Anti-Semitism: A virus of blind hatred circulating in our society

Jewish people are, sadly, used to reading about anti-Semitic incidents — Nazi swastikas, cemetery stones defaced, and synagogues torched among other incidents of hatred and violence. I cannot remember such a string of bomb threats against Jewish community centers that equaled those reported in the press recently and committed by unknown bigots filled with hatred for me and everyone else who belongs to the Jewish faith tradition. Just last week, a cemetery in Philadelphia was vandalized. In St Louis, one hundred grave stones in a Jewish cemetery were overturned.

Where is this ongoing rash of bomb threats and ravaging of cemetery grave stones leading? Are we witnessing just another ordinary spurt of anti-Semitic violence that will eventually go away and settle down? Or are these incidents part of a different trend, a movement of sorts unleashed against America’s Jewish community? Are we witnessing a shift that will see future attacks against not only against Jewish institutions but against other religious minorities?

Anti-Semitism has taken on different shapes over the course of history. One can look back and identify a variety of different prototypes going back to the ancient world. Some of the enduring attitudes and policies of peoples and governments over the course of history used religious ideology to label Jews as rejectors of Jesus.

In modern times Europe, in particular, developed the idea of racial anti-Semitism which advocated the idea that Jews were a different race from any other racial group. This ideology was used as far back as the 19th century to develop the belief that Jews were not only a racial group but an inferior one and a race that was dangerous to the white race in Europe. Adolph Hitler and his Nazis developed that ideology of hate and turned it into the unifying theme that would allow Hitler and the German people to enslave and eventually all but destroy the Jewish people and other groups in Europe.

Anti-Semitism took on a completely different form with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Today anti-Semitism is a weapon of hatred used by those Shia and Sunni Muslims who hate Israel. The current Boycott Divest and Sanctions Movement is an example of anti-Semitism used by supporters of terrorists and Islamic governments dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

But this hatred is not limited to Islamic states. Some academic groups and some mainstream religious denominations in America share that hatred. It has spreads into various sectors of Europe as well. All these groups hide the old anti-Semitic Jew hatred theme and disguise it in the format of their opposition to Israeli control of the West Bank territories. It is a sad state of affairs that seventy years later after World War II and the Holocaust, we are still contending with the outbreaks of anti-Semitism not just from longstanding traditional bigots but from those Americans who we Jews stood should to shoulder with in the ongoing struggle for social justice in America.

While I can identify the symptoms of anti-Semitism and explain it as a historic phenomena over the centuries, I still cannot understand how — and ultimately why — this virus continues unabated. Yes, I am relieved and grateful that President Donaald Trump finally condemned these recent outbreaks against America’s Jewish community and anti-Semitism in general. The recent trips by Vice President Mike Pence to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany and to the Jewish cemetery in St Louis represent the kinds of efforts we need from our national leaders to set the example of America’s rejection of hatred. An American Muslim organization raised over $90,000 to help repair the gravestones in St. Louis. I feel no differently about this hatred when people in our country use this wrath to justify and make acceptable attacks on any racial group or religion. I hope the president and the vice president will continue to use their bully pulpits to support other religions who suffer these outbreaks of hatred. I believe that the culprits in all of these incidents are the same ones who attack churches, synagogues and mosques.

I don’t just expect the president alone should lead the way. I hope all American religious institutions will condemn this kind of violence.

Anti-Semitism, like racism, is a virus of blind hatred circulating in the body of our society. It requires cure.

There is no answer for why people hate a religion or a race or some other group of people who simply want to live their lives in peace and tranquility.

But it is a problem that all American should own. We should all do what we can to address these incidents individually and as a community so that our young people learn that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated anymore.

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 6:33 AM with the headline "Anti-Semitism: A virus of blind hatred circulating in our society."