A 3,500-Year-Old Story That Explains Antisemitism Today

[Richard D]

I consider this an important essay:

Pharaoh’s propaganda campaign might seem distant, but look a little closer and you’ll see something chilling: The script hasn’t changed much in 3,500 years.

Here are three enduring lessons from the Exodus that can help us better understand the real nature of antisemitism — then and now.
1) Antisemitism isn’t about the stated reasons. It’s about the Jewish spiritual threat.

Pharaoh didn’t say, “We hate the Jews because they believe in one God.” or “They make us uncomfortable because they won’t assimilate.”
No, he claimed the Jews were a national security threat: “The Israelites are becoming too numerous. ... If war breaks out, they might join our enemies and fight against us.”1

Really? A group of shepherds and laborers, who had lived peacefully in Goshen2 for generations, were suddenly a military threat capable of starting a war? This excuse is as flimsy as it sounds. It was a lie. A pretext. And that’s the first insight: Antisemitism rarely presents itself honestly. It hides behind superficial grievances: economic anxiety, political conspiracy, military suspicion, even the idea that Jews are easy scapegoats. But these are fig leaves. The real issue is much deeper.


Much more: https://substack.com/home/post/p-161073452

[Mosby]

1. Very timely message, thx.

[Richard D]

2. It's more and more obvious to me . . .

. . . that the fight is real and that we are dealing with millennia of ignorance and hate.

[vishnura]

3. Anti-semitic

Good elucidation of the origins of antisemitism.
I am puzzled by that term. I do not understand how someone who supports Palestine is considered antisemitic. Don't the Palestinians speak a Semitic language also?

[Richard D]

4. It's a good question with a strong differentiation

"Semitic" definitely refers to the language group that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, and a bunch more.

However, the term "Antisemetic" was coined by Wilhelm Marr in Germany, who was an antisemite who wanted a word to give his Jew hatred some pseudoscientific legitimacy. The word has always referred to Jew hatred, and not to the broad language group of the Semitic languages.

Now, many with Jew hatred will say that the term covers all Semitic language groups, but that is not so, and never was. It's use in that was is antisemitism.

This is why some people prefer the term "Jew hatred," though IMNVHO, it loses something.

[vishnura]

5. Semitic

Thanks for the explanation. But it opened up a can of worms which makes it hard for me to understand the destruction of the Palestine inhabitants and the incarceration/deportation of people who crusaded against this act. The blame for October 7 lies squarely on the shoulders of Hamas...no doubt about that! I believe with the resources of the Israel state these members (of Hamas) could have been hunted down and punished. I find it hard to understand how a group I admired for most of my life can stoop so low and rain down so much suffering.

[JustAnotherGen]

7. It is deeper than October 7th

Great book by Dana Horn - People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present.

It's when Israelis fought back and said enough! You have done irreparable harm - that people started taking it out on all Jews.

The confusion about what being antisemitic is- I think RichardD explained perfectly. The people who have tried that "Semitic Languages" argument to diminish the real lived experiences of Jewish people - to me? Me alone?

Sound like the people who say the CSA Flag is history - not hate. Or try to give new meanings to the swastika based on images in Indian history. Its like people who so they never use the n-word so they can't possibly have racial prejudice.

It just doesn't fly with me.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Excellent read in the lead up to Passover

This at the beginning. Its the essence of antisemitism. The color of your skin, your weight, your gender - those are exterior reasons for people to act with cruelty to others.

But Judaism is in the heart - and expressed in values.

Today, we hear antisemitic tropes about Jewish power or wealth, we see passionate protests against Israeli colonialism and committing genocide, but reasonable people know that the Jews are not the greatest violators of human rights on earth. Whether in ancient Egypt, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or today’s radicalized Islamic world led by the Palestinian Hamas, the accusations shift — but the double standards reveal the underlying discomfort with Jewish values, impact, and distinctiveness.

Antisemitism is not your run of the mill racism; it’s about the Jewish soul, a light that refuses to be extinguished, threatening those who want to dwell in spiritual darkness. Jew-hatred, in the end, is not about what Jews do. It’s about what Jews are and what they represent.

One people - who were terrorized beyond JUST that ONE pogrom. The fear of a friend in Miami whose daughter met and married an Israeli, and had a tiny baby on that day. She said to me a week.later, "At 63 I've never felt so much fear in my own country".

Like the Nazis, Hamas didn’t ask who was “religious.” They didn’t check denominational boxes. They reminded us that in the eyes of our enemies — and in the eyes of Heaven — we are one people. The tragedy of October 7, 2023, and the global antisemitism that followed has awakened and galvanized Jews worldwide to reconnect with their heritage.

Jew-hatred, as painful as it is both physically and spiritually, and as a jarring reminder that we were never meant to blend in, often becomes the crucible through which we rediscover our unique role in the world.

There's so much to unpack here. Have a very sweet Passover!

[JustAnotherGen]

8. Kicking this up

Freedom and Family