"I spoke to several Gazans today about Hamas’s criminal conduct & behavior and how the Islamist group is continuing to fire useless/worthless rockets near population and displacement centers, only to elicit massively destructive IDF retaliation and new evacuation orders that displace hundreds of thousands of civilians. They said that Hamas is using some of its mouthpieces to claim these rockets are being fired by “jawasees” or “3omala,” which means spies/collaborators with Israel and that Hamas wouldn’t engage in this level of recklessness. The group’s own videos and statements suggest otherwise, confirming launches from numerous places in Gaza where the IDF either withdrew or isn’t operating.
While it is impossible to confirm various details during the fog of war, one thing is clear: Hamas’s suicidal behavior continues to hold 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza hostage to a nefarious and destructive calculus that doesn’t care one bit for the consequences experienced by civilians. Worse, Hamas is deliberately inviting Israeli incursions and military attacks in areas that inflict maximum suffering and pain on civilians, hoping to cause international outcry and fury to stop the war. This isn’t “Zionist propaganda” or talking points; it is a fact and the truth of how Hamas chooses to engage in asymmetric warfare in a losing war of its own starting and creation. Think about that before calling this terror enterprise Palestinian “resistance.”
This can also be seen as a wider phenomenon, usually found in advanced, comfortable societies on the decline, called oikophobia, hatred of one's own. A friend of mine recently wrote a book on the subject. It's telling, of course, that it usually comes from one end of the political spectrum today.
Regarding Tenenbaum's point, there's a corrective. I think it was Ahad Ha'Am who said that the blood libel was a sort of blessing in disguise for Jews. After all, when you've been attacked for thousands of years by the whole world, you start to think that maybe they have a point. And then they come up with something *so* extreme that you know for a fact is untrue- like the blood libel- that you are reassured that, no, you're not the crazy one, they are.
I imagine there are a million such examples from the past year, but I can't pick one perfect one. Killing babies, and defending killing babies, is a good fit, though.
Well, they start screaming that America is assisting in the "genocide of the Palestinians", as is the UK and France, by providing Israel with weapons. So they put the Western nations in the same basket--somehow. The fact that Western nations also funded UNWRA and the Palestinian Authority is ignored.
Uri Avineri was another such character, but at least he went from a Lehi fighter to a Meretz supporter. At least that's somewhere on the Israeli political spectrum.
The personalities that Rabbi Slifkin mentioned consider murderers and rapists of Israelis to be "heroes". Or that "October 7th warmed my heart", as Norman Finkelstein said. It's an inversion of all morality.
I think "staying in Israel" is either an indicator or a guarantor of staying out of the crazy zone. Not 100% (some in Israel are crazy, and of course most who leave don't go crazy), but it's more often than not.
"Imbeciles and short-sighted fools who are cheering on Hamas and supporting the terror group’s supposed “resistance” are completely ignoring the fact that October 7 brought back Israeli occupation to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has chopped up the coastal enclave into chunks that it controls via a network of roads, buffer zones, and no-go areas that are off-limits to the Palestinian people. It appears that the IDF is settling in for a multi-year campaign that’s going to be disastrous for Gazans and will prolong their suffering to an unimaginable extent.
Before 10/7, Gaza had options and possibilities to address the economic, humanitarian, and political hardships and problems. Gaza had even shopping malls, sprawling beaches, vibrant communities, art centers, restaurants, and food everywhere, and a functional infrastructure that provided enough for people to survive and, in some cases, even thrive. Hamas deliberately threw all of that away and destroyed the people of Gaza with no way out and no exit plan. Every single member of Hamas’s leadership must be tried and convicted of crimes against the Palestinian people; they must be delegitimized, shamed, and held accountable for high treason against Palestinian interests and, importantly, for cowardly behavior like fighting in civilian clothes and hiding among women and children in tents, schools, and hospitals. "
"It’s important to point out the flaws in their arguments, as well as to understand the psychological mechanism that drives it."
There's always some psychology to everyone, but I'd prefer to focus on the "flaws in their arguments" rather than the "psychological mechanism". I find that people often go after the "psychology" to avoid addressing the arguments, and I'm sure you've been a victim of this yourself at various moments. If you have ever seen a religious person trying to grapple with why people go "off the derech", there's always an appeal to psychology rather than any engagement with the "wayward" person's actual views. If we can just declare someone as demented or emotionally damaged or whatever, then we don't need to listen to anything they say. And we all generally like that easy approach much better than addressing the merits of positions we find repulsive. I don't know most of the people you mentioned, but I assume they do have something to say that can be analyzed, weighed, and refuted in a logical manner.
"What Israel doesn’t seem to realize is that no amount of civilian casualties and killings in Gaza will ever “put pressure” on Hamas, which is a sadistic Islamist cult that loves to see its own people killed as an actual strategy."
And here his biases come through, as he implies that Israel is *intentionally* inflicting civilian deaths as part of some strategy. Say what you want about whether such a strategy would be effective (well, probably, how could it not be) or whether it is moral (take your pick), but one thing for sure is that Israel is *not* doing it.
So he's disconnected from reality, which is never good. Still, he's degrees of magnitude better than most of the Israel-haters, so we take what the gods give us on a rainy day.
"Here is an uncomfortable fact that many don’t want to acknowledge: Hamas actively worked to prevent Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza from evacuating to the south. When the first evacuation order was given last October, Hamas’s spokespersons and leaders explicitly and repeatedly told people to stay and not to leave because the Israelis were not really going to attack. Then they said that the “resistance” is more than capable of repelling an Israeli onslaught and to rest assured. Then they said that leaving and heading down south would be akin to treason because Islamic warfare doctrine prohibits fleeing when facing an enemy on the battlefield, which in effect meant that Hamas viewed the entirety of the civilian population as combatant participants in its suicidal resistance project following the October 7th attack.
Hamas spokespersons and mouthpieces on social media worked in overdrive to ensure that as many Palestinian civilians would stay in northern Gaza as possible to complicate the Israeli war effort. Hamas even nefariously and hideously felt that massive Palestinian civilian casualties would ultimately become too high and unacceptable to the international community, which would theoretically force Israel to stop the war - or so Hamas thought.
I have personally spoken to Palestinians who were in northern Gaza and, upon attempting to leave in large groups, would experience mysterious warning shots that would foil their attempts to get out of the north. I heard about this in Zeitoun, Shejaiya, Tuffah, and Jabaliya, which is the current sight of horrendous suffering due to the Israeli onslaught against the isolated and besieged refugee camp.
While there have been numerous occasions of the Israeli military firing on civilians as they were fleeing, generally speaking, and in parts of the north, it made less sense that the Israeli military would want civilians to remain in active combat zones and to frustrate its ability to maneuver and carry out offensive operations.
I will never forget seeing a post by a Hamas mouthpiece early on in the war in which he said, “We cannot tolerate civilians leaving us alone to the Israelis.” It was a pathetic sentiment in which Hamas didn’t want to be lonely as they faced the Israeli military and wanted to bring down as many Palestinian civilians with them as they could - again, counting on mass suffering as a way to delegitimize Israel and high casualties which generate high pressure on the Israeli government to ultimately stop the war.
Now that this nefarious calculus has failed miserably and the Palestinian civilian population in northern Gaza is paying an unimaginably high price, Hamas isn't exactly adjusting course either. The group is despicably and ruthlessly exploiting the civilian deaths that their actions caused and brought upon to keep the focus on Israel and avoid the reckoning that Hamas will inevitably face when the war is brought to an end.
The tragedy in Jabaliya and elsewhere in northern Gaza, where the population is experiencing famine-like conditions, merciless Israeli bombardments and attacks, and sustained pain and suffering, could have been entirely avoided. Instead of working to protect lives, as should be the priority in warfare, Hamas and its cheerleaders wanted to hide behind the civilian population, which was told not to leave and to “hold the land.”
Gaza’s human capital is its people, who are the most precious asset of the Palestinian nation. Homes can be rebuilt, new political structures can be devised, and access to territories and borders can be negotiated, but human life can never come back.
Here's an important statement from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza, and lost numerous relatives in an IDF bombing, and who nevertheless acknowledges the historical causes of the current fiasco:
"A common theme in the plight of the Palestinian people is the unforgivable failures of Palestinian leadership over the decades: reject deals and say no, only to make a bad losing bet and want what could have been achieved, obtained, or received before. It’s important to remember that a viable deal was on the table, regardless of what revisionist academics try to convince you of: a clear pathway to Palestinian Statehood that included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. What Yasser Arafat did by not accepting the 2000 Camp David proposal was a crime against the Palestinian people, for which there has never been any accountability. Similarly, Hamas in the 1990s and 2000s rejected the Two-state solution, only to ultimately realize that Palestinians would be lucky to even receive that, particularly after the October 7 disaster.
"Time and again throughout Palestinians’ contemporary history, their leadership and that of some Arab countries, particularly during the Pan-Arabism of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, a Palestinian State could have been established, and attention could have been paid to nation-building, instead of pursuing fantasies around the destruction of Israel. It pains me greatly that so many Palestinians, both in Palestine and in the diaspora, are woefully unaware of this history and think the entirety of our problems are solely and exclusively the result of Israeli policies. It’s time for a rejuvenated and pragmatic Palestinian narrative that accounts for the consequences of disastrous leadership and acknowledges the inevitability of Israel’s continued existence and the need to live in peace and prosperity next to the Jewish State. That does not negate the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and freedom, for both peoples’ futures are intricately intertwined."
Interesting piece, but I’m not sure this needs a unique label like 'Israelopathy.'
I think it's worth talking a step back and viewing this as a broader phenomenon.
Every country has its internal critics, and citizens everywhere can feel disillusioned or even hostile toward their homeland for various reasons - political, social, or personal (all of which you point out). While some criticisms are extreme, those are usual fringe, and it's overcomplicated to frame this as a uniquely Israeli phenomenon.
It feels like part of the broader, normal spectrum of internal dissent that exists in any society. You can always find extreme critics of societies they were born into
Your list of self-hating (and in Sands & Atzmon's case, self-negating) Jews is incomplete. But it's varied enough that any single answer will not fully explain the phenomenon. Just as there are varieties of anti-Semitism, there are varieties of Jewish self-hatred.
I suppose the first self-hating Jews were דתן ואבירם. But when when we first encounter them, they are revealed to hold very different, indeed antagonistic, world views. Yet somehow the disparate agendas of that inflexible right-wing fanatic and woke bleeding-heart leftist managed to converge every time.
First, the basic fact is that the first time we encounter דתן ואבירם (according to the מדרש) they are engaged in dispute. See תורה שלימה. That contention can be interpreted as I have done. You know- drush.
In any case, the idea that דתן was a fanatic and אבירם a leftist was also expressed in a popular shiur made by a certain rav ז"צל in ירושלים. I won't mention the name, because the goon squad here will go crazy and I've injected my own notions here. (But see R' Moshe Shternbuch who ascribes to דתן ואברים the positions of Satmar!!)
But the point is that there's more than one kind of self-hater.
R Slifkin, what is your opinion of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a universally acknowledged scholar and observant Jew who yet coined the term Judeo-Nazis to refer to the IDF, which was picked up by our enemies and opponents and who surely used him to legitimize their hatred of us.
But with a very weird hashkafa. Basically he denied everything in tradition but the imperative. (Half-seriously, I suggest that he believed in God, not because he believed that He exists, but because He commanded such belief.) Typical of many a genius polymath he was a crank. He seemed to bask in the glow of his provocations.
And yet his anti-Zionism contains occulted within itself its own negation. The Jewish State implies one of the greatest and most challenging imperative yet. Implicit in many a critique of Zionism (and IDF service) is the conceptzia that Halacha and Tradition are incapable of addressing modern challenges. The only solution is withdrawal and isolation.
I disagree with the premise of this column, which apparently is that disagreeing with the actions of the current Israeli government somehow qualifies as being against one’s own people. On the contrary—in many cases, criticism of Israel is motivated by one’s very Jewish identity, and the failure of current and past Israeli governments to live up to Jewish ideals. In the case of the current kakocracy, whose policies are dictated by the extreme Kahanist fringe, I think such criticism is understandable and justified.
When I was a young man, I found a copy of Perfidy at an NCSY Shabbaton and, having heard of it, picked it up and started to read it. (The book is Ben Hecht's attack on the actions of the Zionist movement during the Holocaust. Leave aside whether it's true or not, it is what it is.) An advisor saw me reading it and said, "Oh, Perfidy. Good book. One thing, though: Don't let the [non-Orthodox] kids see it." "Why not?" "Because you have to love Israel before you can hate it."
A lot of people never went through the "love" stage, is the problem. (For the record, Hecht did, as did all the heroes of his book, Zionists all.) So no, you're wrong: If someone devotes their career and life to attacking Israel- as the people R' Slifkin is talking about do- they are guaranteed to hate Israel, period, and if they're not Jewish- and maybe even if they are- they're anti-Semites as well. (And, yeah, this goes for some people in black hats too.)
(For that matter, if someone who doesn't live in Israel, or at least isn't Jewish, even "disagrees" with Israel, it's almost guaranteed, if not guaranteed, that he's an anti-Semite. That's just how it is, go howl at the wind.)
And I can't let your little excuse at the end go. If we're talking "kakocracy," well, Kahanists of all people are pretty much the only ones who *don't* have something to apologize for after October 7. I'd suggest that perhaps it's a subconscious, or even conscious, awareness of that fact that causes so many people to carry on about them now, but then again "Kahanist" has been an all-purpose and meaningless boogeyman for decades, much like "fascist" or "racist" is.
How did Commentary put it a few months back? Ah, yes: "The Times characteristically quotes Omer Bartov, a professor of history at Brown and an idiot..."
Ben Hecht recounts a conversation he once had with Ferenc Molnar (Hungarian-Jewish author of, inter alia, the source play of Carousel):
"Molnar once said to me, 'I find it difficult to be a Jew. It makes me feel unfaithful to something.'
"'To what?' I asked.
"'To all the things I thought I was,' said Molnar."
(Hecht stresses that Molnar, having been forced to be a Jew, embraced it wholeheartedly.)
Herman Wouk writes similarly about the assimilated Jew, walking down a Manhattan street and seeing religious Jews, and wanting to scream at them that he is not one of them, but knowing deep down that he is.
I think that's a major factor here. These Israelis felt that they were finally *beyond* all that. They were normal, they were modern, no more Jew hatred, no more need to worry about defending themselves. It's not a coincidence that of course all of them have drunk deeply from the corrupted form of modern education that sees John Lennon's "Imagine" as a desired ideal. Like Molnar, they didn't see themselves as Jewish. They saw themselves as cosmopolitan citizens of the world- who, in most cases, didn't even live in Israel anymore.
Except of course it wasn't true. Israel, like every other place in the world, is a normal place with normal problems, compounded that the world can't stop hating Jews, and so Israel has to do certain things good cosmopolitan white people shudder at, and it can't stop being in the news. And you can try to assimilate as much as you want, but the haters will root you out. Faced with that, you can, like Hecht and Molnar and Wouk, become more connected to your Judaism and the Jewish people and Israel. Or you can react unnaturally strongly against it, and lash out, as these lovelies do.
" These Israelis felt that they were finally *beyond* all that. They were normal, they were modern, no more Jew hatred, no more need to worry about defending themselves."
ביקש יעקב לישב בשלווה!
(According to the מלבי"ם, this means that יעקב considered himself a בן נח and consequently could live in tranquility in ארץ ישראל which was a land not (yet) his own. As a בן נח he was living as a גר in א"י, and he considered that sufficient fulfillment of גר יהיה זרעך בארץ לא להם without the ordeals of subjugation. )
יעקב had to learn that he was not yet done with an abnormal existence.
"And you can try to assimilate as much as you want, but the haters will root you out."
The Nazis didn't invent that. Spain, under the inquisition held non-Jewish descendants of converts in suspicion. These non-Jews suffered from anti-Semitic persecution.
Hecht himself went through his period of normalcy ("desiring to live in tranquility") and even wrote a self-hating novel, A Jew in Love. Why hasn't that book have the same currency in the Charedi world as Perfidy?
(Herzl also had a recipe for living in tranquility by way of self-negation. But the ever present anti-Semites in Paris reminded him of his Jewishness and that he was capable of grander schemes.)
With the greatest respect, an unfavourable opinion of Israel and/or Jews does not necessarily make them "self-haters" as the term is commonly understood as an offshoot of antisemitism. One could lob the same accusation against you for what some might call your near-obsessive writings on Charedi Jews. I'm sure you would object to this characterisation of yourself and so might those you have singled out. Critics come in all shapes and sizes, some more obsessive than others and some more trenchant than your personal taste.
Jews have a rich tradition of castigating prophets and those going against the grain and many so-called self-haters fall into that category. I personally would draw a line at Holocaust deniers but the Neturei Karta went to the Iranian Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran. Useful idiots, no doubt, which is also what some of those you named are, but I doubt you could call them antisemites or accuse them of trying to ingratiate themselves with progressives. Was the Satmar Rebbe a self-hater for vehemently opposing a Jewish state and even resorting to antisemitic tropes of Jews controlling the media?
And if you're going to deal with the malady of self-haters then you must also address the narcissistic self-lovers who are ultimately the other side of the same coin. Personally, I'd place T. Tennenbaum in the latter camp but then perhaps I'd be labelled a self-hater for doing so.
Well, considering that he owed his life to the Zionist movement- and a Zionist individual that even a lot of Zionists didn't like- yeah, the Satmar Rebbe seems to have had some real issues with his self-image.
Tennenbaum is certainly a character. Gonzo without the acid, but with free doses of sodium pentothal. He doesn't seem to be a narcissist, but he many be just as tiring to those who grow weary of his shtick.
Interesting piece. However, every society has their far out critics of everything in their society Why should the Jewish state be any different.? Here in America don't we have an entire wave of people, believing we are the devil himself - we hog the worlds wealth while keeping the poor ones to suffer. Why bother with them- it is a lost cause, this is the fabric of any society.
I did study in an academic way, (in YIVO and other places) about the root cause of anti semitism. Many things opened before me, and enlightened me. Here are 3 tings that I have changed courses while studying.
1 - Many generations until March 1881 Jew did not suffer more than any other group that was living in a foreign land. They all were second class citizens, looked down upon, taken advantage of, got beatings from time to time etc. The only thing more the Jews were subjected to - they were "Despised" more then anyone else. Thrown out of countries? same as many others. Many groups including the Christians claim they were , abused, beaten, and suffered many martyrs. Every group uses their martyrs to show their pain. Until 1881 Jews didn't really hold the sole right and title to the claim of "suffering".
2 - Ask any Yid in shul to state the atrocities we had from before 1,800. Most only know the few well known ones, and until the year 1,100 they can not even cite one. Then ask them how many were killed in the 1st and 3rd crusades, (where they attacked Jews), let them take a guess, You will hear 1/2 million or several hundred thousand,as that stands out in their minds. Then I tell them it was 1,300 or something and it is documented. This number was a mid day snack for the Nazis in WWII - Don't get me wrong EVERY Jewish person killed is a tragedy in itself. However, we are trying to look at proportional and what others suffered. Only Tach V'tat is the exception to this entire 1,800 year period - it was the first full blown attack on the Jewish people in the years1648-50 where tens of thousands were killed. Before that we have 200, 600, 1000 etc. However, even one is too many and we have to cry over it!!
3 - Here is where the hardest part comes in. When you start to realize how the Yidden in the shtetlach hoodwinked the gentiles. Remember in most of our history 95% were committed Jews and what we call today charedei., One of the most popular ways and this basically happened in every town - getting the gentiles drunk and overcharging them big time when they could not see straight. There were 2 Yidden involved in this scam, the boss who the peasant worked for, and the innkeeper who supplied the drinks. These Yidden split the money (profits, call it what you want) in different ways. I even came across a Din Torah over these profits. Instead of the Rav berating them "that this is thievery you cant do this to gentiles," he gave a posak. There was many other ways they hoodwinked society, I could write a small book about this topic. When I saw these shenanigans' for the first time I said to myself - how do I eat this information??? When the gentiles kept claiming the Jews are "Sucking the blood of Society", there is some truth to that, and no I am not a self hating Jew. I just wish so much, we were better. I am not the only one the see this and admit it. Dr. Leon Pinsker entire notion, that we have get our OWN land - after his 4 years of study - he came to the very same conclusion and said the "our nature" makes us not able to live among others. Many others including many Frum intellectuals came to this very conclusion, See Rav Weinberger in Berlin. Some even said we hate the goym more then they hate us. The very reason why we win so many noble prizes, is the exact reason we have a hard time living among others, Hard to swallow, hard to accept, and many down nights, but not everyone can stick his head in the sand, and feel good.
Now let us look round and note - how do the charedei, look at American society, why do we go into industries, real estate, nursing homes, life insurance for the elderly etc. where we can manipulate things for big bucks. Why do some of our communities have 85% taking government programs. How do you think Americans feel about these statistics? Forget about Covid and what we did. An average person in Boro Park or Monsey cannot afford a house anymore, due the Covid money floating around that many Yidden "made" It is not a victimless crime. Do we really care about the rest of society??
Then take the charedim in their own land. They look at what can "I" get out of the society. The rest of society? who cares, what exactly does that have to do with me, all I care is what can I get for myself. So it is not just in Europe - it is here today and now. In Europe we could at least say - look the gentiles were not good to us, (not a real answer for not being an honest human being) what do we say in American or in Israel? Aren't we fighting this, on this very blog?
Thankfully, there are many committed Jews these days that are thinking different, are - Upstanding Jews - Honest Jew, - Ones we can say "You are a light to the nations". We strive to get all our Brethren on this same honest lifestyle. May we be successful !
I too am bothered by Jews today who live down to stereotypical images of Jews, engaging in predatory lending and so on - I've heard horrific stories. But such things do not suffice to explain antisemitism. Read "Anti-Judaism" by David Nirenberg. To give just one example, he points out that for hundreds of years in England, there were endless discussions about the problems caused by Jews - even though there weren't any Jews in England during that period.
And if you look at Israel today, it becomes even more stark. Even if you think that Israel has overall been terrible, it certainly doesn't come close to what other countries have done. And yet the UN has condemned Israel more than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY PUT TOGETHER. So how do you explain that?
The phrase anti-Semitism was coined around the same time of the first pogroms in 1881. Before it was Anti-Jewish. anti-Jihd etc. The worst period in our history that the Jews nation suffered was from 1881 -1945 Those were heart breaking years. One tragedy over the other, and always more brutal - millions laying dead.
I am looking at the period before this, we were treated as any other people living in other peoples land. No one likes the foreigner, everyone looked down on them, The Russians hated the Germans in Russia, (even one time leading to a full blown pogrom, with looting, rapes, and killings). The French didn't particularly like the Polish on their land, the Chinese did not like the Mongolians etc. We can go on and on. Just as Israel today would not be trilled if say a half million Japanese decided to move in. The next level that caused problems with added hatred was those that moved in, stayed apart. This happened to every group in all periods . However, the Jews had 2 other points going against them
! - They always tried to outsmart the host populations. -not going to make friends
2 - They were looked at - as killing their host countries God. - not a good fit.
What I am saying that until 1881 there were reasons, many times it turned unjustified. Let us keep in mind we had long periods of Good years, Golden ages, in Poland, Spain, Germany etc. other times it was more of sufferings periods. However not really much worse then others.
In 1881 it shifted to anti -Semitism, - where the hatred of Jews is just outright hatred - no "real stronger" or extra reason to hate more. As we see today, with the UN and many other countries. The last year it is started spreading to regular people, as it is repeating the 1920 -30, where people and political parties, openly and publicly voiced anti-Semitism, Before now it was never so public. It might get hairy for us, that is why even those that can't emigrate to Israel , should keep one foot ready to run!
Let us not make the same mistake as we did in the period before WWII
I'm sorry, this is nonsense on stilts. Anti-Semitism only began in 1881? Jews weren't persecuted more than most before then? There were no major attacks on Jews before then? Jews in the shtetl had gentile peasants working for them? Jews in the shtetl were charedim?
I somehow seriously doubt you have done any "academic" research into these matters.
Rav Natan, thanks for your take on an ever more-crucial crucial topic.
A suggestion: The best term for this is simply "Israphobia"! Easy to pronounce, has a nice ring, and absolutely clear what it means. Would work far better and be more effective, in my opinion, than "Israelopathy".
Both of these terms do something important by using the word "Israel" (rather than "Jew"): They successfully indicate a joint hatred of the People of Israel and the State of Israel at once.
And most telling of all:
"I spoke to several Gazans today about Hamas’s criminal conduct & behavior and how the Islamist group is continuing to fire useless/worthless rockets near population and displacement centers, only to elicit massively destructive IDF retaliation and new evacuation orders that displace hundreds of thousands of civilians. They said that Hamas is using some of its mouthpieces to claim these rockets are being fired by “jawasees” or “3omala,” which means spies/collaborators with Israel and that Hamas wouldn’t engage in this level of recklessness. The group’s own videos and statements suggest otherwise, confirming launches from numerous places in Gaza where the IDF either withdrew or isn’t operating.
While it is impossible to confirm various details during the fog of war, one thing is clear: Hamas’s suicidal behavior continues to hold 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza hostage to a nefarious and destructive calculus that doesn’t care one bit for the consequences experienced by civilians. Worse, Hamas is deliberately inviting Israeli incursions and military attacks in areas that inflict maximum suffering and pain on civilians, hoping to cause international outcry and fury to stop the war. This isn’t “Zionist propaganda” or talking points; it is a fact and the truth of how Hamas chooses to engage in asymmetric warfare in a losing war of its own starting and creation. Think about that before calling this terror enterprise Palestinian “resistance.”
https://www.facebook.com/afalkhatib/videos/350879304757730/?__cft__[0]=AZWI2YlPrLGeJnf4Q5ojI47FklMHmL8Eu-I_mZWYznzY5Xzefyow-pKJzect-AiPfhIoxFbTPleEBPSTs9a_UnF7HnI6xFpwLXOGwM-gmXWNlBSqMlEj7V3ubr5kcROx52kLggZyNlD4RIRzO2CmJ2dryhTC2KpIJ9ajGqNhNKmB5w&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
This can also be seen as a wider phenomenon, usually found in advanced, comfortable societies on the decline, called oikophobia, hatred of one's own. A friend of mine recently wrote a book on the subject. It's telling, of course, that it usually comes from one end of the political spectrum today.
Regarding Tenenbaum's point, there's a corrective. I think it was Ahad Ha'Am who said that the blood libel was a sort of blessing in disguise for Jews. After all, when you've been attacked for thousands of years by the whole world, you start to think that maybe they have a point. And then they come up with something *so* extreme that you know for a fact is untrue- like the blood libel- that you are reassured that, no, you're not the crazy one, they are.
I imagine there are a million such examples from the past year, but I can't pick one perfect one. Killing babies, and defending killing babies, is a good fit, though.
By the way, it's also no coincidence that these people hate *all* Western countries.
Well, they start screaming that America is assisting in the "genocide of the Palestinians", as is the UK and France, by providing Israel with weapons. So they put the Western nations in the same basket--somehow. The fact that Western nations also funded UNWRA and the Palestinian Authority is ignored.
Uri Avineri was another such character, but at least he went from a Lehi fighter to a Meretz supporter. At least that's somewhere on the Israeli political spectrum.
The personalities that Rabbi Slifkin mentioned consider murderers and rapists of Israelis to be "heroes". Or that "October 7th warmed my heart", as Norman Finkelstein said. It's an inversion of all morality.
I think "staying in Israel" is either an indicator or a guarantor of staying out of the crazy zone. Not 100% (some in Israel are crazy, and of course most who leave don't go crazy), but it's more often than not.
and more:
"Imbeciles and short-sighted fools who are cheering on Hamas and supporting the terror group’s supposed “resistance” are completely ignoring the fact that October 7 brought back Israeli occupation to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has chopped up the coastal enclave into chunks that it controls via a network of roads, buffer zones, and no-go areas that are off-limits to the Palestinian people. It appears that the IDF is settling in for a multi-year campaign that’s going to be disastrous for Gazans and will prolong their suffering to an unimaginable extent.
Before 10/7, Gaza had options and possibilities to address the economic, humanitarian, and political hardships and problems. Gaza had even shopping malls, sprawling beaches, vibrant communities, art centers, restaurants, and food everywhere, and a functional infrastructure that provided enough for people to survive and, in some cases, even thrive. Hamas deliberately threw all of that away and destroyed the people of Gaza with no way out and no exit plan. Every single member of Hamas’s leadership must be tried and convicted of crimes against the Palestinian people; they must be delegitimized, shamed, and held accountable for high treason against Palestinian interests and, importantly, for cowardly behavior like fighting in civilian clothes and hiding among women and children in tents, schools, and hospitals. "
"It’s important to point out the flaws in their arguments, as well as to understand the psychological mechanism that drives it."
There's always some psychology to everyone, but I'd prefer to focus on the "flaws in their arguments" rather than the "psychological mechanism". I find that people often go after the "psychology" to avoid addressing the arguments, and I'm sure you've been a victim of this yourself at various moments. If you have ever seen a religious person trying to grapple with why people go "off the derech", there's always an appeal to psychology rather than any engagement with the "wayward" person's actual views. If we can just declare someone as demented or emotionally damaged or whatever, then we don't need to listen to anything they say. And we all generally like that easy approach much better than addressing the merits of positions we find repulsive. I don't know most of the people you mentioned, but I assume they do have something to say that can be analyzed, weighed, and refuted in a logical manner.
This is a good point. Ultimately, knowing why doesn't change things. Refutation can.
"What Israel doesn’t seem to realize is that no amount of civilian casualties and killings in Gaza will ever “put pressure” on Hamas, which is a sadistic Islamist cult that loves to see its own people killed as an actual strategy."
https://www.facebook.com/afalkhatib/posts/pfbid0Pimj8vmJoZa1Evkr24eskz1qaWoCZ8Pt9kTrY4KQHL32T9MSPNvpkGG7mrbaug9Sl?__cft__[0]=AZWHCOxtBkWh7UQa87UmThIYMDDjDvDNyet6Ggc-dy7pbxs9U1jR89eDQjCYlO_0qdlnxwC4zAS1H4PuwbIsTG1o-BrFaprOWW4laPg93co97HGGzR50h3ut8qlgijZFTO21xpUqqJLOEhDFuO-pww79&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
And here his biases come through, as he implies that Israel is *intentionally* inflicting civilian deaths as part of some strategy. Say what you want about whether such a strategy would be effective (well, probably, how could it not be) or whether it is moral (take your pick), but one thing for sure is that Israel is *not* doing it.
So he's disconnected from reality, which is never good. Still, he's degrees of magnitude better than most of the Israel-haters, so we take what the gods give us on a rainy day.
And more from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:
"Here is an uncomfortable fact that many don’t want to acknowledge: Hamas actively worked to prevent Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza from evacuating to the south. When the first evacuation order was given last October, Hamas’s spokespersons and leaders explicitly and repeatedly told people to stay and not to leave because the Israelis were not really going to attack. Then they said that the “resistance” is more than capable of repelling an Israeli onslaught and to rest assured. Then they said that leaving and heading down south would be akin to treason because Islamic warfare doctrine prohibits fleeing when facing an enemy on the battlefield, which in effect meant that Hamas viewed the entirety of the civilian population as combatant participants in its suicidal resistance project following the October 7th attack.
Hamas spokespersons and mouthpieces on social media worked in overdrive to ensure that as many Palestinian civilians would stay in northern Gaza as possible to complicate the Israeli war effort. Hamas even nefariously and hideously felt that massive Palestinian civilian casualties would ultimately become too high and unacceptable to the international community, which would theoretically force Israel to stop the war - or so Hamas thought.
I have personally spoken to Palestinians who were in northern Gaza and, upon attempting to leave in large groups, would experience mysterious warning shots that would foil their attempts to get out of the north. I heard about this in Zeitoun, Shejaiya, Tuffah, and Jabaliya, which is the current sight of horrendous suffering due to the Israeli onslaught against the isolated and besieged refugee camp.
While there have been numerous occasions of the Israeli military firing on civilians as they were fleeing, generally speaking, and in parts of the north, it made less sense that the Israeli military would want civilians to remain in active combat zones and to frustrate its ability to maneuver and carry out offensive operations.
I will never forget seeing a post by a Hamas mouthpiece early on in the war in which he said, “We cannot tolerate civilians leaving us alone to the Israelis.” It was a pathetic sentiment in which Hamas didn’t want to be lonely as they faced the Israeli military and wanted to bring down as many Palestinian civilians with them as they could - again, counting on mass suffering as a way to delegitimize Israel and high casualties which generate high pressure on the Israeli government to ultimately stop the war.
Now that this nefarious calculus has failed miserably and the Palestinian civilian population in northern Gaza is paying an unimaginably high price, Hamas isn't exactly adjusting course either. The group is despicably and ruthlessly exploiting the civilian deaths that their actions caused and brought upon to keep the focus on Israel and avoid the reckoning that Hamas will inevitably face when the war is brought to an end.
The tragedy in Jabaliya and elsewhere in northern Gaza, where the population is experiencing famine-like conditions, merciless Israeli bombardments and attacks, and sustained pain and suffering, could have been entirely avoided. Instead of working to protect lives, as should be the priority in warfare, Hamas and its cheerleaders wanted to hide behind the civilian population, which was told not to leave and to “hold the land.”
Gaza’s human capital is its people, who are the most precious asset of the Palestinian nation. Homes can be rebuilt, new political structures can be devised, and access to territories and borders can be negotiated, but human life can never come back.
Here's an important statement from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza, and lost numerous relatives in an IDF bombing, and who nevertheless acknowledges the historical causes of the current fiasco:
"A common theme in the plight of the Palestinian people is the unforgivable failures of Palestinian leadership over the decades: reject deals and say no, only to make a bad losing bet and want what could have been achieved, obtained, or received before. It’s important to remember that a viable deal was on the table, regardless of what revisionist academics try to convince you of: a clear pathway to Palestinian Statehood that included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. What Yasser Arafat did by not accepting the 2000 Camp David proposal was a crime against the Palestinian people, for which there has never been any accountability. Similarly, Hamas in the 1990s and 2000s rejected the Two-state solution, only to ultimately realize that Palestinians would be lucky to even receive that, particularly after the October 7 disaster.
"Time and again throughout Palestinians’ contemporary history, their leadership and that of some Arab countries, particularly during the Pan-Arabism of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, a Palestinian State could have been established, and attention could have been paid to nation-building, instead of pursuing fantasies around the destruction of Israel. It pains me greatly that so many Palestinians, both in Palestine and in the diaspora, are woefully unaware of this history and think the entirety of our problems are solely and exclusively the result of Israeli policies. It’s time for a rejuvenated and pragmatic Palestinian narrative that accounts for the consequences of disastrous leadership and acknowledges the inevitability of Israel’s continued existence and the need to live in peace and prosperity next to the Jewish State. That does not negate the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and freedom, for both peoples’ futures are intricately intertwined."
https://www.facebook.com/afalkhatib/videos/8857413641038424/?__cft__[0]=AZV1qeDB85wIGMzIxabFTxFbY1YFIEIiPnac9QtbJpIYdwkuIGB4cMeTgUqFO0Qrj_o8c6cG-tzZJ5x_pl6y8Amqh2BFZ5wIC4RLwhGbtRX-Yo0mdKKJexlJZidw1FMRt-EeyCkYR0WQISPOXcuUM0DL4X36URnD627D8AXB0nTGrg&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
Interesting piece, but I’m not sure this needs a unique label like 'Israelopathy.'
I think it's worth talking a step back and viewing this as a broader phenomenon.
Every country has its internal critics, and citizens everywhere can feel disillusioned or even hostile toward their homeland for various reasons - political, social, or personal (all of which you point out). While some criticisms are extreme, those are usual fringe, and it's overcomplicated to frame this as a uniquely Israeli phenomenon.
It feels like part of the broader, normal spectrum of internal dissent that exists in any society. You can always find extreme critics of societies they were born into
Your list of self-hating (and in Sands & Atzmon's case, self-negating) Jews is incomplete. But it's varied enough that any single answer will not fully explain the phenomenon. Just as there are varieties of anti-Semitism, there are varieties of Jewish self-hatred.
I suppose the first self-hating Jews were דתן ואבירם. But when when we first encounter them, they are revealed to hold very different, indeed antagonistic, world views. Yet somehow the disparate agendas of that inflexible right-wing fanatic and woke bleeding-heart leftist managed to converge every time.
Who's the right-wing fanatic? Charedim? Do you mean Korach on the one hand and Datan and Aviram on the other?
First, the basic fact is that the first time we encounter דתן ואבירם (according to the מדרש) they are engaged in dispute. See תורה שלימה. That contention can be interpreted as I have done. You know- drush.
In any case, the idea that דתן was a fanatic and אבירם a leftist was also expressed in a popular shiur made by a certain rav ז"צל in ירושלים. I won't mention the name, because the goon squad here will go crazy and I've injected my own notions here. (But see R' Moshe Shternbuch who ascribes to דתן ואברים the positions of Satmar!!)
But the point is that there's more than one kind of self-hater.
Thanks.
R Slifkin, what is your opinion of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a universally acknowledged scholar and observant Jew who yet coined the term Judeo-Nazis to refer to the IDF, which was picked up by our enemies and opponents and who surely used him to legitimize their hatred of us.
"observant Jew"
But with a very weird hashkafa. Basically he denied everything in tradition but the imperative. (Half-seriously, I suggest that he believed in God, not because he believed that He exists, but because He commanded such belief.) Typical of many a genius polymath he was a crank. He seemed to bask in the glow of his provocations.
And yet his anti-Zionism contains occulted within itself its own negation. The Jewish State implies one of the greatest and most challenging imperative yet. Implicit in many a critique of Zionism (and IDF service) is the conceptzia that Halacha and Tradition are incapable of addressing modern challenges. The only solution is withdrawal and isolation.
Leibowitz would have despised almost all of those who slavishly quote him today. He was open about this even when he was alive.
He was very much what you might call a Rationalist. He negated Kabbalah and hassidut and anything not specific as Torah or Halacha
Absolutely not. He would consider rationalism a form of עבודה זרה, the worship of reason as opposed to the submission to G-d's command.
There's rationalism and there's fanaticism in favor of rationalism. Liebowitz often veered into the latter.
And it wasn't just rationalism- it was more a slavish devotion to the letter of the law with no other considerations.
I disagree with the premise of this column, which apparently is that disagreeing with the actions of the current Israeli government somehow qualifies as being against one’s own people. On the contrary—in many cases, criticism of Israel is motivated by one’s very Jewish identity, and the failure of current and past Israeli governments to live up to Jewish ideals. In the case of the current kakocracy, whose policies are dictated by the extreme Kahanist fringe, I think such criticism is understandable and justified.
When I was a young man, I found a copy of Perfidy at an NCSY Shabbaton and, having heard of it, picked it up and started to read it. (The book is Ben Hecht's attack on the actions of the Zionist movement during the Holocaust. Leave aside whether it's true or not, it is what it is.) An advisor saw me reading it and said, "Oh, Perfidy. Good book. One thing, though: Don't let the [non-Orthodox] kids see it." "Why not?" "Because you have to love Israel before you can hate it."
A lot of people never went through the "love" stage, is the problem. (For the record, Hecht did, as did all the heroes of his book, Zionists all.) So no, you're wrong: If someone devotes their career and life to attacking Israel- as the people R' Slifkin is talking about do- they are guaranteed to hate Israel, period, and if they're not Jewish- and maybe even if they are- they're anti-Semites as well. (And, yeah, this goes for some people in black hats too.)
(For that matter, if someone who doesn't live in Israel, or at least isn't Jewish, even "disagrees" with Israel, it's almost guaranteed, if not guaranteed, that he's an anti-Semite. That's just how it is, go howl at the wind.)
And I can't let your little excuse at the end go. If we're talking "kakocracy," well, Kahanists of all people are pretty much the only ones who *don't* have something to apologize for after October 7. I'd suggest that perhaps it's a subconscious, or even conscious, awareness of that fact that causes so many people to carry on about them now, but then again "Kahanist" has been an all-purpose and meaningless boogeyman for decades, much like "fascist" or "racist" is.
Not understandable, not justified.
Omer Bartov doesn't know Ukrainian well at all, and this is supposed to be his area of specialization.
How did Commentary put it a few months back? Ah, yes: "The Times characteristically quotes Omer Bartov, a professor of history at Brown and an idiot..."
Ben Hecht recounts a conversation he once had with Ferenc Molnar (Hungarian-Jewish author of, inter alia, the source play of Carousel):
"Molnar once said to me, 'I find it difficult to be a Jew. It makes me feel unfaithful to something.'
"'To what?' I asked.
"'To all the things I thought I was,' said Molnar."
(Hecht stresses that Molnar, having been forced to be a Jew, embraced it wholeheartedly.)
Herman Wouk writes similarly about the assimilated Jew, walking down a Manhattan street and seeing religious Jews, and wanting to scream at them that he is not one of them, but knowing deep down that he is.
I think that's a major factor here. These Israelis felt that they were finally *beyond* all that. They were normal, they were modern, no more Jew hatred, no more need to worry about defending themselves. It's not a coincidence that of course all of them have drunk deeply from the corrupted form of modern education that sees John Lennon's "Imagine" as a desired ideal. Like Molnar, they didn't see themselves as Jewish. They saw themselves as cosmopolitan citizens of the world- who, in most cases, didn't even live in Israel anymore.
Except of course it wasn't true. Israel, like every other place in the world, is a normal place with normal problems, compounded that the world can't stop hating Jews, and so Israel has to do certain things good cosmopolitan white people shudder at, and it can't stop being in the news. And you can try to assimilate as much as you want, but the haters will root you out. Faced with that, you can, like Hecht and Molnar and Wouk, become more connected to your Judaism and the Jewish people and Israel. Or you can react unnaturally strongly against it, and lash out, as these lovelies do.
" These Israelis felt that they were finally *beyond* all that. They were normal, they were modern, no more Jew hatred, no more need to worry about defending themselves."
ביקש יעקב לישב בשלווה!
(According to the מלבי"ם, this means that יעקב considered himself a בן נח and consequently could live in tranquility in ארץ ישראל which was a land not (yet) his own. As a בן נח he was living as a גר in א"י, and he considered that sufficient fulfillment of גר יהיה זרעך בארץ לא להם without the ordeals of subjugation. )
יעקב had to learn that he was not yet done with an abnormal existence.
"And you can try to assimilate as much as you want, but the haters will root you out."
The Nazis didn't invent that. Spain, under the inquisition held non-Jewish descendants of converts in suspicion. These non-Jews suffered from anti-Semitic persecution.
Hecht himself went through his period of normalcy ("desiring to live in tranquility") and even wrote a self-hating novel, A Jew in Love. Why hasn't that book have the same currency in the Charedi world as Perfidy?
(Herzl also had a recipe for living in tranquility by way of self-negation. But the ever present anti-Semites in Paris reminded him of his Jewishness and that he was capable of grander schemes.)
Well said.
With the greatest respect, an unfavourable opinion of Israel and/or Jews does not necessarily make them "self-haters" as the term is commonly understood as an offshoot of antisemitism. One could lob the same accusation against you for what some might call your near-obsessive writings on Charedi Jews. I'm sure you would object to this characterisation of yourself and so might those you have singled out. Critics come in all shapes and sizes, some more obsessive than others and some more trenchant than your personal taste.
Jews have a rich tradition of castigating prophets and those going against the grain and many so-called self-haters fall into that category. I personally would draw a line at Holocaust deniers but the Neturei Karta went to the Iranian Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran. Useful idiots, no doubt, which is also what some of those you named are, but I doubt you could call them antisemites or accuse them of trying to ingratiate themselves with progressives. Was the Satmar Rebbe a self-hater for vehemently opposing a Jewish state and even resorting to antisemitic tropes of Jews controlling the media?
And if you're going to deal with the malady of self-haters then you must also address the narcissistic self-lovers who are ultimately the other side of the same coin. Personally, I'd place T. Tennenbaum in the latter camp but then perhaps I'd be labelled a self-hater for doing so.
Well, considering that he owed his life to the Zionist movement- and a Zionist individual that even a lot of Zionists didn't like- yeah, the Satmar Rebbe seems to have had some real issues with his self-image.
Tennenbaum is certainly a character. Gonzo without the acid, but with free doses of sodium pentothal. He doesn't seem to be a narcissist, but he many be just as tiring to those who grow weary of his shtick.
Interesting piece. However, every society has their far out critics of everything in their society Why should the Jewish state be any different.? Here in America don't we have an entire wave of people, believing we are the devil himself - we hog the worlds wealth while keeping the poor ones to suffer. Why bother with them- it is a lost cause, this is the fabric of any society.
I did study in an academic way, (in YIVO and other places) about the root cause of anti semitism. Many things opened before me, and enlightened me. Here are 3 tings that I have changed courses while studying.
1 - Many generations until March 1881 Jew did not suffer more than any other group that was living in a foreign land. They all were second class citizens, looked down upon, taken advantage of, got beatings from time to time etc. The only thing more the Jews were subjected to - they were "Despised" more then anyone else. Thrown out of countries? same as many others. Many groups including the Christians claim they were , abused, beaten, and suffered many martyrs. Every group uses their martyrs to show their pain. Until 1881 Jews didn't really hold the sole right and title to the claim of "suffering".
2 - Ask any Yid in shul to state the atrocities we had from before 1,800. Most only know the few well known ones, and until the year 1,100 they can not even cite one. Then ask them how many were killed in the 1st and 3rd crusades, (where they attacked Jews), let them take a guess, You will hear 1/2 million or several hundred thousand,as that stands out in their minds. Then I tell them it was 1,300 or something and it is documented. This number was a mid day snack for the Nazis in WWII - Don't get me wrong EVERY Jewish person killed is a tragedy in itself. However, we are trying to look at proportional and what others suffered. Only Tach V'tat is the exception to this entire 1,800 year period - it was the first full blown attack on the Jewish people in the years1648-50 where tens of thousands were killed. Before that we have 200, 600, 1000 etc. However, even one is too many and we have to cry over it!!
3 - Here is where the hardest part comes in. When you start to realize how the Yidden in the shtetlach hoodwinked the gentiles. Remember in most of our history 95% were committed Jews and what we call today charedei., One of the most popular ways and this basically happened in every town - getting the gentiles drunk and overcharging them big time when they could not see straight. There were 2 Yidden involved in this scam, the boss who the peasant worked for, and the innkeeper who supplied the drinks. These Yidden split the money (profits, call it what you want) in different ways. I even came across a Din Torah over these profits. Instead of the Rav berating them "that this is thievery you cant do this to gentiles," he gave a posak. There was many other ways they hoodwinked society, I could write a small book about this topic. When I saw these shenanigans' for the first time I said to myself - how do I eat this information??? When the gentiles kept claiming the Jews are "Sucking the blood of Society", there is some truth to that, and no I am not a self hating Jew. I just wish so much, we were better. I am not the only one the see this and admit it. Dr. Leon Pinsker entire notion, that we have get our OWN land - after his 4 years of study - he came to the very same conclusion and said the "our nature" makes us not able to live among others. Many others including many Frum intellectuals came to this very conclusion, See Rav Weinberger in Berlin. Some even said we hate the goym more then they hate us. The very reason why we win so many noble prizes, is the exact reason we have a hard time living among others, Hard to swallow, hard to accept, and many down nights, but not everyone can stick his head in the sand, and feel good.
Now let us look round and note - how do the charedei, look at American society, why do we go into industries, real estate, nursing homes, life insurance for the elderly etc. where we can manipulate things for big bucks. Why do some of our communities have 85% taking government programs. How do you think Americans feel about these statistics? Forget about Covid and what we did. An average person in Boro Park or Monsey cannot afford a house anymore, due the Covid money floating around that many Yidden "made" It is not a victimless crime. Do we really care about the rest of society??
Then take the charedim in their own land. They look at what can "I" get out of the society. The rest of society? who cares, what exactly does that have to do with me, all I care is what can I get for myself. So it is not just in Europe - it is here today and now. In Europe we could at least say - look the gentiles were not good to us, (not a real answer for not being an honest human being) what do we say in American or in Israel? Aren't we fighting this, on this very blog?
Thankfully, there are many committed Jews these days that are thinking different, are - Upstanding Jews - Honest Jew, - Ones we can say "You are a light to the nations". We strive to get all our Brethren on this same honest lifestyle. May we be successful !
I too am bothered by Jews today who live down to stereotypical images of Jews, engaging in predatory lending and so on - I've heard horrific stories. But such things do not suffice to explain antisemitism. Read "Anti-Judaism" by David Nirenberg. To give just one example, he points out that for hundreds of years in England, there were endless discussions about the problems caused by Jews - even though there weren't any Jews in England during that period.
And if you look at Israel today, it becomes even more stark. Even if you think that Israel has overall been terrible, it certainly doesn't come close to what other countries have done. And yet the UN has condemned Israel more than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY PUT TOGETHER. So how do you explain that?
Rabbi Slifkin -Thanks or your reply,
The phrase anti-Semitism was coined around the same time of the first pogroms in 1881. Before it was Anti-Jewish. anti-Jihd etc. The worst period in our history that the Jews nation suffered was from 1881 -1945 Those were heart breaking years. One tragedy over the other, and always more brutal - millions laying dead.
I am looking at the period before this, we were treated as any other people living in other peoples land. No one likes the foreigner, everyone looked down on them, The Russians hated the Germans in Russia, (even one time leading to a full blown pogrom, with looting, rapes, and killings). The French didn't particularly like the Polish on their land, the Chinese did not like the Mongolians etc. We can go on and on. Just as Israel today would not be trilled if say a half million Japanese decided to move in. The next level that caused problems with added hatred was those that moved in, stayed apart. This happened to every group in all periods . However, the Jews had 2 other points going against them
! - They always tried to outsmart the host populations. -not going to make friends
2 - They were looked at - as killing their host countries God. - not a good fit.
What I am saying that until 1881 there were reasons, many times it turned unjustified. Let us keep in mind we had long periods of Good years, Golden ages, in Poland, Spain, Germany etc. other times it was more of sufferings periods. However not really much worse then others.
In 1881 it shifted to anti -Semitism, - where the hatred of Jews is just outright hatred - no "real stronger" or extra reason to hate more. As we see today, with the UN and many other countries. The last year it is started spreading to regular people, as it is repeating the 1920 -30, where people and political parties, openly and publicly voiced anti-Semitism, Before now it was never so public. It might get hairy for us, that is why even those that can't emigrate to Israel , should keep one foot ready to run!
Let us not make the same mistake as we did in the period before WWII
OK. So tell us who invented the word "anti-Semitism," and why. No cheating.
It was started right before the pogrom period, that started in 1881. By some German, forgot his name but it starts with an M.
Before that they said Anti -Jew. Let us say in 1850 you used the term anti- Semite no one would know what you are talking about.
Little history lesson - Bet you did not know that? Huh
I'm sorry, this is nonsense on stilts. Anti-Semitism only began in 1881? Jews weren't persecuted more than most before then? There were no major attacks on Jews before then? Jews in the shtetl had gentile peasants working for them? Jews in the shtetl were charedim?
I somehow seriously doubt you have done any "academic" research into these matters.
Rav Natan, thanks for your take on an ever more-crucial crucial topic.
A suggestion: The best term for this is simply "Israphobia"! Easy to pronounce, has a nice ring, and absolutely clear what it means. Would work far better and be more effective, in my opinion, than "Israelopathy".
Both of these terms do something important by using the word "Israel" (rather than "Jew"): They successfully indicate a joint hatred of the People of Israel and the State of Israel at once.
"Israphobia" means fear of Israel, not hatred of Israel.