A Politically Incorrect Take On Anti-Semitism

Ever since Abraham first led his tribe out of Sumer to Canaan, around 2100 BC Jews have been “those other people,” different, and thus the object of prejudice and persecution.

In what way are Jews different? Not by appearance. In my experience, most non-Jews cannot recognize the semitic features that Jews usually detect among members of their own tribe. In the past Jews stood out by virtue of their culture and language, but in modern Western nations, assimilation has largely eradicated these markers among all but the ultra-orthodox.

What makes Jews different is their way of thinking. My theory is that this is probably a function of their well documented exceedingly high intelligence as a group and the intellectual tradition that arose from it.

I hasten to say there is no shortage of highly intelligent people in every ethnic and religious group, and the percentage of college grads among all religious groups (excepting most evangelical Christian sects whose educational attainment levels are abysmal and whose colleges are essentially indoctrination centers) is rising. The average IQ of Jews as a group, however, has long been and remains a full standard deviation above the national average.

As I see it, thanks to his ” Yiddishe kup,” Jewish brain, Abraham came up with an idea as revolutionary for its time as were the discoveries of Darwin and Einstein, one that was viewed as subversive by the rest of the world. There was but one God, he theorized, the Creator of the universe. Abraham envisioned God as a human-like consciousness raised to its ultimate degree. This supernatural being had no shape or form. It was a pure intelligence, essentially an abstraction. In practical terms, Abraham envisioned a God that is as much a philosophical mental construction as an actual entity.

“I am that I am,” God told Moses. So it is, at our own puny level, with us humans. We think, therefor we are.

Just like the immaterial nature of consciousness, God could not be represented by a material object. Jews were forbidden from making or worshiping graven images. Over the ages, they refused to bow down to the idols of invading conquerors. This was perhaps as much a political statement as a spiritual one, but, whatever the reason, they were accordingly despised and punished.

Uncommon intellectual prowess has played a key role in determining the character, value system and philosophy of life that has always set Jews apart. Unlike many Christian sects that take the Bible in a fixed, literal way, Jewish tradition encourages examination and interpretation through abstract and metaphorical thinking, modes of thinking that require well above average mental power.

Jews have always lived outside the box, unwilling to completely embrace mainstream culture and attitudes that are inimical to their fundamental understanding of life and its purpose. Despite discrimination, that same intellectual capability and philosophy of life have helped them to achieve success . Consequently, they have been envied and resented, denied a level playing field. During the Middle Ages they were locked out of most forms of earning a livelihood, forced to earn their bread in roles that were looked down upon, such as money lending. This no doubt contributed to the common, and false, perception that Jews are greedy and obsessed with money.

Religion is the oldest form of social control. The refusal of Jews to be controlled by the majority makes them appear to be a threat to the powers that be. While current events remind us that Muslims also have long denigrated Jews, in the Western world, Christians have been their main persecutors.

I suspect that, on a deep unconscious level, Jews terrify Christians by challenging the central assumptions of their belief system, which, to my mind is so farfetched, it’s difficult to imagine any reasonably intelligent person cannot help but entertain doubts as to it’s validity. At least on an unconscious level, this may make them afraid the Jews may be correct in dismissing the central organizing tenets of their doctrine. Accordingly, their fear of the Jew may be fueled by the most powerful fear of all. Fear of a final and permanent death. What is feared is despised.

As a Jew growing up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I was simultaneously sheltered from anti-semitism and acutely aware of it due to the still fresh memory of the Holocaust. TV and mass culture made me aware that the wider world was different from the one I lived in. There were many reminders of this, not the least of which was the Christmas frenzy. Santa didn’t come down my chimney. From an early age it was clear to me that the de facto national religion was Christianity. People like me didn’t appear in Norman Rockwell illustrations.

Yet, I had no wish to be Christian. I did envy the advantages non-Jews enjoyed, but pitied them for believing what to me was just a fairy tale. Like my ancestors, I especially resented their assumption they had the right to impose those beliefs on the world.

That insistence, enforced by the Supreme Court, is, if anything, stronger today than ever.

Jews rejected paganism, while the original Christianity, Catholicism, with its Trinity and worship of statues of saints, was and has remained a thinly disguised polytheistic pagan belief system. Strong vestiges of this are enshrined in the cultural practices of predominantly Catholic nations. The concept of absolution from sin at the whim of a “savior,” the concept of some perfect afterlife and the significantly less stringent lifestyle requirements required of Christian practitioners as opposed to practicing Jews, have from its beginning made this “Judaism lite” attractive to the masses and enhanced its spread. Forceful conversions also greatly swelled its ranks.

How simple and convenient it is. All you have to do is to say “I believe,” and, just like that, you’re Heaven bound. Christians’ guilt is “washed away.” At Confession the supplicant is told to go and sin no more. But why not? They can always come back and get forgiven again. Jewish guilt cannot be absolved. We cannot escape our culpability, only bear our pangs of conscience, learn from mistakes and try to do better.

I believe the well known proclivity of Jews to embrace progressivism is a partly an offshoot of this sense of personal responsibility. That social conscience is, itself, a thorn in the side of reactionary powers such as those who embrace MAGA politics. The upsurge in antisemitism we are seeing in today’s America and Trump’s rise to power are not coincidental.

While the majority of non-Jews no longer believe we have horns and tails like Satan, many continue to view us as his minions. During hard times, Jews were thought to have brought bad things on, for example, the Black Plague. Today’s times are hard. We have a new plague, Covid. The Four Horsemen are once more on the march, disrupting the world order, driving people into adversarial relationships and hatreds of all sorts, including anti-semitic hate.

Another basis of anti-semitism is projection. Jews have always been the depository of all the negative traits non-Jews wish to deny in themselves. The idea that Jews are avaricious, control the banks, government, etc. and are engaged in worldwide conspiracies is a direct outgrowth of the demonization of Jews by Christians during the Middle Ages. Looking at the predatory practices of American big business, businesses that traditionally excluded Jews from high positions and to a large extent still do, tell me. Who are the greedy ones?

What the Jew haters, especially those in America, don’t know is that they owe Abraham and his progeny an immense debt. While the citizens of ancient Sumer viewed individuals as inconsequential cogs in the great unchanging mandala of life, as helpless pawns to fate, Abraham set out to seek and to create his own future. His second Nobel Prize-worthy achievement was to establish the concept of linear, as opposed to circular, time. He coined the idea that destiny is in our own hands, that we have freedom of choice, that we are all equal in God’s eyes and can prosper by living ethical and industrious lives.

This concept made its way through the ages, eventually culminating in the the great American experiment with its accent on the freedom and sanctity of the individual.

After I met my future father-in-law for the first time, a man who was an executive of an international corporation and a product of a mid-western Protestant upbringing, a man about as typical of mainstream America as a person could be, he told his daughter he was certain that I would never work for any boss but myself. While he likely did not mean it as a compliment I chose to take it as one.

Along with the many benefits I gained from being raised Jewish, the call to be humble in the face of the power of the universe but not to subjugate myself to any person, to think for myself rather than defer to self-proclaimed authorities, has guided me, as it guided Abraham, to an ethical life filled with much success and few regrets. Even though I may be despised by many people for my cultural roots, I would never trade the positive influence they have had on my life for anyone’s acceptance.

Those who hate Jews could learn a lot from them were they to see them through clear eyes, but, that hasn’t happened in five thousand years, and there’s little reason to think it ever will.