First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon

THE ORIGIN OF ANTISEMITISM

I “The Canary in the Mine” ****

Jonathan Swift, an eighteenth-century author, once said that you cannot reason someone out of something that he or she has not been reasoned into. Neither can the poison of antisemitism that has proliferated in receptive minds and congealed into an unyielding conviction be extracted through mere argument. Once an emotional stereotype has been created, it is readily absorbed into one’s system like strontium 90, and distorts the perception of those affected by it so they cannot recognize the individuality and humanity of their victims, thus reducing them to abstractions with no value. No other people have ever been stereotyped more heinously and durably throughout history than have the Jews. Why?

This question is addressed by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin in their book, Why the Jews? They argue that any fresh outbreak of Jew-hatred is humanity’s early warning system of a greater evil to come, and that a rise in antisemitism should serve as the “canary in the mine” for the rest of humankind. Antisemites begin with Jews but never end with Jews. Instead, their venomous hatred spreads out to engulf members of other groups as well. Nazi and Islamist terrorists, to take just two recent examples, have persecuted and murdered far more non-Jews than Jews, with more than twenty million people being consumed by the Nazi death machine during World War II alone.

The Jews who are hated most in the world today are the residents of the nation of Israel, which David Harris of the American Jewish Committee has identified as the only U.N. member-state to be targeted for annihilation by another U.N. member-state (Iran). In addition, Israel has been the subject of more hostile resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly than all the other 192 UN member states combined. But Jew-hatred is not confined to the Jews of Israel. Antisemitism in Europe has grown exponentially along-side of the rapid growth of radical Islam. Everywhere in Europe, incidents of antisemitism are on the rise, prompting the Atlantic to release a cover story in 2015 asking “Is It Time For the Jews to Leave Europe?”

There are many who argue that it is Israel’s presence and treatment of the Palestinians on the West Bank that fuels this violence against Jews in Europe and elsewhere. But when the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and decapitated by Islamist terrorists several years ago, it was not Israel’s occupation policies they objected to. Before cutting his throat, they forced him to declare: “My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew, and I am a Jew.” It was for that reason they murdered him. It was for that reason, too, that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, once lamented that if only all the Jews would gather in Israel, “it would save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

When viewed in relation to other parts of the world, the United States continues to be a country in which Jews are treated relatively well. A 2017 Pew Research survey found that Jews continue to be among the groups seen most positively within the United States, with half of all U.S. adults giving Jews a ranking of 67 or higher on a scale of zero to one hundred—the highest ranking given to any group. (Mainline Protestants like us only received a ranking of 65!) This is encouraging, especially in light of the First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon

fact that the number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. rose nearly 60 percent in 2017 over 2016, the largest single-year increase on record since the 1970s. Though a significant number of white nationalists ran for office in the 2018 midterms—including some blatant anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers—nearly all of them lost. Thus, according to Ira Forman, a former U.S. special envoy to monitor antisemitism from 2013 to 2017, “We don’t have the antisemitism problems that France does, or German or Belgium or Hungary or Poland.”

According to Prager and Telushkin, American Jews have commonly associated antisemitism with Christianity and the political Right, due in large part to the historical experience of Jews in Europe. But in America, the opposite seems to be true. Christians on the Right in America, particularly Evangelicals, are among Israel’s most outspoken supporters, along with some of the most conservative lawmakers in Congress. Hostility toward Israel, or at least to its well-being, is now primarily located within some left- leaning Protestant churches and with the political Left, especially in secular universities and among left- wing activist groups. This hostility is aimed, not at all Jews, but at the Jewish state of Israel for what is perceived to be its malevolent self-serving purposes. Among the most wide-spread expressions of hatred toward Israel is the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement which is devoted to forging an economic, academic, and cultural boycott of Israel because of its control over the West Bank and its alleged genocidal policies toward the Palestinians. Among those who support the BDS movement are secular Jews, some of whom even wish to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.” This type of anti- Israel hostility, even among Jews, is known as “anti-Zionism” and its tentacles are far-reaching.

Given the long and universal history of antisemitism, American Jews have accepted that a certain level of antisemitism, even in a generally friendly society, will continue to exist. But how is one to know when antisemitism reaches a dangerous level? What level of hatred must be endured before the canary dies?

Prager and Telushkin suggest the following test: “When a person is exposed as an antisemite, does it raise or lower that person’s status in society? . . . As long as being exposed as an anti-Semite injures one’s status in American society, America will remain a country in which Jews continue to prosper. However if being exposed as one who works to harm Israel—let alone aids those who seek to destroy it— or to otherwise harm the Jewish people—does not lower the regard in which that individual is held, the Jewish community will be in trouble.” In the late 1980s, Pat Buchanan, a leading conservative figure in the Republican Party, made antisemitic remarks and, when called on them, refused to apologize. He was subsequently marginalized.

Jews are the proverbial canary in the mine of humanity. Best they remain alive and singing lest many of us also suffer and die. Antisemites begin with Jews but they never end with them!