Tuesday, March 26, 2019
A DISEASE WITHOUT A CAUSE
A
new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now
by Deborah E. Lipstadt, has been published. I have not read it yet, but have
read the NY Times review by Brett Stephens (Feb. 3, 2019). The subtitle of her
book tells us what her focus will be and apparently she is not interested in
historical origins. That certainly is confirmed by Stephens’s review. They can
focus on whatever they choose to, but I find it disappointing that every time I
come across something about antisemitism, there is a terrific effort made to
avoid confronting Christianity’s role in this.
What
we get instead is an endless discussion of the various symptoms of racism against
Jews, but no search for the cause. For all we know from these many forums,
antisemitism is all symptoms, but no cause. It is a unique phenomenon in the
annals of medicine, if we understand medical problems to include all social
dysfunctions. Antisemitism seems to be the only disease which consists entirely
of symptoms, but has no main cause.
Many
years ago, I went to a Jewish meeting, about 100 people present, in connection
with the anniversary date of some aspect of the Dreyfus Affair in late 19th
century France. There was a wide-ranging, lively discussion of all aspects of
antisemitism, especially in the here and now, except for one thing. No one ever
mentioned Christian antisemitism. I did not even realize what was going on
until near the end of this almost hour long meeting. When I did, I raised my
hand a few times, but was never called on. It is just as well because now I can
report that for the entire meeting no one ever brought up Christianity.
I
cannot imagine a group of African-Americans having a meeting about racism and
no one ever bringing up white racism. It would be impossible. Only Jews can
talk about racism against Jews and never get to the main issue.
It
was not always like this. In the 1960s, after the initial shock of the Holocaust
had worn off a little, there was plenty of concern over Christianity’s
contribution. You can open at random almost any Christian scholarly journal
from that time period and you will find an article on Christianity and
antisemitism. Attempts were made to dig into this and then the moment passed.
Antisemitism
became this disease that free floats in the air, attached to no particular
cause, and is simply known by its symptoms, by the various charges made against
Jews. In his review of Lipstadt’s book, Stephens concludes that in the main,
antisemitism is anti-liberalism. Jews, it seems, are hated for their liberal
views on truth, freedom, morality, the law, and more. For certain purposes,
that might be helpful, but it is not nearly the whole story. And it is valuable
to remind people, as Stephens and Lipstadt do, that it isn’t always the most
openly bigoted people who continue the disease of racism in all its forms.
But
this almost perfect avoidance of discussing the old charges made by Christians
tells me that Jews are afraid of Christians. They are afraid that any direct
confrontation with Christians about this will only make antisemitism worse.
They are afraid that Christians too easily feel threatened even by something as
relatively benign as understanding what makes Jesus Jewish. Jews are somehow a
threat to the Christian faith. It leads Jews to be content with letting
Christians misrepresent ancient Jewish culture any way they want because Jews
don’t want to disturb any aspect of Christian faith. Jesus must have Jewish
enemies and Jewish villains are fashioned by Christians to fit that purpose.
Jews
do not want to challenge any of this. Remember that the first false conspiracy
charge made against Jews was the false claim that Jewish leaders conspired to
kill Jesus. It is not a charge that is supported by the Gospels (the accusation
comes more from later Christian tradition than from the Gospels), but Jews try
to avoid this with all their might. Many Christians, not all, seem to need
Jesus to have Jewish enemies, so why disturb that belief? But if this is the
source that continues to feed antisemitism—if this is the original virus—then
leaving it undisturbed means that antisemitism will eternally return.
©
2019 Leon Zitzer
