ANTI-SEMITISM and ITS ORIGINS: a BRIEF REVIEW and RELFECTIONS Saturday's Tragic Event at the Tree of Life Synagogue, in Pitts
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ANTI-SEMITISM AND ITS ORIGINS: A BRIEF REVIEW AND RELFECTIONS Saturday’s tragic event at the Tree of Life Synagogue, in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill once again rips open a cultural and religious sore that just doesn’t seem to want to heal – Anti-Semitism! One is forced to reflect upon why is this still possible in the twenty-first century. How is it that after all these years of struggle that the Jews must still face uncertainty even as they worship on Shabbat? A brief review of human history paints a sordid picture of culpability that crosses ethnic, religious, national, and societal boundaries. It would be easy to select one facet of its history and rationalize it away as a result of this, that, or some other thing. To do so trivializes the serious nature of Anti-Semitism and its resultant consequences. Anti-Semitism is, first and foremost, a misnomer. It is not what we think it is. To use the term is to ignore what it implies: a prejudice, discrimination, and even hatred, of the Jew. However, the term implies a prejudice, discrimination, and even hatred of all Semites. We cannot escape the fact that what we are examining are the attitudes toward people of the Jewish tradition; religiously, culturally, and racially. To begin, Anti-Jewishness has a very long, and varied history. We can enter our review with the person of Abraham, the one Judaism, Christianity, and Islam consider to be their “father in the faith.” Abraham is said to have been called by G-d (YHWH) to leave the valley of Ur with his extended family and journey to what is now the area known as Israel/Palestine. This was not unoccupied land. This was then the land we call Canaan and its occupants were known as Canaanites with their own religious expression. Almost 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth two diametrically opposed religious expressions were brought into proximity with one another. The Canaanites were polytheists, worshiping a variety of gods. Abraham brought with him the concept of there being only one god, the one who had called him to travel to this new place and tell them about this singular deity. In effect, Abraham was asking the Canaanites to give up what they had always believed and to accept a whole new world-view. In response, the inhabitants came to see Abraham and his people as obstinate for their refusal to worship the local gods. This in led to conflict, and at times, persecution of the new comers. Page – 2 – The followers of Judaism encountered a rupture in their unity when a man from the area of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, began preaching and teaching, while not actually against the Jews, called many of their practices and beliefs into question. For almost seventy years the followers of this Jesus were considered by many, including the Emperor of Rome, to be a sect of the Jews. While it is difficult to point to a specific date and say “this is when Christians split from the Jews,” it is plausible to consider 70 CE as a significant date in that process. That is when the Roman legions destroyed the city of Jerusalem, including the second, or Herodian Temple. The Jews had already begun the development of places of assembly outside of Jerusalem known as synagogues. Once the Temple was destroyed, so too was the priesthood that was based on the sacrificial system of the temple. Thus, the power based of Judaism began to splinter as more and more synagogues appeared throughout the entire region of Palestine. Initially, Rome too little notice of this change, but in time they began to realize that a major shift was occurring in their empire. Rome did not appreciate change unless they had initiated it. For the next two plus centuries Rome thought of the developing Christian movement as a sect within Judaism. That was fine as long as Christians did the three things Roman law required of all those who lived within the Empire: 1) Pay your taxes, 2) Keep the peace, and 3) consider the Emperor to be God and Man. Needless-to-say, that was not going to be possible for the Christians. Paying taxes was one thing, but if keeping the peace meant no more spreading of the message of the Jesus as the Christ, or Messiah, that was something else. For you see, such teachings often led to civil unrest as the evangelists proclaimed their message, Jews and non- Jews began to be in conflict with their teachings. It was not uncommon for public disturbances to develop over this preaching. Christianity was officially seen as a sect of the Jews by the Romans, meaning that at times they were protected by the Romans and at other times they were persecuted. Sporadic persecutions occurred until 313 CE when the Edict of Milan brought them to an end. “A critical step in this process took place in 324-325, when Constantine led an army against the eastern Emperor Licinus. Licinus’ defeat made Constantine sole emperor over the entire Roman empire. Christianity would now be Page -3- tolerated throughout the empire.” (Christianity: An Introduction 3rd Edition. Alister E. McGrath p. 130) During this time Christianity was fighting for its existence as some of their spokespersons were not beneath using the Jews as a scapegoat for the ills facing the Roman Empire. St. Augustine of the 4th century went so far as to claim that the Jews were rebels against G-d and were murders of Christ. Even the Gospel of John refers to “The Jews” when in fact he was speaking of some of the Jewish leaders. Guilt by association and broad generalizations are not new phenomenon to the twenty-first century. It is more than likely that animus toward the Jews was present as far back as the Babylonian era when the Jews in exile were criticized for remaining in their separate cultural groups, resisting assimilation with the culture around them. As Christianity spread into Europe in the Medieval period so too did anti- Jewish myths. One in particular traces its origins to those times: “Blood Libel.” The Jews were accused of kidnapping Christian children for the purpose of killing them and using their blood to make Passover bread. During the Middle Ages Jews were ordered to live in confined areas of the cities known as ghettos. In addition, Jews, in some countries, were required to wear a yellow badge on their clothing to indicate that they were Jews. Some areas of Europe required Jewish men and boys to wear a Judenhut, a special hat that would make them stand out as a Jew. Civil liberties and religious freedom and even citizenship was denied to the Medieval European Jews. When economic conditions worsened Jews became easy targets for scapegoating, and in some cases, even expulsion from their own countries: England in 1290, France in 1394, and Spain in 1492. Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, wrote a pamphlet in 1545 entitled “The Jews and Their Lies” in which me maintained that Jews ought to be killed because they were thirsty for Christian blood. There were areas of Europe in which non-Jews would persecute Jews within their communities. These were called Pogroms and were especially active in Ukrainian and Russian areas. It is estimated that between 1918 and 1921 (The time of the Russian Revolution) some 30,000 to 70,000 Jews were killed and almost half a million Ukrainian Jews were left homeless. Page – 4 – The late 1930s and early 1940s saw Adolph Hitler and the Nazis rise to power in Germany. The German economy was devastated by the loss of World War I and the Jews were the easy target for Hitler to blame for that loss. In 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were enacted that defined who/what was a Jew, and in the process taught the German people that Jews were a separate race who would pollute the Aryan or German race. Within three years the infamous Kristallnacht occurred on November 9-10, 1938. “The Night of Broken Glass” saw the burning of over 250 synagogues throughout Germany and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. On November 11, 1938 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Until then, the Nazi policies were generally non-violent. After Kristallnacht the country was on its way to the Nazi’s Final Solution, the Holocaust in which more than six million Jews, plus Gypsies, the mentally and physically deformed, the Homosexuals, and Communists were exterminated. An historic irony can be found in the fact that Adolph Hitler used Martin Luther’s pamphlet “The Jews and Their Lies” as part of his justification for the Nazi policies. One would have hoped that by the end of World War II that the anti-Jewish movement had died out. Sadly, we know that just is not the case. The Zionist movement, begun in the late nineteenth century, helped to bring about the climate for the establishment of a Jewish State in 1948. The hope of that time was that this would finally bring an end to the anti-Jewish hatred and antagonism. Sadly, that was not to be the case. The Middle East, especially Israel, continues to see wars that very much have their base in anti- Jewish attitudes. While there are definitely legitimate concerns on the part of the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations, Israel finds herself constantly facing antagonism from within and without. The ongoing conflict over the establishment of Israel (the Jewish State) and the failure of the United Nations to establish the Non-Jewish State called for in Resolution 181 will not be resolved until that issue is fully and justly addressed.