At a lovely seder at the home of Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein from Am Shalom Synagogue in Glencoe, Illinois, Rabbi Steve and his wife Julie introduced an interesting twist on the Four Questions. They invited attendees to ask questions of their own.
One woman posed something that is on the mind of so many during these horrifying times: Why have people hated Jews for so long?
Rabbi Steve requested that my daughter reply. Alissa is a curator and Holocaust scholar who recently received her PhD with a dissertation that brings together elements of Jewish studies, American history, fine art, and visual culture.
She proceeded to provide a brief review of history’s oldest hatred. Antisemitism, she said, can be traced back to ancient times, when Judaism became the first monotheistic religion, placing it at odds with the religions of the day that worshipped multiple gods. Then, with the rise of Christianity, anti-Jewish hatred accompanied the myth that it was the Jews who murdered Jesus. The blood libel – that Jews sacrificed Christian children in order to use their blood for ritual purposes – was one of the better-known related accusations that “justified” the creation of Jewish ghettos and antisemitic persecution throughout the ages. When Christianity prohibited usury, Jews, who were banned from entering many professions, were left little choice but to become moneylenders, facing the scorn of those they served. Meanwhile, despite the common roots of Judaism and Islam as “Abrahamic religions,” the relationship between Jews and Muslims has long been fraught, marked by numerous mass murders of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa over the centuries, well before the birth of the Jewish State.
You might expect that the post-Enlightenment’s embrace of science would have brought a welcome change in the depiction of Jews, but by the time the 20th century came along, eugenics had taken a nefarious hold on science, with Jews (among other groups “of color”) deemed not only to be a separate race, but to be a biologically inferior one.
Alissa pointed out that there was of course a remarkable inconsistency in these beliefs. Jews were singled out for being different – for not assimilating into the prevailing culture – but also for trying “to pass.” They were weak and vulnerable, but somehow controlled the world’s politics and economics, with, according to the Czarist forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a plan to achieve global domination. Jews were both money-hungry capitalists and communist agitators. They were lesser because they were nonwhite, yet privileged oppressors. In short, just find a reason to hate Jews. Any reason will do.
Several seder participants asked how they could learn more. Alissa suggested Deborah Lipstadt’s monumental 2019 book, “Antisemitism: Here and Now.” Professor Lipstadt, a historian at Emory, is one of the heroes of our people, who, among other accomplishments, has successfully taken on Holocaust deniers in court. She currently serves in the Biden administration as the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. No one could possibly be better suited for that role, especially with college campuses ablaze with anti-Jewish hatred.
In reality, some people are so consumed with anger and hate that the best path forward is not to engage them at all, leaving them to wallow in their own misery.
Does the history of the world’s oldest prejudice instruct us today? The lesson for me is that there are those who will despise us simply for what we are – Jews – not for who we are as individuals. There is a view that getting to know someone necessarily produces empathy and understanding. In reality, some people are so consumed with anger and hate that the best path forward is not to engage them at all, leaving them to wallow in their own misery. Expend your energy on yourself, your community, and on those with a sincere interest in learning about you and your faith.
While antisemitism ebbs and flows, history suggests that it will never disappear. Let’s focus on living our lives with a pride befitting the contributions Jews have made, and continue to make, to our shared humanity. We don’t need anyone else to validate us. And for the first time in thousands of years, we have a nation and an army to defend us.
Morton Schapiro is the former president of Williams College and Northwestern University. His most recent book (with Gary Saul Morson) is “Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us.”
