Antisemitism that is fueled by hatred of the Jewish emphasis on marital sex

As I write my new book, a sequel to Kosher Sex—tentatively titled “Kosher Sex: The Second Coming”—I find it fascinating, and disturbing, that the book I published a quarter-century ago has now become the principle ammunition for antisemites. They invoke it to mock, malign, or even incite violence against me. That’s pretty strange for a book that was an epoch-defining blockbuster international best-seller, translated into 20 languages and hitting number 5 in the USA and number 1 in counties as diverse as England, Belgium, and the Czech Republic.

In response, I find myself returning not only to the essential teachings of Jewish intimacy but also to a deeper, more urgent question: What if kosher sex—sacred, electrifying, soul-binding —is the ultimate antidote to war? What if the reality that Jews have always embraced passionate, meaningful, mind-blowing chandelier-shaking sex is not only our source of inner strength—but also one of the historical causes of antisemitism?

We’ve long heard that antisemitism stems from jealousy of Jews. But jealousy of what? Jewish wealth? Only a small portion of Jews have achieved notable world economic success, and that’s mostly since World War II. What about the nearly two thousand years of antisemitism that preceded the Holocaust? What were they jealous of then? Our ghettos? Our poverty? Our “Fiddler on the Roof” jobless? The sight of Tevye the Milkman barely feeding and clothing his children?

Were they jealous of the decimation wrought on us by millennia of pigeons, auto-de-fes, and expulsions?

No. They envied our resilience. Our joy. The way we clung to life even amid death. The way we celebrated holidays in times of horror. The way we danced through suffering, especially on Simchat Torah with our sacred scroll which was,  it coincidentally, the day that Hamas struck on October 7th. And notice that Hamas struck. Festive Jewish music festival. Antisemites are indeed jealous — but not of Jewish poverty or importance but of Jewish joy. Above all else, they are jealous of electrifying Jewish sex.

We built families and had many children while surrounded by destruction. We made love. We loved fiercely. In our straw mattresses or even on the cold earth, we made love passionately and vigorously. Our Torah taught a husband that he must make his wife climax before he does. Rabbi Judah the Prince, the editor of the entire Mishnah, rules that a man and woman must enjoy each other’s bodies fully and completely. What is Kosher Sex, he asked? Anything that brings the couple pleasure with the exception of sex during menstruation, so that there be an erotic pause of 12 days during. Love-making before it has time to become stale and perfunctory. And we brought children into a world that hated us. Because, perhaps more than anything, we held onto love and intimacy. We had the strongest marriages, the most enduring family units—and yes, the most electrifying sex.

This is deeply connected to the Jewish view of sexuality. Judaism is perhaps the only major religion that has always celebrated sex not just for procreation but principally for pleasure and intimacy. The Bible could not have expressed it more beautifully of romantically: “therefore shall a man separate himself from his father and his mother, he shall cling to his wife as they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

The Talmud discusses foreplay, mutual satisfaction, and female pleasure as the very essence of sex rather than the mere five minutes of penetration and male climax, used by so many selfish men as an insomniac.

The Torah includes Song of Songs by King Solomon, a deeply erotic love poem, shocking even to modern ears with its exhilarating erotic prose. “Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.” (4:16-17) And,  “Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.” (4:5) In our tradition, God is not exiled from the bedroom—He is invited in.

That is why, in the wake of the horrors of October 7th, when Hamas unleashed its barbarism on Israel, I returned to Judaism’s foundational view of sexuality. War dehumanizes. It tears men and women down. Men are beheaded and castrated. Women are raped and defiled, as Hamas did intentionally to countless Israeli women. It desensitizes and it destroys.

But if a principle cause of antisemtism is a a jealousy – indeed a repugnance – for Jewish carnality and sexuality, it follows that the antidote to battle PTSD isn’t only found in therapy or medicine. Healing must also lie in the sacred, erotic, and electric connection between husband and wife?

Not just touch—but the orchestration of two separate halves as one indivisible whole. Not just marriage—but intimacy. Not just sex but lovemaking. Not just survival—but passion, alive and reborn.

Our soldiers return from Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran carrying not only scars but the unbearable weight of what they’ve seen and done, forced upon them by the Iranian monsters and their proxies. They don’t just need medals. They need their humanity restored. They need nights of love and intimate healing that remind them they are alive. That they don’t just know how to make war but to make love. That tenderness, joy, and pleasure are stronger than blood and fire. And Judaism provides a roadmap for that healing.

This isn’t just about soldiers, warriors and combatants.

Jews across the world now live in fear and are experiencing shock, trauma, and PTSD. From New York to London to Sydney to Washington to Colorado, they hide their Stars of David, remove mezuzot from doorposts, and tuck away their yarmulkes. They live with daily anxiety, fear, and the echo of rising antisemitism. The response cannot only be political—it must be personal. The home must become a fortress of connection. And within that home, the marriage bed must become a sanctuary of healing, connection, and a remedy to loneliness.

This is not a new message. And neither is the backlash.

When I first released Kosher Sex, it was met with outrage. Rabbis labeled me a heretic. A rabbi writing a book sex? Columnists mocked. And worst of all, antisemites seized upon it to reinforce ancient libels. Interestingly, the most positive response came from Evangelical Christians who pastors rose in their thousands to pen books about Kosher Christian sex, a genre that continues unabated till today and has sparked a worldwide phenomenon.

But sexually repressed antisemites painted Jews as depraved, flesh-obsessed, and corrupt, echoing the same lies the Nazis used: that Jews spread venereal disease, defiled Aryan women, and threatened civilization. In Der Stürmer, the infamous Nazi propaganda rag, Julius Streicher warned that “the Jew is a devil in human form… he wants to seduce your daughters, defile your women.” It was a chilling campaign to cast Jewish sexuality as a national threat.

The infamous Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said:

“The Jew is a parasite and corrupter, seeking to defile the purity of Aryan women and destroy the German Volk.”

And then came October 7th—and a grotesque, renewed demonization of Jewish sexuality. In online forums and extremist corners, I saw the exact same Nazi-era tropes recycled. Jews, once again, as sexual predators. As polluters of purity. As corruptors.

But this isn’t unique to Jews. America’s history reveals a similar tactic used against Black men. The Ku Klux Klan didn’t only hate them for their race or color of their skin, but weaponized their sexuality. Black men were portrayed as dangerous predators. Emmett Till was only 14 when he was tortured and murdered by the Allan —his genitals cut off and shoved into his mouth—because he allegedly whistled at a white woman. It wasn’t just murder. It was a perverse warning about perceived sexual threat. Thomas Dixon, in his 1905 novel The Clansman—which inspired the film The Birth of a Nation—wrote, “The white man must save the white woman from the lust of the black savage.”

W.E.B. Du Bois documented how white supremacists spread the myth that: “Black men are a threat to white womanhood, used to justify lynching and racial terror to uphold white supremacy.”

So too with Jewish men, who have long been portrayed as deviant, dangerous, or predatory. Jewish women were either hyper-sexualized or degraded. It was never about morality—it was about fear. Fear of the other’s joy. Fear of the perennial and invincible Jewish choice of life. Fear of sacred pleasure that doesn’t bow to repression.

Christianity sought to transcend the flesh. Jesus was celibate. Mary a virgin. Priests abstain from sex altogether, as does most famously . Spirituality was seen as rising above the body. But Judaism says no: the body is not the enemy of the soul. It is its partner. Our sages taught that sex within marriage is not just allowed, but required. It is a mitzvah. A holy act.

This embrace of the physical made us targets.

Our enemies sought to pervert what we held sacred. And so today, when I speak of erotic intimacy as healing, as sacred, as redemptive—I am attacked again. Called “The Sex Rabbi” ( I prefer the SEXY Rabbi) by one of America’s most vile antisemites. My daughter Chana, who founded a company to help Jewish couples enhance their intimacy, is mocked. Our work is ridiculed.

Not only could I not give one damn, I’m actually extremely proud.

Let them mock. While they live in their stale, jealous, squalid, hypocritical, lifeless marital cages, we Jewish married couples continue to rock the foundations of our very homes with our earth-shattering marital sex.

Because I am proud—fiercely proud—of Kosher Sex, of my daughter’s work, and of the hundreds of thousands of couples whose lives and marriages have been saved and transformed by Kosher Sex, the book and the company Kosher.Sex. If being “The Sex Rabbi” means I believe in saving marriages, restoring passion, and helping soldiers and couples heal—then I embrace the title with impassioned gusto.

Because in a world addicted to war, I teach how to make love.

In a culture drenched in shame, I preach the holiness of desire. In a world that has denigrated lust into porn, I teach the transformative eroticism of monogamy. In a religion often caricatured as restrictive, I proclaim that Judaism is the most sex-positive faith on earth.

So yes, fight when you must. Defend your people. War to defeat evil and restore the peace is holy. Protect the innocent. But when the battlefield is quiet and the soldier comes home, the deepest healing will not be found in parades. It will not be found in medals. It will be found in bed. In the arms of a loving spouse. In passion renewed.

Let the world learn from us again. That Jews are a people who choose life. Who love amid hatred. Who sanctify the body as well as the soul.

The ancient Greeks worshipped beauty, the Romans power, the Christians salvation, and the modern West worships hedonistic materialism. But Jews? We worship life. In every form. In every breath. In every kiss. In every sacred act of intimacy. In every orgasm a husband gives his wife—not selfishly, not mindlessly, but with love, with presence, and with the knowledge that she is the beating heart of his life and the soul of his very existence.

This is how we fight the darkness.

This is how we heal the trauma.

This is how we rebuild what war has broken.

Make love and war, unto war is defeated and the earth shall behold the knowledge of God as the seas cover the ocean floor.