolved into an important emotional safety valve for the thousands of impoverished adherents of Christianity, an irreplaceable tool of political manipulation, and even the unifying glue for multitudes. It placed an immeasurable burden of fear on my people, bonding them together in an unspoken pact of mutual loyalty and support. It traumatised the Jews as a group to a degree where mental health becomes precarious; where communication becomes emotionally overloaded; where interpersonal attacks might become the only channel open for the relief of the torment of anxiety. It is not dissimilar from other groups affected by group psychological damage.

Put a group of people in a situation of near universal contempt, physical danger, political oppression and uncertainty, and anxiety will permeate every aspect of their lives. Anxiety colours their thoughts, conversations and actions. This anxiety is escapable only by turning to their only consistent comfort—their religion. Hence, the difficulties of interpersonal communication with Gentiles—eye contact avoidance, eagerness to please, trembling voice, changing posture, all the hallmarks of the shifty bugger. That is what it looked like when a shtetl Jew was talking to a police officer or any other officer of authority in the Pale of the Settlement.

This kind of damage takes time to heal—generations. Apart from inflicting appalling and sometimes irreparable physical damage onto my people, anti-Semitism also produced unforeseen and unintended consequences. Among the most obvious was an abiding, deep-seated yearning to be protected from unrelenting hatred, contempt, envy and accusations of moral depravity.

The almost universal hatred, suspicion and rejection that Jews had to live with for at least two millennia inflicted psychological damage, difficult to measure, but real nevertheless. Knowing the world believed them intrinsically wicked led to withdrawal, sometimes narcissistic self-regard, and feelings of hopelessness about earthly justice. Anti-Semitism also led to the reflexive behavioural rebellion of acting out—“Do you hate me? Do you think I am wicked? I will show you what wicked is!” The ability (or is it a perceived necessity?) to be obnoxious and razor-sharp in comebacks is present in many prominent Jews—Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, and many others.

On the other hand altruism, so common among Jews, is a mature defence mechanism. It helps to explain the reason why there used to be so many Jewish doctors. The popularity of social-justice causes among Jews has a dual structure—the influence of the Torah on one side and of anti-Semitism on another produced empathy with the underdog, so easily understood by anyone who knows the meaning of suffering. Even Jewish humour, a mature ego-defence mechanism, is a response to oppression and anxiety. Quite a number of distressed groups use humour as a collective defence mechanism. The Irish are a famous example. People able to laugh at themselves have a great deal of resilience. Whatever their group faults, these people are redeemable.

There is another mechanism of personal and group behaviour which is often unrecognised—the absorption of projected expectations and the subconscious satisfaction of these expectations. Say there is an interview, and the interviewee expects the interviewer to be an arrogant, domineering bully. More often than not, this expectation is subliminally passed from interviewee to interviewer. The interviewer, in turn, again subconsciously, takes on the expected role and starts behaving as the interviewee expects. The assumption, which is called transference, quite often has nothing to do with reality—the interviewer could be the nicest person imaginable. But the power of this subconscious expectation is so great that almost without exception, people respond as they are expected to, playing the role of villain. It is very common in situations where long-standing assumptions, stereotypes and beliefs are entrenched—tailormade for anti-Semitism. No wonder the discovery of the phenomenon was made by Freud.

 

The Source of Hope

In one of the stories by Shalom Aleichem of Fiddler on the Roof fame, two Jews are standing on the street, talking about the pogroms in Tsarist Russia. A third Jew joins them, listens for a while, and says, “Why do you talk about such depressing matters? Why not talk about more cheerful subjects? For instance, what’s the latest on the cholera in Odessa?”

I will now try to follow the advice of the classic, and talk about more cheerful matters. I will try, but it does not mean that I can forget that the history of my people in the last two millennia is splattered with blood. I have no right to forget this. However, neither can I forget that even in the darkest hour of Jewish history there were examples of humanity and heroism, where Gentiles, risking their own and their families’ lives, helped and saved my persecuted and hunted brethren. Even among the persecutors, there were the righteous, who risked everything. They were Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, and many others, who felt they had no choice but to be human. They knew the price. They were afraid. Many did not want to get involved. Despite the deepest misgivings, they opened their houses, their churches, their cellars, their lofts, their wallets, their larders. They opened their hearts. They refused to be accomplices in evil.

What moved them? Hope for Judeo-Christian reconciliation? I doubt it. The fear that Nazis could kill the potential mother of the Messiah? Unlikely. Revulsion at the suffering and humiliation of another human? Probably. Were most of them practising Christians? Without a doubt. They are remembered in Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

There is a historical precedent of Jewish regiments fighting alongside Christian defenders of Cordoba, Saragossa, Toledo and Salamanca during the Arab invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The reward for this co-operation was the Inquisition.

More recently, Israelis gave refuge and protection to a significant number of Lebanese Christians threatened by the violent and irrational Muslim majority of their country. Israel remembers the righteous Gentiles and pays its debts. Baha’i, the persecuted minority in Iran, have found refuge in Israel.

However distant in time, place and historical context these examples might be, one single strand goes through, like a red thread through a tall ship’s anchor rope: when the going gets tough, Jews and Christians remember that they have an awful lot in common.

Prognosis and Conclusion

We live in curious times. Genetic manipulation promises to extend our lives almost indefinitely. Space travel looks perfectly feasible. There is no hunger in the developed world. The wealth of the Baby Boomer generation is on a level unheard of in human history.

The envy and jealousy towards the West in the unsuccessful and malfunctioning societies in the Muslim world, as well as among Western-based, alienated, young, angry Muslim males, threatens to transform the sporadic cancer cells of terrorist organisations into the full-blown metastatic cancer of a global jihad in which all unbelievers will be killed or converted.

The Jews, while being the preferred target of extremists, will not be the last. Jewish history teaches us that most calamities only start with Jews as a target before quickly spreading to the rest of the population. It pains me to believe this, but it seems that anti-Semitism will remain the curse the Jews will have to live with for generations to come. The rise of militant Islam and its leftist fellow travellers will ensure that this is so.

The time of the Muslim Reformation, the resulting power struggle and associated civil strife, long overdue all of it, is nearly upon us. People in distress inevitably look for scapegoats, being unable to accept responsibility for their own shortcomings. However, this time around all non-Muslims are going to be in the same boat as the Jews. This consideration might change the nature of anti-Semitism, as long as Western Christianity fully appreciates the dangers it faces.

The reason I am so blunt is that I believe the time is coming when the Judeo-Christian alliance will be the only substantial obstacle, the only powerful line of defence in the way of the avalanche of darkness threatening to engulf all of us. The time has come to get back to common roots. The time of reconciliation. The time of struggle. The time will tell.

As to the revelations of the independents I started my article with, after thinking long and hard I decided, “Who cares.”

Dr Michael Galak is a Melbourne physician who came to Australia from the Soviet Union in 1978. His memoir of conscription in the Soviet Union, “A Conscript in the Kara Kum”, appeared in two parts in the October and November issues of Quadrant.