Alan Dershowitz has the facts right, but they won’t change anyone’s mind
Two weeks ago, esteemed lawyer, author and pro-Israel activist Alan Dershowitz invited famed film director, producer and antisemite Oliver Stone to debate on whether the latter’s statement that Israel meddled with the American election is correct. Even if such a debate materializes, it will have zero impact on people’s views regarding Israel.
Despite decades of campaigning for Israel, antisemitism in the US and around the world is growing exponentially. However reasonable the arguments, they will never taper antisemitism because gut feelings require no justification.
Throughout history, Jew-hatred has worn different attires at different times. Jews have been accused of every conceivable, and inconceivable, wrongdoing – from poisoning wells to harvesting organs, and from warmongering to usury.
Jews have often been accused of conflicting “crimes.” Communists accused Jews of creating capitalism and capitalists accused them of inventing communism. Christians accused Jews of killing Jesus, and dissidents of the church accused them of inventing Christianity. Jews have been labeled as warmongers and cowards, spineless and stubborn, and countless other contradictions.
The bottom line is this: Jew-hatred makes no sense.
To change how people feel about Jews, we must appeal to their gut feeling, not to their minds. Specifically, we must answer why so many people think that if anything goes wrong, it’s the Jews’ fault.
The Jews are not an ordinary nation. Since its inception, its members have been persecuted, tormented, expelled and often murdered for no apparent reason. Worse yet, internal wars among Jews often inflicted upon them more pain, slaughter and devastation than any outside foe. The Hebrew kings Ahaz and Hezekiah both looted the First Temple and handed over its treasures to foreign kings. At the time of the Second Temple, the Hellenists were Jews who wanted to install the Greek culture and belief system in Israel. Their hatred of their brethren was so intense that they fought them to the death instead of the Greeks.
Jewish self-hatred inflicted the ruin of the Second Temple and an exile that lasted two millennia. Even worse, the Temple was destroyed by Tiberius Julius Alexander, an Alexandrian Jew whose own father had donated the gold and silver for the Temple gates. Tiberius Alexander’s self-hatred was so profound that before he destroyed Jerusalem, he obliterated his native community of 50,000 in Alexandria.
It seems that we are unique not only in the relentless, irrational hatred we suffer from the outside, but also in the profound odium that Jews harbor toward their own brethren. So what is it about Jews that makes them the object of such pervasive loathing?
The book Yaarot Devash writes that the word Yehudi (Jew) comes from the Hebrew word “yihudi,” meaning united. According to Maimonides (Mishneh Torah), when Abraham the Patriarch witnessed the outburst of egoism in the Babylonian Empire where he was born, he established a group that cultivated unity to counter the growing self-centeredness. Instead of trying to restrain their egos, Abraham suggested that the Babylonians shift their focus to connection. In this way, he hoped his countryfolk would manage to unite above their egos.
After Abraham departed from Babylon en route to the Land of Israel, he continued to circulate his views. Gradually, continues Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Abraham gathered tens of thousands of people, all versed in uniting above the ego.
Indeed, making unity the means as well as the end became the essence of Judaism. This is why Hillel told the man who wanted to convert: “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor; this is the whole of the Torah” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, 31a), and why Rabbi Akiva asserted, “Love your neighbor as yourself; this is the great rule of the Torah” (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Nedarim, 30b).
We became a nation only when we vowed to be “as one man with one heart,” and immediately afterward, we were commanded to be “a light unto nations” – to circulate our special unity to all. Just as Abraham intended to do in Babylon, when he wished to spread unity indiscriminately, we were commanded to spread unity throughout the world.
Therefore, our nationhood consists of two tenets: 1) to be united as one man with one heart, 2) to share the method for achieving unity with all of humanity. When antisemites accuse us of warmongering, or when they accuse Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, it reflects their feelings that we are not true to the foundations of our creed. This is why they hate us.
In some cases, people’s sensation that Jewish egoism is the problem is so vivid that they can even verbalize it. German philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach wrote in The Essence of Christianity: “The Jews have maintained their peculiarity to this day. Their principle, their God, is the most practical principle in the world – namely egoism.”
We may have given ourselves amnesty from the “sentence” to be “a light unto nations,” but the nations still regard us as indebted. Their accusations, the high moral standards they demand of Israel, their admiration for Jews and their fear of them speak for themselves. It will not help us if we try to be like all other nations; they will not accept us as such. We have been, are, and always will be expected to be a beacon of unity, “a light unto nations.”
Until we unite above our hatred just as our ancestors did millennia ago, we will continue to be the world’s only pariahs.
No compelling argument, conclusive proof, or hard evidence will convince the Oliver Stones of the world that they are wrong. Deep within, they are convinced that Jews are to blame for every bad thing that happens.
Therefore, if we truly want to end antisemitism, we must do the thing we want the least: unite with our brethren – our fellow Jews – above all of our disputes, alienation, and hatred.
The author has a PhD in philosophy and Kabbala and an MSc in medical bio-cybernetics. He is a prolific author with millions of students worldwide.