UNTIL WHEN?

 

The unreasoning hatred in this world to the Jewish people is one of the great mysteries of the human story. It is the oldest social disease and, unfortunately,  it has again reared its ugly head in today’s society. Assimilation has not proven the answer.

In Russia, during the last quarter of the 19^th century, a great number of Jews assimilated, many becoming Christians. Anti-Semitisim didn’t disappear but worsened. The use of the term "pogrom" became common in the English language after a large-scale wave of murderous anti-Jewish riots swept through more than 200 towns and villages in south-western Imperial Russia. As a result of the growing anti-Semitism, between three to five million Jews escaped to the west.

The doctor and writer, Leon Pinsker,  believed like many others,  that the spreading of Emancipation and humanism would bring an end to anti-Semitism. When the progroms which erupted, were eventually abetted by the government and defended by the press, his assimilationist beliefs were shattered - and he turned to nationalism.  His book “Auto-Emancipation”, became  a forerunner of Herzl and other major political Zionists. He wrote that “the only restorative for Jewish dignity and spiritual health lay in a Jewish homeland.”

A similar phenomenon occurred also in the west.

The enlightenment of emancipation did not eliminate the hostility towards the Jews, but only caused it to mutate: from religious to racial. As Theodor Herzl wrote in 1896 in his prophetic pamphlet “The  Jewish State”: “………. Vainly, we made every effort to coexist and become devoted citizens……Vainly, we did everything in our power to enrich the country in which we had lived for hundreds of years - but were still regarded as strangers……”

The distinguished 95 year-old Cynthia Ozick has written 25 books and many short stories. Described as “one of the most accomplished and graceful literary stylists of our time”, she is an insightful  critic of contemporary society, and its attitude to Jews and Israel. In her powerful and penetrating essay on today’s anti-Semitism, masquerading as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, Professor Ozick writes:

“We thought it was finished. In the middle of the 20^th century, and surely by the end of it, we thought it was finished, genuinely finished, the bloodlust finally sated……Naively, foolishly, stupidly, hopefully, a-historically, we thought that the bloodthirsty hatred, once satisfied, would not soon wake again”.

Another of the great mysteries of the human story, is the capacity of the Jews to survive against all odds:

We suffered two brutal centuries of slavery in Egypt, and still circumcised our sons. We overcame efforts to deny us our religion in the Hanukah story; the attempt to wipe us out on Purim. We watched twice as our holy Temples burned, and still kept faith with Judaism. We were marched off to Rome as slaves, but never forgot we were Jews. For nearly two thousand years we have lived scattered throughout the world, always as second-class citizens, subject to relentless oppression and false blood libels. In 1492, when forced to publicly abandon our faith, we preferred to escape in ships rather than follow the Spanish ultimatum. In the 17^th century, half a million Jews were massacred by the Polish warlord Khmeilnitsky – which amazingly  led to the Hassidic revolution.

Yet all these failed to destroy us, failed to remove us from the pages of history. Every period of persecution we endured, led to greater things. Egyptian slavery was followed by our liberation, the giving of the Torah, and entering the Land of Israel. The destruction of the Temple resulted in the creation of the synagogue, and the Jewish Golden Age in the Diaspora. The horror of the Holocaust was followed by the creation of the State of Israel and the ingathering of the exiles, into the foremost Jewish commonwealth of all time.

Assimilation is not a cure for anti-Semitism. If we are not liked because of who we are, we will not be liked because of who we are not. In our distinctiveness lies our universalism. Only within our particular Jewish identity, can we continue our  unique contribution to humankind.