How to Defeat Anti-Semitism

Sermon Shabbat Zachor/Vayikra 5784

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

There is an ancient joke that kept coming back to me this week:  An old Jewish man is sitting on a bench reading his newspaper when an anti-Semite approaches him and says angrily, "You know, all the world's problems are because of you damned Jews."

The Jewish man looks up and replies, "And the bicycle riders."

The anti-Semite replies, befuddled, "Why the bicycle riders?"

And the Jewish man responds, "Why the Jews?"

Since I am both a bicycle rider and a Jew, this joke works on several levels for me, but of course it points up the absurdity of any kind of random race hatred, particularly this one.  And this being Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of remembering anti-Jewish and anti-Israelite hatred in our history, it’s the right time to explore what it means and how we might best address it.

My friends, we Jews have been dealing with Anti-Semitism for a very long time, and perhaps the most innovative approach we’ve taken has been to celebrate our victories over it in innovative and delightful ways.  Perhaps the three most enjoyable Jewish holidays of all are Chanukah, Purim and Passover, which fall on our calendar from December through April.  These festivals can best be described in a nine-word sentence: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!”  And tomorrow night and Sunday and Sunday night we will celebrate Purim, the most purely fun Jewish holiday of all. Only Jews could take our first experience of attempted genocide and turn it into a time of unbridled revelry, joyously observing our ability to survive attempted mass murder in Persia—that is Iran—2500 years ago.  Even in a year when we have experienced the greatest surge of Antisemitic violence and antisemitic rhetoric since the Holocaust, still we are commanded to celebrate our ultimate victory over this eternally recurring attempt to destroy our people. 

Look, is Anti-Semitism substantially different in character from the vicious racism and anti-anything that causes otherwise normal human beings to attack and slaughter those who are different from them in Sudan or Haiti or Ukraine?  No.  But it has been around longer, and it manages to come back from the dead, like an evil Lazarus-like zombie, just when you think it has finally disappeared for good.

Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest and most persistent form of race hatred, an irrational and virulent hostility to Jews based on a foundation of lies, embraced by generations of people who all should know better.  It has shown a cockroach-like ability to thrive in dark corners and under all sorts of rocks, and a weed-like ability to grow in the least favorable conditions imaginable. 

It has been proven that you don’t even need to have Jews around for Anti-Semitism to exist and spread; international surveys of Anti-Semitism show that South Korea has a high level of Anti-Semitism, even though Jews have more or less never lived there.  Throughout history Anti-Semitism was fostered by major religious institutions, important nations and empires, and resulted in horrible persecutions ranging from massacres of Jews in Roman times to Crusaders slaughtering entire communities of Jews to expulsions from England, France and Spain to the torture chambers of the Inquisition to brutal, government-sponsored pogroms throughout the old Russian Empire to the Holocaust to Communist purges against Jews to Arab nations expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews in the 1950s to horrific Arab terror attacks on Jews in Israel, Europe and South America to recent events like Charlottesville and Pittsburgh here in America—to October 7th, and the hostility and violence world-wide, including on college campuses all across North America, and in major US cities and in city council meetings, where chants calling for “Jewish genocide” and the destruction of the only Jewish state on the planet in the name of Palestinians ruling “from the river to the sea” ring out.  Like a cancer on the body of the human race, Anti-Semitism simply refuses to disappear.   

But you know, back when we began the Too Jewish Radio Show in the year 2002 there was a consensus among scholars of Anti-Semitism that it was on the wane both here and around the world, and might even disappear soon, at least in America.  One of my very first guests on the show was Professor Leonard Dinnerstein of blessed memory, who passed away recently, author of the book Anti-Semitism in America, then the authoritative text on the subject.  He was the founder of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Arizona.  Back in 2002, Dinnerstein said that the pernicious and irrational hatred of Jews that has been such a terrible burden for our people throughout history had been fading in America for decades and was no longer socially acceptable.  Jews had broken through the glass ceiling that kept us from many important roles in society, we were influential and accepted nearly everywhere, from Ivy League schools to formerly Jew-free industries to once-restricted country clubs to high government office. 

And then, well, bad things happened.  The Anti-Israel, Anti-Zionist virus in the Muslim world spread, and was nurtured and flourished among aspects of the left in Europe, and also in Canada and the US.  It took root deeply on college campuses and among so-called progressives, and went from reasoned discussions of a Palestinian state to the desire to destroy Israel, and then morphed into deliberately Anti-Semitic tropes and slanders, becoming ever-more virulent and prevalent.  In Great Britain the Labour Party became the home of openly Anti-Semitic politicians led by Jeremy Corbyn, who hosted Hamas representatives, and that form of liberal Anti-Semitism has come to the US Congress too, where Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar plays in an ugly way on long discredited claims of Jewish dual loyalty and influential Jewish money, and where the so-called Squad seeks to destroy American support for Israel using anti-Semitic tropes.

Along with this left-wing Anti-Semitism there has been an awful revival of old-fashioned right-wing, racist Anti-Semitism in Europe and America.  That vicious Anti-Jewish hatred has manifested in extreme right-wing movements and political parties in Eastern, Central and Western Europe.  We even see revived neo-Nazi parties embracing the disastrously failed ideology of race-hatred and autocracy.  While the vast majority of physical attacks on Jews in Europe have been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists in recent years, fascists are now doing their share, committing publicly Anti-Semitic acts and violence against Jews.  In France, the first nation on earth to give Jews full and equal civil rights, third largest Jewish population of any country in the world, in France Anti-Semitic acts are up 100% in the past year, with a combination of far-right Anti-Semites making common cause with far-left protestors and angry Arab immigrants to deface Jewish tombstones, paint swastikas, and make Holocaust-flavored jokes about ovens.  Some say that central London has become a no-go zone for Jews because of the violent pro-Palestinian protests each weekend.

Here in America revived far-right hate groups and radical fringe websites of white supremacists encourage anti-semitic actions online, have resulted in awful attacks like the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh and the fatal attack in Poway, California a couple of years ago.

Somehow, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, almost 80 years after the end of the Shoah, elements both far left and far right have embraced an insanely irrational ancient racism based on an entire library of conspiracy theories, lies and forged texts, Anti-Semitism.  Angry people on the fringes of society, far left and far right both, have chosen to blame the problems of huge, complex societies and regional and international issues on our tiny minority population that makes up far less than one percent of the world’s people.  This is in spite of the fact that we Jews and Jewish concepts and scholarship have advanced the progress of civilization and improved humanity in countless positive ways, ranging from medicine to music, from physics to filmmaking to finance, from art to architecture to advanced technology.  If you look at what Jews have contributed to the world you logically cannot possibly believe the propaganda put out by these lunatic fringes.  For pity’s sake, without our Torah and Tanakh there would be no New Testament or Koran, no Christianity or Islam or Western Civilization.

Why do people embrace Anti-Semitism?  Well, it’s far easier to blame the Jews than it is to actually try to fix the brokenness of the world.  Small-minded people prefer villains to heroes, and demonizing the Jews has always been the easy way out for demagogues, cowards, and frauds.  And when you have had so many important people advocating it for so long, well, you are bound to feel justified in accessing your very own bigoted bone.

So, rabbi you ask, what is the solution?  Why bring up a problem if you don’t have the answer?  Sadly, no one has quite figured that out in the past two thousand years.  But generally, the most effective response to Anti-Semitism requires three things: direct, strong actions that demonstrate that this is not going to be tolerated.  We must stand up to Anti-Semitism in every manifestation, whether the people demonstrating it are on our side in other matters or not.  It is pernicious, evil, wrong and very dangerous.  In fact, we are most effective combating Anti-Semitism in our friends, convincing people we know well and with whom we mostly agree to fix their own Anti-Semitic tendencies.

Secondly, we have to educate, others and ourselves.  A little learning and actual experience of interacting with Jews goes a long way towards exposing the falsehoods and illogic of Anti-Semitism and dispelling the insanity of irrational, racist hatred.  Learning about Judaism, coming to synagogue, participating in Jewish adult education and teaching your children about Jews and Judaism and Israel are all outstanding ways to counteract the ignorance and bias that perpetuate racist hatred.  Affirming our pride in our incredible heritage, passing it on with joy and integrity, celebrating our Jewish identity, these are the best ways to overcome Anti-Semitism. 

There is a third thing we can do, beyond speaking up against Anti-Semitism and educating ourselves.  And it is very likely the most important way to counteract this evil in our world.

The best allies we can have in the effort to eradicate this archaic evil are not actually other Jews.  They are smart, caring people of different traditions.  They are Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and secularists and other decent, grounded, humane people who care about making the world better.  The better they know us, and the more they see us support them when they are suffering and in time of need, the more certain it is that they will come to our support and fight Anti-Semitism when it arises.  Common cause with good people of all backgrounds is the surest way to defeat hatred.  It means making certain that people know that Jews care about the whole community’s needs, and work to heal and help it.

It’s fascinating: working against Anti-Semitism means that we have to demonstrate some of our Jewish ability to grow beyond our own limitations and embrace people we might secretly harbor some biases against ourselves.  But if we do, I promise we will be richly rewarded, and not only in paradise.

This week we read Vayikra, which addresses how we are to become close to God.  I think the lesson we may take from all of this is that perhaps we must first become closer to the good people around us, and then, and only then, will we be able to bring this troubled world closer to God.

May this be God’s will, but first of all, ours.