What Jews *Think* Causes Antisemitism
What causes Jew-hate?
Ask someone that question, and they will most likely give you one of 5 answers – none of which stand up to rational scrutiny:
1. That one time Great-Great Grandpa got ripped off by a business with a “berg” or a “blatt” or a “stein” in the name, when he bought that pair of trousers on 5th Avenue back in the Roaring 20’s, and then blamed it on the entire Jewish People.
Critique:
Ok, but why does this only seem to happen with Jews? Why didn’t grandpa do that with Swedish people after that one time the Swedish guy ripped him off? Or with Koreans after that one time a Korean cheated him? Why does this phenomenon seem to happen particularly to the Jews?
2. It’s jealousy. Jews are better than goyim, and so goyim are jealous, and from jealousy comes hate. Not complicated!
Critique:
But in order to use this explanation, you have to believe that Jews are indeed superior – which raises all sorts of problems I’m sure I don’t need to explain. Are Jews a superior race, above everyone else? If the answer is no (and it should be no), then why would people who aren’t Jewish be jealous of people who are? Jealous of… what exactly?
3. People simply have a “need” to hate – they have to hate someone or something – so they choose Jews because Jews have small numbers and sometimes dress funny, and are therefore attractive targets for bullying.
Critique:
Plenty of groups have small numbers, and plenty of groups dress funny. And yet do they have a 2500-year history of continual persecution? Pick any small, funny-dressing minority, and ask yourself: Do they get as much hatred and pogroms and national expulsions and scathing descriptions by historians, ancient and modern, as the Jews get?
If Jews have suffered an order of magnitude more hate than other funny-dressing groups, then what explains the disparity?
4. Hatred is passed down from generation to generation, for no reason at all, simply by word of mouth. Mom and Dad say, “hate this group”, and so the children hate.
Critique:
But who originally started the hate, and why?
Ask this question, and you will come to the final response – the “explanation” into which all other explanations ultimately funnel:
5. Jews are God’s Chosen People™, imbued with special souls, from a higher level of Heaven, with a special divinely ordained purpose to bring about the next stage in the evolution of humankind, and Gentiles are jealous of that. And since they didn’t get “chosen” for this mission, their souls have a spiritual quarrel with Jewish souls, and are automatically predisposed to hate Jews.
In fact, certain tribes and nations were founded by Biblical characters who were the “non-chosen” brother in a sibling rivalry, who was dispossessed of his inheritance by his Jewish (and therefore “chosen”) brother, and therefore passed down his hatred and resentment to his descendants, literally through their blood, (or DNA in modern parlance) all the way down to the present day. The main such rivalries are those of Isaac vs. Ishmael (the source of the Jewish-Arab rivalry), and Jacob vs. Esau (the source of the Jewish-European rivalry) – the latter duo having, according to mishnah, fought each other inside Rebecca’s womb. They were “destined” to be rivals. And just as the ultimately Non-Jewish brother in the duo (i.e. Ishmael and Esau) developed deep resentments toward their respective Jewish brother (Isaac and Jacob), so too do their descendants carry intrinsic hatred in their blood, passed down from generation to generation, l’dor va’dor, ready to flare up as soon as the presence of Jacob’s DNA – i.e. Jewish blood – is detected in the vicinity.
Yup, hatred is passed down through DNA, because certain “tribes” or “nations” or “peoples” are genetically preprogrammed to hate Jews.
Critique:
No offense, but that’s simply ridiculous.
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Now… a question:
Did you notice how all 5 of these explanations place the blame on other people – on Non-Jews – and completely absolve the Jewish people of any responsibility for their conflicts?
“What? How dare you suggest that Jews are to blame for being hated! That’s antisemitic! You’re trying to justify hate! You’re blaming the victim!”
No, I’m inviting you to introspect.
“Ok, I’m willing to introspect. Tell me… what really causes antisemitism?”
You’re sure you’re ready to know?
“I’m ready to know.”
You’re not gonna get mad and run away?
“No, I won’t. I wanna know. Tell me.”
Sure thing. Here’s what really causes antisemitism.