The Jewish people seem to defy the natural norms of history. The extraordinary phenomena surrounding both their long historical experience and their continued existence in the modern world cry out for an explanation. In this essay, I will examine four of these striking anomalies and endeavor to explain what lies behind them.

The Anomaly of Jewish Survival:

Perhaps the most obvious anomaly is simply that the Jewish people are still here. All Nations disappear, except the Jewish People. Arnold Joseph Toynbee, an English historian, wrote in his book, A Study of History, Toynbee examined 21 major civilizations. He identified the stages of civilization as genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration. Put simply, Toynbee demonstrated that every nation eventually disappears. But, there is one exception, the Jewish people have never disappeared as a nation. Archeological discoveries confirm that the Jewish people existed as a nation 3,500 years ago.

The Jewish people survived the destruction of ancient kingdoms, exile, dispersion, persecution, forced conversion, expulsion and repeated attempts to destroy them. They lived for centuries without a sovereign state. They were scattered across different continents and surrounded by radically different cultures. Yet somehow, despite everything, Jewish identity survived.

A secular historian can reasonably point to strong family structures, communal institutions, religious traditions, education, dietary practices, calendars, rituals and a powerful sense of historical identity. All of those things undoubtedly contributed. But there is a second question that is harder to dismiss. Why did Jewish identity survive even when large numbers of Jews no longer wanted to preserve it? That brings us to an even stranger anomaly.

Despite the Jewish propensity to assimilate into a host nation, the Jewish people as a whole have not disappeared. Egyptian dynasties vanished. The ancient empires disappeared. Imperial Rome disappeared. The Spanish monarchy that expelled the Jews changed beyond recognition. The Russian czars fell. The Third Reich, which promised a thousand-year empire, survived twelve years. And yet, the Jews remain. The people repeatedly targeted for disappearance remain. Their persecutors do not. 

The Anomaly of Disproportionate Attention:

Historically, the Jewish people have received an inordinate amount of attention compared to their numerical size. The Roman Empire struggled with the Jewish people. Judea was not one of Rome’s richest or more important provinces, but the Land of Israel consumed an extraordinary amount of Rome’s attention. The early church fathers wrote disproportionately about the Jewish people. In Arabia, Muhammad was fixated on the Jewish people, which led a disproportionate focus on them in the Quran.

In Europe, the Catholic Church was preoccupied with the Jewish people. The Church was concerned with whether they would convert or continue to practice their faith. Martin Luther wrote an entire book attacking the Jews, despite the Jews being a miniscule amount of the German population. Later in European history, the communists were hyper-focused on the Jewish people. Ironically, Karl Marx was descended from a Jewish family who converted. Despite his ancestry, he wrote a long essay focused on calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.

The world cannot ignore Israel. Today, Israel occupies a microscopic portion of the earth’s surface and contains only a tiny fraction of the world’s population. Yet its actions generate extraordinary international attention. Israel receives an inordinate amount of global media, political, academic, diplomatic and social-media attention. The international community is obsessed with Israel. International institutions devote enormous energy to Israel while vastly larger conflicts, territorial disputes and humanitarian catastrophes frequently receive less sustained scrutiny. 

The disproportionate attention becomes even more striking when the United Nations is considered. A group called UN Watch counted 173 UN General Assembly resolutions concerning Israel from 2015–2024, compared with 80 concerning all other countries combined. This means that Israel has been criticized more than all of the other countries combined. Whatever one thinks of individual Israeli policies, the volume of country-specific attention is remarkable. And consider the scale of suffering elsewhere. Catastrophic violence has occurred in Sudan, Congo, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria and elsewhere. Millions have suffered from war, famine, ethnic violence, terrorism and displacement. Yet these crises rarely generate anything approaching the sustained worldwide political and cultural attention directed toward Israel.

The Anomaly of Assimilation:

Ordinarily, a small, dispersed population should eventually disappear through intermarriage, conversion and cultural absorption. Without a homeland for nearly two thousand years, Jews should have been particularly vulnerable to this process. Many Jewish people simply concluded that Jewish religion and Jewish heritage were no longer necessary—or were obstacles to fully participating in modern life. Although the majority of Jews converted, changed their names, abandoned Jewish practices or otherwise attempted to become less visibly Jewish because they believed doing so would make them safer. But that is not the entire story. Especially in America and other Western societies, enormous numbers of Jews assimilated because they genuinely liked the surrounding culture. They embraced its prosperity, education, entertainment, social freedoms and secularism. Despite the Jewish propensity to assimilate into a host nation, the Jewish people as a whole remain.

In Spain, Jews became deeply integrated into one of Europe’s great civilizations. They participated in commerce, medicine, scholarship, government and intellectual life. Many converted to Christianity and attempted to disappear into the surrounding population. Yet suspicion followed even the converts. “New Christians” were scrutinized for Jewish ancestry, the Inquisition pursued suspected secret Jews, and eventually Jews were forced to convert or leave. Centuries later, emancipation opened European society to Jews on an unprecedented scale. Jews entered universities, professions, commerce, science, literature and the arts. Many became secular. Some converted. Intermarriage increased. For large numbers, assimilation was not primarily an escape from antisemitism; they simply embraced modern European life and gradually loosened their connection to Jewish religion and heritage.

Yet once again, assimilation did not make Jewish identity disappear. In Russia and Eastern Europe, Jews faced pogroms, legal restrictions and recurring accusations that transformed a vulnerable minority into a supposed danger to society. Jews were blamed for economic hardship, political upheaval and revolutionary movements while simultaneously being accused of capitalist exploitation. Contradictory accusations did not weaken the hatred. Germany provides perhaps the most astonishing example. German Jews had become among the most assimilated Jews in Europe. Many considered themselves Germans first. They served in the German military, participated deeply in German culture, spoke German rather than Yiddish and frequently practiced little Judaism. Some had converted to Christianity. None of it mattered. 

The Nazis reconstructed Jewish identity racially. People who had abandoned Judaism, converted generations earlier or scarcely thought of themselves as Jews were classified as Jews by the state. 

The Anomaly of Antisemitism:

There is another remarkable feature of Jewish history. Antisemitism is not confined to one civilization, one religion, one political ideology or one historical period. Its forms have been remarkably adaptable. Jews have been accused of religious crimes. They have been accused of economic exploitation. They have been accused of controlling governments. They have been accused of controlling the media. They have been accused of causing wars. They have been accused of causing financial crises. They have been accused of being capitalists and communists. They have been accused of being too religious and of being irreligious. They have been accused of being foreigners who refuse to integrate—and, at the same time, of secretly controlling the countries into which they have integrated. 

The particular accusation can change completely while the hostility remains. This raises a difficult question. What exactly is it about the Jewish people that causes the same phenomenon to keep reappearing under such different circumstances? Perhaps the answer is simply human prejudice. Perhaps Jews have been unusually convenient scapegoats because of their minority status and geographic dispersion. Perhaps political leaders have repeatedly discovered that blaming Jews is an effective way to mobilize public anger. All of those explanations have merit.

But they still leave a curious historical pattern. When Jewish distinctiveness weakens, Jewish identity does not necessarily disappear. And when Jewish identity appears to be disappearing, hostility sometimes reappears with remarkable force.

The Modern Anomaly of Antisemitism:

After October 7th, 2023, some Western activists defended or excused Hamas almost immediately. Others have expressed sympathy for Hezbollah or Iran. Yet these movements are fundamentally hostile to many of the very values embraced by the secular Western activists who support them—including liberal democracy, religious freedom and, in many cases, the rights of women and gay people. The contradiction is extraordinary. Some people who would never voluntarily live under the governments or movements they defend nevertheless become their advocates when the issue is Israel.

The question is why hatred of Israel can become so powerful that some people will overlook or excuse movements whose ideology is profoundly hostile to the very freedoms they otherwise champion. The hostility can become so irrational that people will support forces that may ultimately threaten their own interests, provided those forces also oppose Israel.

A Remarkable Paradox: 

The Jewish population becomes more secular. Religious observance declines. Intermarriage increases. Jewish identity becomes increasingly cultural rather than religious. The surrounding society becomes more accepting. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, antisemitism begins rising again. The accusations change. The circumstances change. The political language changes. But Jews once again become conspicuous. 

Spain provides one example. Some Jews converted to Christianity and attempted to become part of Spanish society. Yet suspicion of Jewish ancestry persisted. Nazi Germany provides an even more horrifying example. Some German Jews had converted to Christianity. Others had abandoned Jewish religious practice. Many considered themselves thoroughly German. It did not matter. The Nazis ultimately classified Jews according to ancestry rather than religious commitment. Assimilation therefore did not guarantee acceptance. 

And that leads to the central paradox: The Jew who attempts to disappear into the surrounding population may discover that the surrounding population will not allow him to disappear.

The Supernatural Antisemitic Brain Virus:

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks developed Rabbi Berlin’s writing and proposed the following pattern of Jewish history: The Jewish people attempt to assimilate, which causes antisemitism, which causes renewed Jewish distinctiveness, which leads to Jewish survival.

Antisemitism is not merely an unfortunate recurring feature of human history. It is a supernatural phenomenon that God utilizes. Not because God approves of antisemitism. Not because the antisemite is acting righteously. And certainly not because Jewish suffering is somehow desirable. Rather, God permits morally corrupt people to become unwitting instruments in preserving the people He has promised will remain. If Israel is supposed to remain distinct, and if assimilation threatens that distinctiveness, then a mechanism that periodically interrupts assimilation would serve that purpose.

And what mechanism could be more effective than antisemitism? It is a mechanism that the antisemite believes is destroying Jews while potentially producing the opposite result. The Jew who was becoming indifferent to his heritage suddenly discovers that the world still regards him as a Jew. The Jew who had abandoned Jewish identity suddenly rediscovers it. The community that had begun to dissolve suddenly closes its ranks. The people that seemed to be disappearing become visible again.

The irony is profound.

At precisely the historical moment when assimilation seemed capable of accomplishing what centuries of persecution could not—the gradual disappearance of Jews into the surrounding population—one of history’s most virulent forms of antisemitism forcibly identified them again. Different countries. Different centuries. Different religions. Different political systems. Yet the same strange phenomenon repeatedly emerges: Jews move toward absorption into the surrounding civilization, and something arises that marks them as Jews again.

The Pattern:

Put the observations together and a strange sequence emerges:

Assimilation → antisemitism → renewed Jewish distinctiveness → Jewish survival.

If this is merely coincidence, it is a remarkable coincidence. But there is another place where we can look for an explanation. Not to modern sociology. Not to political science. But to the Biblical writings.

A Biblical Purpose:

The Bible presents the Jewish people as having a purpose that extends beyond their own survival. God tells Israel:

“You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Exodus 19:6

And the biblical text makes the role of Israel toward other peoples particularly explicit:

“Keep the commandments and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples”

Deuteronomy 4:6

The nations are supposed to see Israel’s way of life and learn from it. Israel is not simply supposed to exist. Israel is supposed to remain sufficiently distinct that its example can be seen.

A People That Dwells Alone:

That brings us to one of the most famous descriptions of Israel in the Bible. When Balaam was hired to curse Israel, God instead compelled him to bless them. Balaam declared:

“Behold, a people that dwells alone, and is not reckoned among the nations.”

Numbers 23:9

There is something extraordinary about that description. Israel is not simply told to exist. It is described as a people that dwells alone. Yet that separateness is not presented as the end of its purpose. The Prophets later describe Israel as a light to the nations.

Isaiah says:

“I, the LORD, in My grace, have summoned you… and appointed you a covenant people, a light of nations.”

Isaiah 42:6

And:

“I will also make you a light of nations, that My salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”

Isaiah 49:6

So we have two ideas that initially seem contradictory: Israel is supposed to be separate from the nations. Israel is supposed to be a light to the nations. But perhaps they are actually inseparable. A light has to remain distinguishable from its surroundings in order to illuminate them. If Israel completely disappears into the nations, how can it fulfill a mission that depends upon its distinctiveness? This may explain why the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that Israel will remain.

They Were Never Meant to Disappear:

In the midst of the warnings of exile from Israel and punishment, God says:

“Yet even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I spurn them so as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them…”

Leviticus 26:44

The message is not that Jews will never suffer. It is not that they will never be exiled. It is not that they will never experience catastrophe. It is that they will not be destroyed as a people. Jeremiah later makes the idea even more dramatic:

“If these laws should ever be annulled by Me—declares the LORD—only then would the offspring of Israel cease to be a nation before Me for all time.”

Jeremiah 31:36

The continued existence of Israel is placed almost on the level of the permanence of the natural order. And now the earlier anomalies begin to look different. Israel is supposed to remain distinct. Israel is supposed to serve a purpose among the nations. Israel is promised continuing existence. And yet Israel repeatedly encounters forces pushing it either toward assimilation or toward renewed separation. That brings us back to the beginning of Jewish national history. And here we encounter what may be the earliest biblical example of the pattern.

The Pattern Begins in Egypt, The Jewish People Should Have Disappeared:

The Hebrews entered Egypt as a single extended family and initially lived separately in Goshen as Jacob arranged to keep them separated from the broader Egyptian population. As generations passed, they multiplied and spread. This separateness served an obvious purpose: a tiny family entering the world’s dominant civilization could otherwise have disappeared into it within generations. After Joseph and his brothers died, many of their children moved to other parts of Egypt and assimilated. The biblical text says:

“The Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, and the land was filled with them.”

Exodus 1:7

Pharoah – the Prototype Antisemite: 

When the Hebrew presence had spread throughout Egyptian society, the new Pharaoh does not merely say that there are many Hebrews. He imagines an extraordinary scenario in which they join an invading enemy fight against Egypt and ultimately dispossess the Egyptians themselves. He looked at this growing minority and imagined an existential threat: if war came, the Hebrews might join Egypt’s enemies, fight against Egypt and ultimately drive the Egyptians themselves from their land. The minority becomes, in his mind, an existential threat to the majority. His response is equally revealing: “Come, let us outsmart them.”

This is the first biblical appearance of a phenomenon that will recur throughout Jewish history: The ordinary harmless daily presence of the Jewish people becomes magnified into a delusional threat to national security. Jews are no longer merely neighbors or citizens. They become a hidden power, a fifth column, a conspiratorial force or an existential danger requiring extraordinary measures. Pharaoh did not have a measured response to an identifiable rebellion. It was a fantastically exaggerated projection of what this minority might someday do. Pharaoh therefore declared that Egypt must “outsmart” them. What followed was Israelite enslavement and infanticide. However, his obsession ultimately backfired and devastated Egypt. Yet in his own mind, persecuting the Hebrews had become an act of national self-preservation.

Pharaoh, an Antisemite under Divine Providence:

The story goes even further. Moses demands that Pharaoh release Israel. At first, Pharaoh hardens his own heart and does not allow them to leave. But later, the biblical text says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. That presents an obvious question about free will. If God can harden a person’s heart, then God’s sovereignty can override or constrain that person’s ability to choose differently. The biblical narrative appears to say precisely that. Pharaoh had become so hardened that his own will was effectively no longer capable of producing the outcome God wanted. Yet God was able to use Pharaoh’s stubbornness for a larger purpose that Pharaoh himself did not understand. Pharaoh believed he was preserving Egyptian power.

Instead, he became an instrument through which God’s purposes for Israel were advanced. Pharaoh kept the Israelites from leaving, despite the massive destruction to Egypt from the plagues. 

Pharaoh’s advisors said to him: “Let the men go and worship their God! Are you not aware that Egypt is lost?” 

Exodus 10:7 

This provides a theological model for the possibility being proposed here. The antisemite believes that he is harming the Jews. But God may be using that very hostility to accomplish something entirely different. The antisemite thinks he is destroying Jewish identity. He may actually be helping to preserve it.

Israel and the Pattern Today:

The same phenomenon may be visible in the modern State of Israel. A portion of secular Israelis have attempted to make Israel “just another country.” Some have regarded Jewish religious tradition as an unnecessary burden. Others have emphasized Israeli rather than Jewish identity. There has therefore been a form of national assimilation; an attempt to make Israel simply another modern Western country. Yet Israel repeatedly finds itself thrust into the center of world attention. It cannot seem to become ordinary. Israel is a tiny country. Yet it is debated constantly in Western universities. It dominates international diplomatic discussions.

It produces enormous quantities of news coverage. Its actions are scrutinized by international organizations. Its wars have become global political causes. Its enemies become causes célèbres for activists thousands of miles away. And its very legitimacy is debated in a way that is unusual among modern nations.

Why?

Perhaps the answer is simply geopolitics. But perhaps the same principle that has operated throughout Jewish history is still operating. Israel cannot simply disappear into the surrounding nations. And the world cannot seem to stop talking about it.

An Extraordinary Coincidence—or Something More?

The secular explanation for Jewish survival is straightforward. The Jewish people are extraordinarily resilient. They developed strong families, communities, traditions and institutions. They preserved their identity through exile. They adapted to different cultures without completely disappearing into them. All of that is true. But there is another way of looking at the evidence. 

The Bible predicted that the Jewish people would remain distinct among the nations. 

The irony is extraordinary. The very forces that have attempted to eliminate Jewish distinctiveness may sometimes have helped preserve it. Perhaps that is why the Jewish people have never succeeded in simply disappearing into the nations. And perhaps it is why the world has never succeeded in simply ignoring them. They remain a people that dwells alone. They remain a people that cannot be counted out of history. And they remain a people intended to be a light to the nations. The reason Israel and the Jewish people receive so much attention is not because they are so large or powerful. It is because they occupy an unusual place in the biblical story of humanity.

Antisemitism is not evidence that God has abandoned the Jewish people. Paradoxically, its repeated reappearance is evidence of the opposite. The supernatural antisemitic brain virus is one of the mechanisms through which God has promised to preserve from disappearing into the nations. If so, the antisemite has always misunderstood what he is doing. He thinks he is eliminating the Jews. He may actually be helping ensure that they remain. And perhaps that is why, from the beginning, they were never meant to disappear.