Bigots hate Jews because they perceive Jews as successful and smart. So is heralding the achievements of Jews and Israelis a good strategy? It’s not about PR. It’s about Jews being who Jews are.
One of the key beliefs in Judaism is that the path to divinity goes through developing one's intellect and excercising free choice wisely. These two objectives are kryptonite to antisemites who choose to follow irrational emotional vectors that are proven to lead to self destruction. They neither think through the situation clearly nor make wise choices in their responses. Then, as their situation worsens due to their own choices they refuse to accept responsibility for the outcome by blaming the Jews. It's a self destructive loop antisemites have followed since Amalek.
This post prompts two thoughts. One is that I have often thought about all the talent and discovery denied us by the Holocaust. I’m not normally a huge fan of Alan Dershowitz but I do think he’s right about that. Secondly, because of the particular course my own life took, I ended up related-by-marriage to a lot of Russian Orthodox Christians who had been fed a steady diet of antisemitic baloney for decades. They saw Jews as pivotal to the revolution that had dispossessed them and, yes, some bandied about “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as suppressed history. Sad stuff but there it is.
>”But hating on the Jews draws the hater into a self-defeating spiral. Rather than making one feel superior, antisemitism makes the perpetrator feel intellectually and socially inferior.”
Your thesis, that Jew hatred is actually driven by envy, would explain the many cases where someone adopting antisemitism turned out to be the last stop before they lost the capacity to reason altogether
Envy has been characterized as next of kin to hatred, and not without good reason, because it frequently mutates into hatred. And hostility towards Jews is very often based on envy, because to the hater, Jewish success comes as a reproach.
One of the key beliefs in Judaism is that the path to divinity goes through developing one's intellect and excercising free choice wisely. These two objectives are kryptonite to antisemites who choose to follow irrational emotional vectors that are proven to lead to self destruction. They neither think through the situation clearly nor make wise choices in their responses. Then, as their situation worsens due to their own choices they refuse to accept responsibility for the outcome by blaming the Jews. It's a self destructive loop antisemites have followed since Amalek.
YES!
This post prompts two thoughts. One is that I have often thought about all the talent and discovery denied us by the Holocaust. I’m not normally a huge fan of Alan Dershowitz but I do think he’s right about that. Secondly, because of the particular course my own life took, I ended up related-by-marriage to a lot of Russian Orthodox Christians who had been fed a steady diet of antisemitic baloney for decades. They saw Jews as pivotal to the revolution that had dispossessed them and, yes, some bandied about “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as suppressed history. Sad stuff but there it is.
>”But hating on the Jews draws the hater into a self-defeating spiral. Rather than making one feel superior, antisemitism makes the perpetrator feel intellectually and socially inferior.”
Your thesis, that Jew hatred is actually driven by envy, would explain the many cases where someone adopting antisemitism turned out to be the last stop before they lost the capacity to reason altogether
BAM! You are exactly right.
Envy has been characterized as next of kin to hatred, and not without good reason, because it frequently mutates into hatred. And hostility towards Jews is very often based on envy, because to the hater, Jewish success comes as a reproach.