Jews: Too Good for Their Own Good?

Let’s face it, Jews are too good for their own good and that’s one of the main reasons for antisemitism.

If we were some nondescript under-achieving minority do you think much of the world would recognize us, would criticize and condemn us?

But, we are almost everywhere, excelling in many top fields of human endeavor. There’s the pun: What’s the difference between Jews and Arabs…about 200 Nobel Prizes. And that’s not a faulty boast. As of 2023 Muslims have won 16 Nobel Prizes, compared to an astounding 213 for Jews.

Our main disadvantage is our relatively small numbers. We have made up for this with our exceptionalism in achievements and being in positions of power, both political and commercial.

With this level of excellence for work on issues regarding the human condition, one might think Jews would feted worldwide. Instead, antisemitism incidents have rocketed throughout the world.

Antisemitism has been around for 2,000 years. Yet, any time Israel is involved in a defensive military action, the antisemites quickly appear en masse.

It’s easy to blame the Hamas War for this. But, antisemitism, now being pushed by the Left, has been rising for years, mainly on university campuses, with the Right and Left now finding a common purpose in race hate.

Yet, experts claim antisemitism is based on ignorance and racism. I say it’s about envy and jealousy. There are a lot of diverse people who can’t cope with Jewish success after all that history has thrown at us. They develop various theories spanning the real world to the occult to explain Jewish exceptionalism.

For Muslims and Christians, Jews are viewed as being different and have been persecuted for it through the ages. When any nation or religion promotes itself as the master race on the world stage, it can be a recipe for conflict having a people on hand whose faith and morality pre dates that of the so-called master race.

To Christians, we denied and killed Jesus Christ. And that condemns us. On the other hand, many Evangelical Christians see Jews as their ticket to heaven.

Muslims see Jews as competitors for the places in heaven, with the big question: Who received Abraham’s blessing, his son Isaac or his son Ismael? Who is the final prophet Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed? And does it really matter? Well, to billions of people it does.

More than a million people, mainly Arabs fighting Arabs, have been killed in the Middle East and North Africa, the past 10 years, nearly a half million in Yemen. Where are the protest marches against Iran and Saudi Arabia who are behind the Yemen bloodbath?

Yet, any time Gaza is the brunt of an Israeli military response to an attack against Israel, the international outrage is immediate.

That’s because we have survived history where other people have not. And we are stronger than ever. We are the bedrock of the world’s largest religions and are resented for it. We are few in numbers, but fight way over our weight class. That bothers many people of diverse backgrounds. They can’t cope with the unique rebirth of a dormant nation.

As the famed author Mark Twain wrote of Jews:

“The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

“The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind….What is the secret of his immortality?”

Perhaps the secret is our faith in G __and his covenant with us. This is something Christians find puzzling. We don’t need Christ’s salvation because we have a personal deal with the Eternal, one that predates Jesus by 1,000 years.

Yet, Muslims refute this claiming they have that holy deal, a claim that has been the root of conflict for hundreds of years.

There’s possibly nothing more stupid and useless than religious warfare. But religious issues embedded in an uneducated peasant people, often means that’s what’s on offer…endless religious warfare.

Before and during WWII Hitler’s maniacal cabal maintained the Slavic races were sub-human and the Jews were the ultimate evil and thereby had no right to exist. As we know, the Nazis did their best to destroy our existence.

This is partly why one of the basic hard rock conditions of all American-sponsored Arab-Israeli peace negotiations has been an Arab acceptance of Israel’s “right to exist.” Such a term is almost an oxymoron since Israel fulfills the prime criteria for existence just by being there. “I think, therefore I am.”

But this criteria for nationhood, a right to exist, if carried further than Israel sets up some even more glaring examples and the realities they present in the world power game of pick and choose.

Israel bases its legal right to exist on world history and the history of the Jewish people. If it weren’t for the Italians they would have never lost their homeland in the First and again in 11th century AD. And subsequently, they wouldn’t have had to fight to re-establish it since the early 20th century.

So, they have shown both a priori and posteriori evidence for a right to exist. Still, Israel’s actual right to exist is simply because it’s there?

By this reasoning, the Palestinians also have proven a right to exist in their own state based on the facts that their Arab brothers don’t want them and Israel certainly doesn’t want them. Any large group of people existing as outcasts has a right to form their own socio-political unit…providing they can obtain and hold it, as Israel has secured its own land.

Unfortunately, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran deny Jews have a right to exist, at least in an independent Jewish state, and as we are seeing are prepared to die for their views. I will not wish them good luck.

In these times when Diaspora Jews are again afraid to appear in public, it’s more important than ever, for Haredim to Reform, to unite in a solid front.