It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you

Like most Jewish kids of the latter part of the 20th century, I do not see eye-to-eye with those of my parents' generation on the topic of anti-Semitism.  Don't get me wrong:  it's not like I think that this most ancient of hatreds has vanished from the Earth.  But I don't find anti-Semitism to be an animating force in most American discourse.

Combination Skin

Which is why, when I do run across it, I react with a little bit of surprise, combined with a sneaking suspicion that perhaps the alte kackers are right.  I feel a sudden need to scratch a few nearby non-Jews to see if I find an anti-Semite lurking underneath, like the aliens in V who are actually lizards in human skin.

I had such a moment today.  First, though, some background.  I have an addiction.  I can't get enough of lectures on CD from The Teaching Company.  I've listened to lectures on the American Revolution, the Dead Sea Scrolls, World War II, and I'm about to embark on another series on the medieval world.

Recently I was enticed to acquire a series called Between Cross and Crescent: Jewish Civilization from Mohammed to Spinoza.  The lectures cover one of the richest periods of Jewish history, one with which I am insufficiently familiar, so I'm really excited to get it.

I do, however, like to read the reviews posted by other customers before buying.  And so I came across a review from a "Top 100 Contributor" (nope, no idea what that means).  Interestingly, the reviewer, "JoeR" from Toronto, gave the course 4/5 stars.  But he went on to identify a "bias of the instructor", to wit:

The root causes for the Jewish persecutions from the West were always investigated by looking at Christian failings, presuming that the Jewish nation were for the most part innocent victims. The fact that multiple nations treated the Jews unfairly stretching over a vast time period and across many cultures should have given more serious pause to the way that the Jews lived amongst their host nations in order to consider if their interaction consistently agitated the relationship

Well, sure:  Jews were raped, slaughtered, and left homeless throughout medieval Europe.  Should they not therefore have taken a moment to examine their own behavior?

"JoeR"'s comments represent the type of classic anti-Semitism that has its roots in early Christianity.  Indeed, he entitles his review "Humbling of a Nation," implying, of course, that the stiff-necked, haughty Jews were not simply the victims of the overwhelming force of the Roman Empire, but rather, were "humbled", brought down from their position as the Chosen People by a God who blames them for the death of His Son.  It was in fact this narrative that dominated medieval Christianity, though to my knowledge there is no parallel lesson drawn from the fall of Rome so soon after Constantine's conversion to that religion.

Unfortunately, the "blame the victim" philosophy, which had taken a well-deserved holiday following the Holocaust, seems to be on its way back.  No doubt we will soon be asked to consider European Jewry's culpability in its own destruction by the Nazis.  But we see the same idea in other places, as well, most notably in the garment-rending of some Americans in the wake of the terrorist murders of September 11, 2001.  "Why do they hate us?" we asked.  Is it our policy on the Middle East?  Our permissive media culture?  The popularity of ham at Easter?

Q. Why do they hate us?
A. Who cares?

And here is my response, my response to the "nobody would hate us if we were only better people" morons, my response to "JoeR" and his ilk, my response to fundamentalist Jews who believe we were scattered throughout the world for our sins and my response to fundamentalist Christians who believe... well, more or less the same thing as the fundamentalist Jews.

My response is:  go fuck yourself.   As long as I am strong, you will not hurt me again, so I will remain strong.  As soon as I become weak, no matter the moral beauty of my existence nor the peaceful transcendence for which I strive, you will attack me.  Morality guides my actions, but survival dictates my choices:  there is no morality in my death.  If you kill me and survive, then my insistence on morality has failed not only me, but the entirety of the world, because all that will remain is your evil.