UK – Jewish Bigotry on Speed? Just Check Out Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

BY GILAD ATZMON – Last week, Britain’s veteran chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks lectured to the European Parliament on antisemitism. The rabbi’s mission was to define antisemitism, but instead he just demonstrated some of the most problematic symptoms of Jewish supremacy, tribal arrogance and even crude Goy-hatred. Unwittingly, the rabbi didn’t make the Jews look too good.  

“The hate that begins with Jews doesn’t end with Jews.” was the Rabbi’s starting point. Here, I tend to agree with the rabbi. The rabbi probably knows a lot about hate. Hate can so easily backfire. Hate is dangerous territory. Hate spreads fast. The Zionist project, initially driven by moderate animosity towards the Palestinians, quickly evolved into hate towards Arabs, then Islam, then Black migrant communities and eventually to Goyim in general.  The Jewish anti-Zionist Left follows the exact same pattern. They are now hating the ’White’ and the ‘redneck.’ All in all, it’s pretty clear that the rabbi’s presentation is mere projection – he simply attributes Jewish cultural symptoms onto the Goyim.

It didn’t take long for the rabbi to manifest his supremacist inclinations.“Antisemitism is not about Jews, antisemitism is about antisemites.” and if you really want to know who the antisemites are, the rabbi was quick to provide the answer. It is the failures and the losers in society. Antisemites are the“people who can’t accept their own failure and instead have to blame someone else (the Jews).” 

Yes, you’ve got it. For Rabbi Sacks, those who dare to criticise Jewish power and Israeli criminality are just a bunch of frustrated losers driven by jealousy. But here I can perhaps help the rabbi. Such an outrageously chauvinist statement is itself uniquely arrogant and dangerous and is not going to help the Jews defeat antisemites. On the contrary, it provides Jew haters with a rationale.  

 “Antisemitism is symptom of a disease” the rabbi continues.  So basically, if you feel any  indignation whatsoever towards the rabbi’s disgusting remarks above, it means only that you are ill as well as being a ‘failure’ and ‘envious’. You’d better seek help.  

But what is antisemitism? The rabbi answers. “Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else.” Well, in the world in which we live, no one denies Jews the right to exist or to enjoy every universal right. Trouble is, more and more people are repulsed by the Jewish State (for instance) celebrating its so called ‘rights’ at the expense of others.

And how exactly does the rabbi support the idea that antisemitism is on the rise?  Simple,  he points on an increase in Jewish anxiety. (Note how Jews constantly demand more and more police presence around their cultural and spiritual centres.)  But here is a problem. Analysing Jewish anxiety in Freudian terms may suggest that Jews may be fearful because they feel guilty. Jews understand very well that Zionist wars, Israeli criminality and the forceful Jewish lobby bear responsibility for many of our current humanitarian disasters. Is it possible, for instance,  that the rabbi is, likewise,  fearful of the ‘Goyim’ because he calls them failures and losers?

The rabbi detects a progress in the antisemitic discourse, “In the past antisemitism could be explored through religion (Christianity), then science (race), now it is human rights, ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide,”  and the Rabbi concludes that “anti Zionism is the anti Semitism of our time.” 

The rabbi is wrong: ethically, methodically and historically. Ethically, because if Israel attempts genocide and engages in ethnic cleansing then we, the rest of humanity, must and often do, oppose it.  But the rabbi is also mistaken methodically and historically because the opposition to Jewry extends far beyond Israeli criminality. It is really an ongoing battle against a choseness that fuels dissentto Jewish culture and spirit. This opposition is not new, it is, in fact, as old as the Jews and has been explored by the Hebrew prophets, by Christ, by Marx and even by early Zionists who were repulsed by the attitude of their brethren’s chauvinism. The opposition to choseness is driven by a humanist and universal intent. But if Christ, Marx and the Zionist Boruchov were entitled to criticiseJewish exceptionalism, shouldn’t the rest of humanity enjoy the same elementary right? Or maybe the rabbi thinks that criticism of Jewish culture and politics should be remain a Jews’-only territory?

Lying can be an act of courage but it takes a whole lot of courage for a celebrity rabbi to boldly spin the entire European Parliament.  “When bad things happen to a group,” the rabbi says, “its members can ask one of two different questions: 1, what did we do wrong 2, who did this to us?” This sounds like a beginning of a monumental Jewish confession on the rabbi’s part.  “Self criticism is essential for a free society. If a society asks who did this to us it defines itself as a victim and seek a scapegoat.”

Don’t hold your breath. This is not Jewish remorse. Rabbi Sacks, once again, projects his own symptoms onto the Goyim. It is in fact the Jews (Rabbi Sacks included) who never ask themselves ‘what did we do wrong?’It is the Jews who never self-reflect and try to identify what it is in their culture that invokes so much animosity in others. It is the Jews who block any attempt to verify, once and for all, why their history is an endless chain of holocausts with just a few tea breaks. The only Jews who ever attempted to address these crucial questions in the modern era were the early Zionists, people like Bernard Lazare, Borochov, A.D Gordon and just a few others and, as we know, their kind of Zionism wasn’t at all popular amongst the Jews at the time.

The rabbi warns the European Parliaments that if Jews leave Europe, liberty will come to an end. But reality suggests the complete opposite. No one asks Jews to leave Europe – it is actually Jewish institutions that prevent Europeans from thinking freely let alone revise their memory of their past. I suggest that rather than preaching to Europeans about the importance of Jews and Jerusalem, Rabbi Sack should take some time off from Jerusalem to study Athens.