For more than a year we haven’t stopped reading about the intensification of
antisemitism globally. I’d say that it’s been especially visible in Europe and the United States. Although in other places like Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East there may have been some signs of it but it’s clear that Europe and the United States have seen a marked increase in attacks against Jewish civilians, as well as antisemitic and anti-Israel demonstrations.
The first question to ask is why, in an anti-Israel demonstration, the hatred and attacks on Jewish people are included, regardless of their stance on Israeli policies in the Middle East or even their identity with Israel itself. Can we assume that all Jews are pro-Israel? We’ve seen that this is not the case. Many Jews don’t identify with the State of Israel at all, while others may feel connected to it but do not align with its policies.
So, what kind of hatred or “anti” are we talking about here? Until 1879, there wasn’t even a specific name for hatred toward Jews. That year, Wilhelm Marr coined the term “antisemitism” to distance the phenomenon from any religious connotation. Marr’s pamphlet, The Victory of Judaism over Germanism Viewed from a Non-Religious Standpoint, urged hostility toward Jews regardless of their religious inclinations. However, the term he chose has multiple flaws.
Firstly, there are no actual “Semites.” We can refer to Semitic languages or ancient Semitic groups, but assuming, for example, that a Jewish person from Holland and one from Ethiopia belong to the same “Semitic race” along with an Arab from Morocco is, at the very least, absurd. More importantly, there are no groups specifically against Semites, nor have there ever been. No parties, publications, or ideologies exist that have combated “Semites.” In fact, the term lends itself to wordplay. The former Egyptian Foreign Minister and former Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amer Musa, once responded to an accusation by asking, “How can we be antisemitic if we ourselves are Semites?” It’s unfortunate that this term, coined by an anti-Jewish thinker like Marr, spread everywhere, even though three years later, the esteemed Jewish thinker Leon Pinsker suggested the more appropriate word, “Judeophobia,” to describe animosity toward Jews.
“Judeophobia” is more precise, as the prefix directly points to the true target of this aversion—the Jew— while the suffix implies its irrational nature. True, in psychology, “phobia” also refers to its Greek root, meaning “fear.” We speak of ailurophobia (fear of cats), nyctophobia (fear of the night), or claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces). But in social sciences, it carries a meaning closer to hatred (not fear), as in “xenophobia” (hatred of foreigners).
Judeophobia is not a form of xenophobia, since Jews are not foreigners in the countries where they live. And, as we’ve said, they are not a race either, so Judeophobia is not a type of racism. There are various reasons to use the term “Judeophobia” instead of the usual “antisemitism.” These include historical, semantic, and logical reasons. But if you’re still not convinced that “Judeophobia” is preferable, let me add another argument. The prefix “anti” combined with the suffix “ism” suggests an opinion that opposes another opinion, as in anti-mercantilism, anti-Darwinism, or anti-liberalism. But Judeophobia is not an idea. Jean-Paul Sartre suggests we should not allow the Judeophobe to disguise his hatred as an “opinion.”
By using “antisemitism,” Judeophobes can adorn their resentment with an air of reasoned judgment, which also prevents us from understanding the phenomenon of Judeophobia with clarity. Hatred against rival groups has always existed; however, the disdain toward Jews is unique. Jews have been hated in pagan, religious, and secular societies. Nationalists accused them of being communists, while communists accused them of being capitalists. If they live in non-Jewish countries, they are accused of dual loyalties; if they live in the Jewish country, they are accused of being racists. Wealthy Jews are attacked, and poor Jews are mistreated. When they spend money, they’re resented for being ostentatious; when they don’t, they’re despised as stingy. They’ve been called rootless cosmopolitans or ethnic chauvinists. If they assimilate, they are feared as a fifth column (suggesting dual loyalty); if they don’t, they are hated for keeping to themselves. For centuries, hundreds of millions of people believed Jews drank the blood of non-Jews, caused plagues, poisoned wells,
plotted to conquer the world, or even killed God himself.
It is hard—very hard—to try to find a logical explanation. For this reason, the suffix “phobia” seems more fitting to define this peculiar kind of fear, hatred, aversion, or however we want to describe it without any apparent logic. We could say that, historically, Judeophobia is a phenomenon that has persisted uninterruptedly from Hellenistic times to the present, even as it assumes different characteristics over the course of history. And so, it has reached us today in an intense form.
Without fearing to sound paranoid, I read an interesting article on the expulsions suffered by the Jewish people: in all the European countries where Jews resided, they were expelled at some point. The most notable examples include England in 1290, France in 1306 and 1394, Hungary in 1349, Austria in 1421, numerous towns in Germany from the 14th to the 16th centuries, Lithuania in 1445 and 1495, Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1497, and Bohemia and Moravia in 1744. In a variety of historical circumstances, Jews were persecuted in almost every country in the world, even in those where they weren’t present. Modern-day Japan is an example of how Judeophobia can exist even with a tiny Jewish community. (now I DO feel paranoid...) China is frequently cited as an exception to this rule of the universality of Judeophobia.
In many places, Judeophobia continues for years, decades, or even centuries after Jews have left. King Edward I expelled the Jews from England in 1290, and they were not readmitted until 1650. It’s remarkable that Shakespeare could create the stereotype of Shylock, the Jewish character in The Merchant of Venice, after three centuries in which almost no Jew had lived in his country. Audiences could despise and mock the Jew, even though neither they, their parents, nor their grandparents had ever met one.
In the 17th century, Francisco de Quevedo mocked his literary competitor, Luis de Góngora, alluding to his “Jewish nose” and threatening to smear his poems with pork fat so that Jews wouldn’t plagiarize them, even though they’d been expelled from his
country over a century earlier.
In Latin America, Julián Martel’s novel La Bolsa blames the Jews for the collapse of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange in 1890, a time when there were
practically no Jews there.
I have no interest in creating a spirit of paranoia, neither in myself nor in anyone else. But I plan to continue with information in the next Temple Times edition, simply so we can speak clearly about this form of hatred, as well as others that affect us as humanity. Understanding the origins of the hatreds around us is one way to try to remove them from our lives and from our society. Judeophobia is just one
of them.
I wish you all Chag Urim Sameach, a Happy Festival of Lights (Hanukkah). May we illuminate our lives with the miracle of a message of peace, mutual respect, and coexistence for each one of us, for the people of Israel, and for all humanity.
Rabbi Gustavo Geier