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Why the Jews?: the Reason for Anti-Semitism Free FREE WHY THE JEWS?: THE REASON FOR ANTI- SEMITISM PDF Dennis Prager,Rabbi Joseph Telushkin | 272 pages | 01 Dec 2003 | Simon & Schuster Ltd | 9780743246200 | English | London, United Kingdom The Reason For Anti-Semitism Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email. The Chosen Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism. Much that is important about this audaciously subtitled book the one and only reason for anti-Semitism? The book is the second collaboration by these authors. In this book, inevitably, there is some weeping—no treatment of the subject could avoid it—and also some crude formulations and awkward writing. But there is very little self-pity. The reason is that the authors find the root of anti-Semitism not in racism, xenophobia, the need for scapegoats, economic depressions, or any other universalizing factor. The occasion for the hatred of Jews they find in Judaism itself—hence the simplicity of the subtitle. It is important to recognize from the outset, they argue, that Judaism is unique. Unlike other religions, it is Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism a nation. Unlike other nations, Jews maintained a sense of peoplehood even when they were without a state. The traditional Jewish formulation of this uniqueness is expressed as God moralityTorah lawand Israel peoplehood. All anti-Semitism, announces this book, is a reaction to one or more of these three pillars of Judaism. The idea that anti-Semitism is a manifestation of a primitive revolt against morality, civilization, and God Himself must be particularly appealing to the modern Jewish mind grown weary of the scapegoat theory and other de-Judaizing explanations for the persecution of Jews. Pre-modern Jews understood this, accepting as axiomatic that the persecution they suffered was chargeable to their challenging religion. A Jew who sacrificed his life rather than give up his faith was said to have died al kiddush hashemin sanctification of the name of God. Satisfying as such speculation may be, its usefulness as Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism explanation is limited. As the authors themselves stress more than once, Nazism was a unique form of anti-Semitism. The naked neo-paganism of a Hitler Youth slogan may be fascinating in Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism own terms, but is uninstructive on the causes of the more universal forms of anti-Semitism. It is historically and theologically reductive, to say the least, to reason that the Jewish rejection of Jesus was perceived by Christians as fealty to monotheism in the face of an invitation to some other kind of faith. Christianity adopted monotheism: its quarrel with Judaism is a family one—with, to be sure, all of the bitterness and hatreds such quarrels engender. This feature became even more inflammatory with the rise of nationalism in Europe. The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals. There cannot be one nation within another nation. The focus had merely shifted from the God component of Judaism to the Israel component. But the two are not severable. How can Jews give up their nationhood and yet remain Jews? This communal religion touches every aspect of life, and adherence to even a few of its dictates marks the Jew off from the larger society. Perhaps anti-Semites never truly understood this. Prager and Telushkin have assembled quotation after quotation by Enlightenment, Socialist, and Communist theorists first confidently predicting the assimilation of the Jews and then, disappointed, renewing every anti-Semitic calumny they could unearth, the most vile being the current Soviet accusation that during World War II the Jews collaborated with the Nazis to murder Russian prisoners of war. But while the nationalist component of Judaism sets it apart from other faiths, religion has itself molded the nationalism of the Jews, and nowhere more strikingly than in what is, perhaps, the most provocative doctrine in history: chosenness. But the authors protest. Should it not rather have Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism an occasion of derision where it was known at all? Their explanation offers some interesting insights. They speculate that the traditionally higher standard of living which Jews always enjoyed relative to their neighbors gave the claim to chosenness a certain discomfiting plausibility. Jewish poverty, for example, was less visible than that of others because the law of Moses made charity justice tzedakah —and justice a religious obligation. Poor Jews, though ever with us, were less conspicuous than poor Gentiles, contributing to the belief Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti- Semitism the Jews suffered no poverty. Adherence to the religious laws regarding family life meant that abandonment and wife-beating were exceedingly rare. Alcoholism was almost unknown. The doctrine of chosenness, Prager and Telushkin conclude, was resented as much for its circumstantial persuasiveness as for its intrinsic effrontery. The emphasis on chosenness is surely correct, and evidence for it crops up again and again throughout the broad historical sweep of the book. The precept was anathema to pagans, Christians, Muslims, Enlightenment liberals, Socialists, and no doubt to Zoroastrians though the book is silent on this. But in their apology for the doctrine, the authors slide into defensive parochialism. Noting that Jews have always been aware of its offensiveness, and that two groups, 19th-century Reform Jews and 20th-century Reconstructionists, have moved to excise the idea from Judaism, they complain that it has been consistently misunderstood. Jews, they argue, saw themselves singled out not for privileges but rather for onerous responsibilities. But this insistence that Jews were chosen only for obligation and suffering is disingenuous. Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism Jews found their status onerous, it was almost certainly because of the envy it excited among fellow mortals, not because they would have preferred some other relationship to God. A beautiful woman might feel her beauty a burden when surrounded by her lesser endowed Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism, but she would be unlikely to surrender her gifts if the opportunity were offered. A better response would be to point out that the claim to chosenness, while undeniably obnoxious, was never cruel—as it was when Christians transmogrified it. One of the strengths of this book is the intellectual housecleaning it undertakes. The authors briskly dispose of several lingering myths about the causes of anti-Semitism. For example, the argument that wealth causes hatred of Jews is refuted by a simple comparison. In Eastern Europe, where Jews were poorest, they suffered the most. In North America, where they have been the most affluent, they have suffered the least. Again, although the authors devote considerable attention to Christian anti-Semitism, they take due notice of the important fact that today, moderate and conservative Christians are crucial allies and friends. The blood libel was ghastly and obscene, but its modern inheritors can be found in the souks and the Soviets, not in the churches. Neither the demoralization of the non-Jewish nation nor the resultant. Trotsky refused. There is no single explanation for anti-Semitism; their title identifies only the victim. But their insights into the various outbreaks of anti-Semitism take us very far. The book is as valuable for the theories it explodes as for those it propounds. Login Access your Commentary account. Email address. Remember me. Forgot your password? Username or email. Reset password. Go back. Share via: More. You may also like. Alternate History by Mark Horowitz. Jew-Tagging Wikipedia by Edward Kosner. Scroll Down For the Next Article. Share via. Facebook Messenger. Copy Link. Copy link. Copy Copied. Why Do People Hate The Jews? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up until now? It is G-d who has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. Who knows it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and only that reason do we suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English or representatives of any country for that matter. We will always remain Jews. Anti-Semitism is unique amongst the hatreds in the world in a combination of four aspects: 1 Longevity -- it's been around a long time 2 Universality -- virtually everywhere in the world 3 Intensity -- it's expressed in a particularly virulent manner 4 Confusion -- there is surprisingly little agreement on why people hate the Jews. Historians offer many "reasons" to explain why people are anti-Semitic: Jews are too powerful or too lazy; too separate or a threat to "racial purity" through assimilation; pacifistic or warmongers; capitalist exploiters or revolutionary communists; the "killers" of Jesus or the progenitors of Jesus; possessors of a Chosen People mentality or an inferiority complex. These reasons have one thing in common -- they have nothing to do with our being Jewish. One might think that we are just the victims of bad luck -- always possessing the needed quality to be hated wherever we are in the world at exactly that time in history. Do you know who disagrees with the historians? Anne Frank. Writes Anne Frank on April 11, in her diary: "Who knows -- it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. Anne Frank made a point of stressing that Jews have something of special Why the Jews?: The Reason for Anti-Semitism to give to the world, and that is precisely what the world has resented, and that is why people have persecuted Jews.
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