Why Do People Hate Jews (Must Read)

Being “the world’s fixers” is a tall order for anyone. It is especially so when you have no desire to be one, and even if you did, you have no idea what it means or how to go about it. For the most part, today’s Jews have no idea what it means to be a chosen people or a “light unto nations,” nor do they want anything to do with it.

When Jews are left alone they tend to assimilate. At the height of theconvivencia [friendly coexistence] between Jews and Christians in Spain, the inquisition erupted and mercilessly extinguished the Jewish community. Five centuries later, when the Jews in Germany were almost completely emancipated and strove to dissolve in the German society, the National Socialist party came about and exterminated the Jews throughout Europe almost entirely.

Today, the U.S. Jewry is in a similar situation to that of pre WWII German Jewry. U.S. Jews are largely confident that seeing toxic anti-Semitism of the kind we see in Europe is unlikely on the other side of the Atlantic. However, the reality of increasing anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses[13] and diffusion of anti-Semitic violence, such as stabbings,[14] to the U.S. indicate that Jews are likely falling once again into the trap of complacency. As it happened in Spain and in Germany, the harder U.S. Jews try to assimilate, the more painfully they will be pushed away. It is already beginning to happen, and the similarity between past process and the current situation in America makes the seemingly benign state of U.S. Jewry a very precarious one.

Similar to its diasporas, the State of Israel wishes only to be a nation in the family of nations. Instead, it is rebuked time and again, especially by the entity representing the entire world: the United Nations. The below report by UN Watch demonstrates the inexplicably disproportionate negative attention given to Israel[15]: “The U.N. General Assembly’s 2015 session is adopting 20 resolutions singling out Israel for criticism — and only 3 resolutions on the rest of the world combined. …The three that do not concern Israel are: one on Syria, a regime that has murdered more than 200,000 of its own people, one on Iran, and one on North Korea. Not a single UNGA resolution this year (70th session) is expected to be adopted on gross and systematic abuses committed by China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Yemen, Zimbabwe, or on dozens of other perpetrators of gross and systematic human rights violations.”

And if this is not enough, the rapidly spreading[16] BDS movement is working very hard to isolate Israel economically, politically, culturally, and academically. To put it simply, the harder Israel tries to “blend in,” the more ferociously it is pushed away.

However hard Jews try, they will not be able to avoid doing what they must. They may not know what it is they must do or how to do it, and people may tell them that they do not believe they are the chosen people, but the existence of global, ever-present hatred toward them proves that the Jews have been singled out as the world’s worst wrong doers. Now, either they realize what is the wrong they are doing and fix it or the world will punish them once more.

This Is How You Attack the Reason Why People Hate Jews… at Its Root

To understand the wrong that Jews are doing, we need to look at how, and especially why the Jewish nation formed. The father of Judaism, and of all Abrahamic religions, is Abraham Our Father [Abraham the Patriarch], who symbolizes mercy. The Midrash (Beresheet Rabah) tells us that when Abraham saw his countryfolk arguing and quarrelling he tried to make peace and help them unite. In the words of the Midrash, he tried to “patch up” all the people in the world.

The book, Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer, describes how Abraham once walked next to the Tower of Babylon and watched the people building it, lifting the heavy stones one at a time. He noticed that if a stone fell down the workers mourned its loss, but if one of their coworkers fell they utterly ignored it. When he saw this he cursed them and wished for their failure.

When Abraham discovered that the problem of his countryfolk was disunity and alienation, he began to urge them to unite. Even when he was deported from his homeland he kept calling out his message, and anyone who resonated with the message of unity above all differences was welcome to join him. Maimonides, the great 12^th century scholar, describes Abraham’s efforts to spread his message of unity and bequeath it to his descendants—both physical and spiritual—until his tiny entourage had become a nation based on unity and brotherly love:

“[Abraham] began to call out to the whole world … wandering from town to town and from kingdom to kingdom until he arrived at the land of Canaan… And since [people in the places where he wandered] gathered around him and asked him about his words, he taught everyone…until he brought them back to the path of truth. Finally, thousands and tens of thousands assembled around him, and they are the people of ‘the house of Abraham.’ He planted this tenet in their hearts, composed books about it, and taught his son, Isaac. And Isaac sat and taught, warned, and informed Jacob, and appointed him a teacher to sit and teach… And Jacob the Patriarch taught all his sons…”[17]

No other nation has been forged in this manner, where people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and faiths became a nation based on brotherly love, transcending different origins, beliefs, or any other dissimilarity. They did this because they sensed that this was, as Maimonides put it, “the path of truth.” They felt that alienation and animosity do not lead anywhere good and therefore sought to unite.

Abraham, an inquisitive person by nature, discovered that the enormous diversity before us derives from one source—a creative force that manifests in myriad ways that lead back to that source. He realized that the indifference and alienation of his people, as he witnessed in the builders of the tower, could be mended if they united in the aspiration to grasp that force, as he did. But because they were unaware of its existence, they became separated and alienated from one another, believing in different things and aspiring for different things.

However, at the time the Babylonians were not ready for the idea that one, benevolent force comprised the whole reality. As the Midrash and Maimonides tell us, Abraham was expelled from his country because of his ideas. But as he wandered, he gathered around him followers, planted brotherly love in their hearts, and they became a nation committed to passing on his method for happiness through unity.

A Light unto Nations: to Show the Way to Unity to the Whole World

The arrival of Moses introduced a new phase in the development of the Israeli nation. Self-centeredness and alienation increased in the world around them as it did in them. At the time of Moses, Israel had amassed such a level of disunity that they needed a new method if they were to unite above it. They were also far more Hebrews than the tribe that went into Egypt. By Moses’ time there were three million of them, far too many to be taught the way Abraham had taught his students.

As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.” The necessity to find a new way to teach people to unite resulted in the giving of the Torah, the Pentateuch, a.k.a., The Five Books of Moses. But the reception of the Torah came with a prerequisite: you must first agree to unite “as one man with one heart.”

Once the Hebrews united, they were given the Torah and became a nation. But that nation was like none other. Being founded upon the principle of love of others, they were entrusted with a task to pass on the method for uniting, for loving your neighbor as yourself. This is when they were told that they must be “a light unto nations,” namely to show the way to unity to the whole world, just as Abraham had tried back in Babylon and wherever he went.

Abraham did not intend to unite the Jews. In his days, Judaism as we know it did not even exist. As we quoted above, he tried to “patch up all the people in the world.”

All of Abraham’s successors knew it and continued his legacy. The great Kabbalist, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lozzatto (Ramchal), wrote in Adir BaMarom [The Mighty One On High] “Noah was created to correct the world in the state that it was at that time.”[18] In, The Commentary of Ramchal on the Torah, he wrote that “Moses wished to complete the correction of the world at that time. This is why he took the mixed multitude, as he thought that thus would be the correction of the world … However, he did not succeed because of the corruptions that occurred along the way.”[19] Still, the world was not ready to embrace unity wholeheartedly. As a result, those who pledged to be “as one man with one heart” became the people of Israel and were entrusted with the duty to treasure the method of achieving unity until the world is ready.

The people of Israel worked hard to keep the tenet of unity. They had to fight their own growing egos, and the attacks of other nations. But asThe Book of Zohar [The Book of Radiance] tells us, “All the wars in the Torah are for peace and love.”[20] The Book of Zohar also speaks about how important it is to rise above hatred, not just for the divided parties but for the entire world. In the portion, Aharei Mot, the book writes, “‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together.’ These are the friends as they sit together, and are not separated from each other. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another. Then they return to being in brotherly love. …And you, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will also not part … And by your merit there will be peace in the world, as it is written, ‘For the sake of my brothers and my friends let me say, ‘Let peace be in you.’’”[21]

Why Unity Is Necessary for the Jews and for the World

The ruin of the Second Temple marks a key point in the history of the world. Not only was the Jewish people exiled from the land of Israel, the Jews also lost their war against self-centeredness. For the first time since its inception, the tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” was not the guiding rule within the nation. Jews still had high regard for unity, as they still do to this day, but they began to use it to gain self-centered purposes instead of as a means for correction of the ego and as an asset to be passed on to all mankind.

In the time since the ruin of the Temple, many sages recognized the absolute necessity of unity for the Jews and for the world. Regrettably, their voice was not heard because the Jews were too preoccupied with themselves. The book, Shem Mishmuel tells us, “The intention of creation was for all to be one bundle… but because of the sin [egoism] the matter was spoiled. The correction began in the generation of Babylon, meaning the correction of gathering and assembling of people which began with Abraham. …And the final correction will be when everyone becomes one bundle.”[22]

Similarly, Rav Kook wrote in the early 1900s: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world.”[23] Rabbi David Solomon wrote in Willows of the Brook, “Israel are commanded to unity of the hearts, as it is written, ‘And Israel encamped there,’ in singular form [in Hebrew] … meaning they had unity.”[24]

Notice the power of importance that Rabbi Kalman Epstein, author of Maor VaShemesh, ascribes to unity: “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them. …When there is bonding among them, and no separation of hearts, they have peace and quiet … and all the curses and suffering are removed by that.”[25]

Alas, very few listened. And when the Jews do not listen and do not unite, they suffer the consequences. During WWII, Rav Yehuda Ashlag wrote in a paper he titled, “The Nation”: “It is clear that the immense effort required of us on the rugged road ahead requires unity as strong and as solid as steel, from all factions of the nation without exception. If we do not come out with united ranks toward the mighty forces standing in our way then we are doomed before we even started.”[26]

The Mounting Pressure on the Jews

As long as humanity was fully engaged with its self-centered trajectory, rewarding personal accomplishments with accolades, the pressure on the Jews was relatively tolerable. Still, because whenever there is pain the Jews are to blame, the Jews did suffer persecutions and expulsions wherever they went. Since hatred and disunity is at the heart of every problem, the Jews were always viewed as the perpetrators, even though the persecutors could not rationally explain why they blamed the Jews and had to make up absurd rumors about them. And yet, however painful, these persecutions were not meant to annihilate the Jews altogether.

In the early 20^th century things began to change. Europe was locked in rivalries and alliances, and tensions were running high. The hatred culminated in the outbreak of WWI. Chemical warfare was used for the first time, many millions of people died, and many more were left destitute and hopeless. Germany was brought to its knees, but all of Europe was in ruins. No one was happy.

When Hitler rose to power and blamed the war on the Jews, hardly anyone objected. Initially, he did not plan to exterminate the Jews, but only to expel them from his country. In the summer of 1938, when Hitler heard that there is a conference in Evian, France, to discuss the possibility of helping the Jews move out of Germany, he said, “We are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships.”[27] But as the nations do not want the Jews today, they did not want them then. With suave indifference, country by country excused itself from taking in Jews. The Australian delegate, T. W. White, sarcastically noted, “As we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.”[28]

Even after Evian Conference Hitler did not give up and sought to accelerate the pace of forced Jewish emigration from Germany. On May 13, 1939, he did what he had promised, and 900 Jews left for Cuba,[29] hoping to eventually enter the U.S., on the luxury transatlantic liner, the S.S. St. Louis.

But Cuba denied them entrance. Desperate, they tried heading straight for Florida, but the Americans would not let them dock either. Left with no choice, they returned to Europe where hundreds of them perished in the Holocaust.

The Holocaust gave the Jews a pause from hatred and helped turn the sympathy of the nations toward them enough to vote in favor of establishing a Jewish state. But that pause was short lived. Since the Six Day War in 1967, the world has been turning against the Jews once more, and specifically against Israel.

As the world deteriorates into chaos crisis by crisis, the pressure on the Jews will continue to grow. A few years ago, a second Holocaust was unthinkable. Today it is a concern that people are beginning to express openly.

In the early 1950s, Rav Yehuda Ashlag wrote The Writings of the Last Generation, in which he describes the progression he saw for the world’s political development, especially in the Western world. “The world erroneously considers Nazism a particular offshoot of Germany,” he wrote. “In truth, it is the offshoot of a democracy and socialism that were left without … manners, and justice. Thus, all the nations are equal in that; there is no hope at all that Nazism will perish with the victory of the allies, for tomorrow the Anglo-Saxons will adopt Nazism, since they, too, live in a world of democracy and Nazism.”[30]

The Jews Owe the World a Better Society

Over several essays, Rav Ashlag expounded on the reasons why there will not be peace in the world until there is unity and brotherly love throughout the world. He also explains that the more the world suffers from the adverse consequences of what researchers, Twenge and Campbell, call “the narcissism epidemic,”[31] the more people will turn their anger against Jews. Subconsciously, people expect the Jews to pave the way for a better society, namely to be “a light unto nations.” Until the Jews carry out this task, the animosity and accusations against them will grow.

Renowned English historian, Prof. Paul Johnson, wrote in A History of the Jews: “No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny. At a very early stage in their collective existence they believed they had detected a divine scheme for the human race, of which their own society was to be a pilot.”[32]

Acclaimed British historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, wrote in Churchill and the Jews about British Premier, Winston Churchill’s keen perception of the importance of unity to the Jewish people: “The Jews were a lucky community because they had that corporate spirit, the spirit of their race and faith. [Churchill] would not … ask them to use that spirit in any narrow or clannish sense, to shut themselves off from others … far from their mood and intention, far from the counsels that were given them by those most entitled to advise. That personal and special power which they possessed would enable them to bring vitality into their institutions, which nothing else would ever give. [Churchill believed without disrespect that] A Jew cannot be a good Englishman unless he is a good Jew.”[33]

Even Henry Ford, whose notorious anti-Semitic publication, The International Jew—The World’s Foremost Problem, made him the object of Hitler’s admiration, wrote in that infamous composition: “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems on paper, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”[34]

No one but the Jews is expected to be a role-model society. The light that the Jews are obliged to bring to the nations is the light of a united society, where mutual responsibility and friendship prevail, where “love your neighbor as yourself” is the motto, the foundation, and the goal that individuals in the society aspire to achieve.

Not only The Book of Zohar, but numerous Jewish scholars and sages wrote that the unity of Israel will save them and save the world. The book, Sefat Emet, writes, “The children of Israel corrected the world … when they returned to being one nation and one language. And also individually … the correction should be that we are rewarded with correcting ourselves and finding the root of unity out of the separation.”[35]

Because the Jews have a mission to carry out, author Michael Grant, wrote about them: “The Jews proved not only unassimilated, but inassimilable.”[36] However unclear the way may be, the only solution to anti-Semitism is for the Jews to bring the light of unity to the world by establishing a role model society, and sharing its principles with the world. They will not be able to avoid this mission by assimilating.

It has been two millennia since the ruin of the society that Ford looked up to. Unlike Abraham’s time, or Moses’ time, the world is ready to hear why things are not working out. The Jews must introduce once more the method for uniting above differences. Indeed, the key is the word, “above.” The Jews did not suppress their differences, but used them to the benefit of the whole of society. Today the Jews must teach themselves once more how to conduct themselves this way, and thereby become a role model society.

Indeed, the best way to achieve unity above differences is by focusing not on uniting the Jews, but on building an example of unity for the world, so that the world can unite. The world will not tolerate the Jews as long as they do not unite among themselves, because only then the rest of the world will be able to learn and implement the way. If the Jews unite in order to help the world, not in order to help themselves, they will be viewed favorably by all the nations, without exception.

In the words of the book, Sefat Emet [True Language], “The children of Israel became guarantors to correct the entire world … everything depends on the children of Israel. To the extent that they correct themselves [and become united], all creations follow them. As the students follow the teacher, the whole of creation follows the children of Israel.”[37]

If Jews bring unity to the world by uniting among them and setting an example, they will never have to ask, “Why do people hate Jews?”