Jewish Power and Other Myths

If Jews are all-powerful, why are they so powerless? Historically, Jews have been accused of controlling politics, the banks and the media. I haven’t read yet that they control the weather, but that wouldn’t be any more bizarre than the other charges.

If Jews control the media, why is the Jewish state portrayed in the mainstream media as the aggressor, when it is the victim? Why couldn’t the all-powerful Jews in America, Canada and Europe stop the intimidating street protests, campus protests and shootings at synagogues, Jewish schools and institutions?

When Jews lost their sovereignty to the Romans in the year 70 C.E., they sought refuge in other parts of the Middle East and Europe, where they were consistently uprooted whenever the reigning authorities turned on them. No stability, no safety, no power.

Wherever they settled, they added to the life and prosperity of their host country, but that did not make them immune to frenzied outbursts of violence, accused of every crime known to society. Pogroms and expulsion are not signs of power. They are proof of utter vulnerability and helplessness.

During the Middle Ages, in Europe, Jews had no rights, could not obtain citizenship, were banned from government posts and the military and excluded from the professions. Ghettos dated from the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century. Jews were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Spain in 1492, from Portugal in 1497, not to mention the forced expulsion from Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Yes, Jews do have power – the power to survive injustice, cruelty and inhumanity.

Another myth? Jews are rich. If all Jews are rich, why does every synagogue and so many Jewish institutions raise funds, especially before holidays, for Jewish families who cannot provide for themselves? Child poverty and senior poverty among Canadian Jews is higher than the national average. So many Jews have been successful and generous, funding hospitals, universities and arts institutions, that those who are fueled by hatred cannot recognize the good or acknowledge that most are not in that league.

One of the most enduring and dangerous myths is “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a completely fabricated text that has had a lasting effect. It was first published in a newspaper in the Russian Empire in 1903. The document claims that there is a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.  In 1920, Lucien Wolf, a British journalist and diplomat, exposed the document as a fraud. He found that its source was a chapter of a German novel, “Biarritz” (1868), in which Jewish leaders meet secretly, with the Devil supporting them. There are 24 chapters or “protocols” claiming there were secret plans to control politics, the economy, financial markets and education. This is all fiction, not history. The leaders, the “learned elders of Zion,” never existed but the enduring lie lives on. Yes, the Devil was, indeed, involved. The Devil was the person who created this conspiracy theory that has inspired hatred and death for generations.

The current myth that dominates the academy, the press, social media and politics is the outrageous slander that the Jews don’t belong in Israel, that they displaced the original inhabitants and that Jews in Israel are an illegitimate presence. They are portrayed as colonial invaders. Anyone who reads history knows that Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It was a return to the land that gave birth to Judaism, the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from which they were expelled after establishing kingdoms in Israel for hundreds of years. If the world did not want Jews to return to Zion, they should have treated them better. It was myths about the “wicked” Jews that made the Jews’ return an absolute necessity.

The irony of ironies is that antisemitism exists only in monotheistic countries, Christian and Muslim. Judaism is the parent of monotheism. Your children are your greatest joy, except when they turn on you, and then they’re your worst nightmare. Jews decided to exit the nightmare and fulfill a dream, a return to their ancestral homeland, free of hate-filled myths, a democracy among dictatorships, an open society of Jews from all over the Diaspora, including Arab lands. Jews in Israel are home.

The Diaspora myths – and I have enumerated only a few – are so preposterous and demonstrably untrue that only people who want to believe them, do. Jews cannot convince them of the facts, nor can they protect themselves in the Diaspora. Israel is not the problem – it is the solution to Diaspora vulnerability. Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, is portrayed as evil incarnate. It takes up one one-hundredth of 1% of the surface of the world, and one one-fifth of 1% of the landmass of the Arab world, yet it is the only country in the world whose existence is challenged.

As for the Diaspora, the general population needs to understand that the current wave of virulent, hysterical antisemitism is corrosive and dangerous for the entire society. Antisemitism is a fundamental challenge to Western democracy and the complex nature of our societies. Western countries are composed of many ethnic groups. If the existence of one group is questioned, all groups are endangered. The government’s responsibility is the safety and stability of everyone. Either government exercises authority and acts, rather than simply mouthing platitudes, or they participate in the dismantling of the fundamental values of our democracies. Justice cannot be selective.

This is what is at stake. The survival, not of the Jews, but of our free societies.

Dr. Paul Socken is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Jewish Studies program at the University of Waterloo.