You Jew!

Antisemitism is on the rise. Jews all over the world are being attacked, both verbally and physically. What are you doing to solve this?

You have for sure seen this type of slogan all over, and we think it’s a pretty normal reaction. Jews are under attack, so we need to defend ourselves. The only problem is that the one time we tried to end antisemitism, we were subject to a genocide campaign by a madman while the world watched in silence.

Throughout history, Jews have mainly tried to deal with antisemitism through bribes or escape. Antisemitism was always an unpleasant reality, but the Jews took it as a problem to be dodged, not to be solved. Don Issac Abarbanel, perhaps the most important Jew in Spain in 1492, tried to stop the Spanish expulsion with a massive bribery. When that didn’t work, he just made his bags and left. That was the ‘Jewish way’ of combating Antisemitism.

And then it came, the Enlightenment, and with it a belief that everything could be solved with rationality. So, we explained to the world that the Jew wasn’t useless. He could go to university. He could hold senior positions. He could enter politics. He could shape your politics.

So, we were accused of trying to control the world. Antisemitism clearly hadn’t been tamed by rationality, for it recoiled and launched a holocaust the world has never seen before.

So, what can we do?

I think we should try to convince our fellow Jew to be more Jewish. We should tell him to be less preoccupied telling the world how good of a Jew he is and instead tell God how much of a Jew he is. And maybe, antisemitism will go down a notch. Shabbat Shalom.