Anti-Semitism

 

This a series of posts explores anti-Semitism, its origins, the motivations behind it, its various manifestations, its consequences, and its possible future. The series also proposes a method for determining when an act or statement is anti-Semitic and concludes with some suggestions for remedying the consequences of anti-Semitism. A series of discussion questions is also included.

 

Review of the previous post.

 

The previous post, post number 2 of 33, was the first of 4 posts discussing an overview of anti-Semitism and continues the discussion

 

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 3 of 33, is the second of 4 posts discussing an overview of anti-Semitism and continues the discussion.

 

Absurd lies have been perpetrated and believed about them: the Blood Libel (Jews kill Christian babies to use their blood for rituals, started in 850 AD and still believed today and used as an excuse to kill thousands of Jews); the Matzo of Zion (Jews use the blood of Christian babies to make Matzo); the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Jews are plotting to take over the world)^[1].  Certainly, the myth that Jews want to take over the world had been used over and over^[2]. The list goes on and on.

Anti-Semitism is not a unitary phenomenon, a coherent belief or ideology. Jews have been hated because they were rich and because they were poor; because they were capitalists and because they were communists; because they worked too hard; because they were lazy since they would not work on the Sabbath; because they believed in tradition and because they were rootless cosmopolitans; because they kept to themselves and because they penetrated everywhere; because they were dark strangers in Europe; because they are white settler colonists in Palestine^[3]. They have been hated by the poor; the rich; the powerful; the powerless; the uneducated; the highly educated; by leaders; by followers; by workers; by employers; by writers; by philosophers; by kings; by tyrants, by dictators, by holders of non-democratic power, and by rulers of totalitarian states, by peasants; by neighbors; by those who do not even know them. As stated above, Jews have been hated and murdered simply because they were Jews. The hatred has been racial, ideological, political, attitudinal, racial, personal, and collective. There are those who even blindly hate an entire country, Israel, and accuse it of unrealistic crimes simply because they hate Jews. You name the form, and you will find Jew hatred somewhere in it.

Jews have suffered pogroms; forced exile; forced conversion; massacres; individual killings; organized killings; humiliation;  holocaust where one-third of the entire Jewish race was exterminated while the world stood by or worse, actually turned their backs and refused asylum to Jews seeking safe haven from the Nazi death machine^[4].

 

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 4 of 33, is the third of 4 posts discussing an overview of anti-Semitism and continues the discussion.

 

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[1] The following discussion is a condensation of an article by Brigitte Sion which appeared in the November 28, 2014 edition of the online publication “My Jewish Learning”.

 

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic pamphlet published in Russia at the end of the 19th century.

It purports to be the minutes of meetings held secretly by Jewish wise men plotting to control the world and consists of 24 “meetings” during which the chief of the Jewish wise men explains how to turn non-Jews into slaves and how to take hold of various global institutions. . Exposed many times as a forgery, the Protocols has nevertheless continued to be translated, published, and distributed all over the world, from the United States to Japan, from the Arab world to Latin America. Its legacy is alive and well today in the Hamas Charter, among Holocaust deniers, and conspiracy theorists.

Different editions give different accounts of where the manuscript was “found.” In some editions, it was discovered in the “chancellery of Zion,” purportedly located in France. In others, it was obtained by “a woman who knew one of the top leaders of Free Masonry,” another society typically associated with Jewish conspiracies. In other editions, the Protocols was presented by Theodore Herzl himself at the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

The Protocols’ conspiracy to destroy Christianity and control the world includes a plan to take over the media, as laid out in the 12th Protocol: “Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals…It will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind.” As part of the conspiracy, the Pope and the Church will be annihilated “so that only years divide us from the moment of the complete wrecking of that Christian religion (Protocol 17).”

The final takeover will be achieved financially: “We shall replace the money markets by grandiose government credit institutions, the object of which will be to fix the price of industrial values in accordance with government views…You may imagine for yourselves what immense power we shall thereby secure for ourselves…(Protocol 21)”

The text makes the Jews responsible for present and past disasters, from the downfall of Christian monarchies to the French Revolution and the advancement of liberal and bourgeois ideas. The Protocols contain a number of metaphors essential to conspiracy vocabulary, such as an “invisible hand” pushing pieces on a chessboard. The plotters are portrayed as poisonous snakes, spiders weaving their webs, and wolves ready to devour Christian sheep. The last protocols describe the future reign of the Jews in Christian terms, announcing the coming of a “King of the Jews” who will be “the real Pope of the Universe, the patriarch of an international Church.”

Confirmation of the Protocols’ forged nature came in 1935 during a trial in Bern, Switzerland. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Switzerland sued a local pro-Nazi group for distributing copies of the anti-Semitic pamphlet. The trial became an opportunity to dissect the text and expose it as a hoax. Russian witnesses testified that the Protocols was a forgery created by Ratchkovsky for political purposes.

Though it was quickly understood to be a forgery. However, it did not deter the Orthodox Church and other institutions from distributing it throughout the Russian Empire and beyond. By 1917, it became a best seller in Europe and the United States, where it was published by Henry Ford.

And yet the popularity and legacy of the Protocols continued to flourish.

The Nazis found great inspiration in the Protocols and used it to blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat during World War I, the financial bankruptcy of the State, and the decline of the German race. Convinced that a Jewish conspiracy was in the works, Hitler mentioned the Protocols in Mein Kampf and in speeches, while Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels distributed the text widely.

Later in the century, the Protocols became a bestseller in the Muslim world. The Protocols help provide a denunciation of Zionism as the source of all problems in Arab lands, an excuse for the defeat of Arab armies, and a reason for their slow economic development Hamas, which now leads the Palestinian government, has made excerpts of the Protocols actual articles of its charter. According to Hamas’ political agenda, calling for the destruction of Israel is justified as a means of survival necessary before Zionists take over the rest of the world. From Iraq to the Palestinian territories, from Egypt to Iran, from Turkey to Indonesia, there is not one Muslim country that has not published or distributed the Protocols, even in recent years.

Holocaust deniers have also contributed to the legacy of the Protocols. They claim that the Holocaust never happened and that it was a Jewish plot aimed at establishing the State of Israel and receiving financial compensation from Germany. They cite the Protocols to confirm their fantasies, and they provide editions in various languages on the Internet.

The fact that the text of the Protocols continues to be reprinted, quoted, and recycled to this day remains a troublesome curiosity in the history of hoaxes and conspiracy literature.”

For more on this topic, see, Blood Libel: The Life and Memory of Mendel Beilis, by Medel Beilis, edited by Jay Beilis, Jeremy Simcha Garber and Mark S. Stein, Beilis Publishing; A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel, by Edund Levin, Schocken Press; Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis, by Robert Weinberg, Indiana University Press. The trial of Medel Beilis ended with an acquittal of Beilis, but with a re-affirmation of the myth of Jews performing ritual murder to assuage the mobs that wanted Beilis convicted, Snyder, Timothy. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. New York: Tim Duggan, Crown Group, 2015, Print.

 

^[2] See, for example, “How the Vatican Aided Mussolini” by Kevin J. Madigan, Commentary Magazine, April, 2014, Vol. 137: No. 4, page 32, where it is observed that Father Pietro Tachi Venture, S.J, argued to Mussolini that “Jews sought revolution, embraced Bolshevism, and wished to destroy current society and dominate the world by themselves ‘as their Talmud prescribes.’” This article, at page 33, also describes how “Church-approved writings provided much of the rationale for discriminating against Italy’s tiny Jewish population.”

[3] The United Nations even issued a proclamation in 1975 declaring “Zionism is racism.” A US President, Carter, even described Israel as an “Apartheid State”.

 

^[4] See FDR and the Jews”by Richard Breitman and Allan J. Licthman,(Cmbidge, MA The Belknap Press of Harvard University 2013 hardback).

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