Unpacking the origins of antiSemitism

Recent attacks in region renew fears of an ancient hatred

The Hanukkah stabbing at a suburban New York Rabbi’s home was only the latest in a series of antiSemitic attacks in the region.

There have been 10 such attacks in the state of New York since Dec. 23, according to the AntiDefamation League.

“There’s definitely an increase,” said the ADL’s Connecticut director, Steve Ginsburg. “There’s been a very measurable uptick in the last couple weeks in the New York, New Jersey area, which is real close to home.”

“We have not in Connecticut yet heard of assaults the way they’re hearing about them right now in that region,” he said.

Unpacking the motivation behind violent antiSemitism becomes a history lesson, going back to the second temple period, 200 years before the common era.

Syrian Greeks, who were in control of Jerusalem at the time, attempted to delegitimize the religion, according to the University of Connecticut’s Arnold

Dashevsky, who teaches a course in the sociology of antiSemitism.

“Where did antiSemitism start? It begins as a devaluation of the Jewish religion around the time that the Hanukkah story is celebrated,” he said.

‘A convenient hatred’

How the origins of antiSemitism translate into swastikas scrawled on bathroom walls in Westport or stabbings in Monsey, N.Y., is an issue, Judy Alperin said, of convenience.

“I can say, throughout millenia, throughout time, the Jews have faced this type of hatred and I think hate right now is prevalent in our culture,” said Alperin, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. “Often, especially the easily identifiable ones are on the front line, and sometimes the canary in the coalmine.”

Jews in Connecticut are simply “not as obvious a target,” according to Ginsburg.

Jews have often been scapegoats for whatever is wrong with the world, Ginsburg said. Does your village have the plague? Must be the Jews.

“AntiSemitism is a convenient hatred,” he said. “People are wondering what’s wrong in society and in their life — the oldest way and the easiest was to blame a group. That issue has been around for at least 2,000 years.”

In the modern era, Ginsburg said Jews have played dual victim roles,

both inhuman monsters and in control of the world’s money.

“That’s the unique nature of antiSemitism,” he said. “At the same time a Jew can be described as a lowlife vermin and at the same time a Jew can be described as the allpowerful, controlling anything.”

The ADL has logged 49 antiSemitic incidents in Connecticut over the course of 2019, but none have reached the level of violence seen in Brooklyn and Monsey.

That’s because Connecticut — though home to 117,850 Jews as of 2015, according to the Berman Jewish Databank — does not have the concentration of Orthodox Jews seen in New York’s boroughs and suburbs, Ginsburg said.

“That guy could have picked anywhere,” he said, referring to Grafton Thomas, who has been accused of stabbing five people at a Rabbi’s home in Monsey. “That’s what scary for Jews everywhere.”

Though there haven’t been the same sort of violent attacks, Connecticut has seen its share of antiSemitic incidents in recent years.

Twice, a swastika was discovered in a bathroom stall at a Westport school, A swastika was found in a public park in West Haven. In Newtown, a man was assaulted, the assailant believing the victim to be Jewish.

In Trumbull, a flyer was edited to read "Save a Turkey Roast a Jew." Also in Westport, the crowd at a lacrosse playoff game chanted antiSemitic slurs.

“There’s no question, in schools this fall we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of incidents reported to our office of antiSemitic bullying and graffiti,” Ginsburg said.

And though he said “almost all the violence is coming from white nationalist ideology,” Ginsburg believes “It’s coming from all sides.”

On that, Alperin agreed. “This is not a white supremacist issue. It’s hate on the right and hate on the left,” she said. “We’re living in a moment I think many of us thought we would not have to confront in our lifetimes.”

Ebb and flow

“There’s always a reservoir of antiSemitism in the United States,” Dashevsky said.

He describes waves of antiSemitism cresting and receding over the years, beginning with the Syrian Greek attempt to delegitimize the religion 200 years before the birth of Christ.

For centuries, Jews were blamed for the death of Jesus, Dashevsky suggesting that it was easier for the writers of the gospels to blame a marginalized group than the Romans in charge.

It wasn’t until the Second Vatican Council in 1965 that Pope John XXIII declared Jews not to be to blame for the death of Jesus.

“That produced a change in the teachings of the Roman Catholic church,” Dashevsky said.

In the 11th century European antiSemitism became more prevalent as Crusaders sought to rescue the Holy Land from supposed infidels. They found Muslims in Jerusalem, but Jews right at home in Europe.

German author Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Marr coined and popularized the term “antiSemitism” in the late 18th century. Simultaneously, popular pseudoscience “claimed there are some races that are inferior and some that are superior,” Dashevsky said, allowing for a transition from delegitimization of the Jewish religion to delegitimization of the Jewish people.

“Now what we have in the 21st century is the delegitimization of the state of the Jews, Israel,” Dashevsky said. “It is an evolutionary phenomenon.”

Hope for the future

The cyclical nature of antiSemitism gives Dashevsky some hope, if you take a “longterm optimistic view.”

“You can see a point at which antiSemitism will recede,” he said.

The key, according to Alperin, is to “make it intolerable in our society.”

“It’s not just hate against Jews, it’s hate against the other,” she said.

While “you cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that every single day of Hanukkah here was an attack,” Alperin said it’s important for Jewish communities not to let antiSemitism determine their nature.

“We don’t want to allow those who hate to define how we live as Jews,” she said. “I believe we need to be cautious and careful but not hide who we are. We cannot be defined by the hate.”

“We have to keep our arms and hearts open,” she said.