Algemeiner (http://www.algemeiner.com)
(1) Passover, Anti-Semitism, and Rising Above Hate , 11 April 2014
In 419 BCE, the Persian king Darius issued a decree concerning the Jewish garrison at Elephantine on the Nile Delta (near the cataracts of what is now called Aswan). It was directed towards the governor, Arsames, and instructed him to make sure that the Egyptian priests of Khnum did not attack the Jews or try to stop the Passover celebrations at the Jewish temple there. You may well wonder at the prospect both of a Jewish military garrison in Egypt two-and-a-half thousand years ago, and at a Jewish temple where sacrifices were made outside of Jerusalem. But that’s for another time.
Tension between the Egyptian priests and Jews was exacerbated by the Jewish tradition of slaughtering sheep, something the Egyptian religion forbade; this Egyptian antipathy is explicitly stated in the Torah (Genesis 46 and Exodus 8:22). Sadly, nine years later, with Arsames no longer there, the priests of Elephantine destroyed the Jewish temple and its population.
Alternative versions of the Exodus have existed for a long time. Just as alternative narratives about the Middle East proliferate nowadays. Each has its own agenda, some constructive and some destructive. Hecataeus, an Egyptian historian who lived around 320 BCE, talks about bands of exiles coming to Egypt, being driven out, and then taking over an uninhabited Judea. They were led by a man called Moses who founded a new religion that Hecataeus described as unsocial and intolerant!
Manetho was an Egyptian priest who lived in Heliopolis in the middle of second century BCE. He is mentioned by Josephus. Manetho gave two versions of the Exodus. The first was about shepherds who invaded Egypt and took it over. This conforms to the archaeological evidence we have of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt roughly three thousand five hundred years ago. But then according to Manetho they were driven out and settled in Judea where they founded Jerusalem and built the Temple. This is not entirely dissimilar to, although different than, the Bible.
Manetho gives another version, which seems to be a basis of the virulent anti-Jewish sentiment of the Alexandrian Greek world. After the invasion of the shepherds, the Egyptian King Amenophis was told that he would see the gods if he purified his land of lepers and the diseased. So he gathered 80,000 diseased and unclean and set them to work in quarries. But the diseased ones formed a society of their own under a renegade Egyptian priest called Osarseph. Osarseph made new laws and commanded them not to associate with ordinary Egyptians. This new diseased people set fire to cities, attacked and destroyed temples and holy images, desecrated holy places, and sacrificed animals that hitherto had been forbidden. Finally, the leader changed his name to Moses and led them out of the land.
There were lots of upheavals, external and internal, in Egypt. One of the most famous was when Akhenaten overthrew the old system and replaced it by one that worshipped the sun god Aten. Indeed Freud used this association in his “Moses and Monotheism,” when he suggested that Moses was a follower of Akhenaten, and when his boss was defeated he looked around for another job. Manetho makes it very clear that the characteristics of these followers of Osarseph/Moses were an alien, dangerous, degraded, sick people – rigid and xenophobic. The visceral hatred of Jews as “others” and “enemies” had begun. Josephus uses much of this material in his book “Against Apion,” which is a defense of Judaism against the Alexandrian Jew hater.
This association has come to be the dominant narrative of Jew hatred from Haman, to Greeks, and medieval (and not so medieval) Christianity and Islam. Jews are rootless nomads who invade other people’s territories and live a life diametrically opposed to the host societies’ values and religion, while taking advantage of them and undermining them. They are misanthropes who are a threat to ordinary peace-loving peoples. Thus most Europeans nowadays see Jews as the biggest threat to world peace.
If you are interested in how this narrative has developed from its earliest stages to this very day, it is worth reading David Nirenberg’s brilliant book “Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition.” But I warn you, it is depressing reading for any Jew. There is no question that we have often added fuel to the fire, and often been the authors of our own fate, and made some terrible decisions. But the pathology of an irrational hatred is documented in Nirenberg’s book with even more impressive literary and historical sources than Anthony Julius’s great contribution in “Trials of the Diaspora.”
We will sit around the Seder table next week once again, surrounded by our children, and tell them tales of our past, enact innocent rituals, drink wine, and eat and be merry. We may wonder what we are doing, bringing children into such a hostile world in which the hatred persists, and even grows in many places like dry rot.
Yet this has been our narrative for thousands of years. Some argue (not I) that it has made us stronger and helped us survive. Yet for all that, I would not willingly impose this on anyone unless I strongly believed that the Jewish way of life is dedicated to making this world a better and more spiritual place, and that it adds so much quality and depth to one’s life; to one’s range of experiences; and to one’s intellectual development. All this despite the persistence of those within who make a mockery of it.
Perhaps it’s just envy that motivates our enemies. Pesach reminds us to rise above the hatred, which is to be really free!
(2)A Rising Anti-Semitic Storm in Greece , 13 April 2014
The so-called Affair Baltakos in Greece is one of those eye-opening moments that throws into sharp relief the problems posed by far-right extremist parties in Europe.
As I said in a press statement last week, the affair underscores that Europeans need to establish a common policy forbidding dealings with neo-Nazi, racist, and anti-Semitic elements, and create a clear “cordon sanitaire” vis-à-vis these parties.
Here’s what happened: Takis Baltakos, a top adviser to Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, had to resign recently after Baltakos was caught on videotape discussing a government investigation of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party with a Golden Dawn official. In the apparently secretly recorded videotape, Baltakos seems to insinuate that the charges against Golden Dawn are politically motivated.
A virulently anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant group, Golden Dawn stands accused of major crimes. Police and magistrates are investigating charges that the party’s members and supporters were involved in a series of violent attacks, including the killing of a left-wing rapper in September.
Golden Dawn, unfortunately, is no fringe group. This party, which has capitalized on a wave of anger against harsh austerity measures Greece enacted because of the Eurozone crisis, has become the country’s third largest political force.
So I joined the Word Jewish Congress’ Greek affiliate, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), in voicing outrage that an aide to the Prime Minister had spoken with a neo-Nazi. KIS expressed its “strong resentment that a government official was in conversation” with the fellow, a member of Parliament named Ilias Kasidiaris.
KIS further stated that the Affair Baltakos shows that Greece and Europe have a “duty to isolate those who seek the return of Nazism, and those who disseminate racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic ideas, in order to safeguard democracy.”
Meanwhile, the crackdown on Golden Dawn continued last week when the Greek Parliament voted to strip legal immunities from Kasidiaris and four other Golden Dawn lawmakers, clearing the way for another round of criminal charges.
I have confidence in the legal process in Greece. If the charges are upheld in court and Golden Dawn is ruled a criminal organization, the full force of the law must be brought to bear on it, and I believe that this will be done.
・Ronald S. Lauder is president of the World Jewish Congress. This article comes from his blog at www.worldjewishcongress.org.
(3) Anti-Semitism From Ukraine to the U.S., 23 April 2014
Few recent news articles captured more attention than reports that Jews in Ukraine were being ordered to register. Then it turned out that the pamphlets ordering Jews to register might be something of a hoax or a political stunt.
Either way, it appears that Ukrainian Jews are being treated as pawns.
Moreover, the story would not have gotten such play if it hadn’t hit a nerve.
Ukraine has lately seen a string of anti-Semitic vandalism. The Holocaust Memorial in Sevastopol, which had previously been vandalized by neo-Nazis, was recently spray-painted with a hammer and sickle. In Dnepropetrovsk, swastikas were sprayed on the tomb of the late Lubavicher Rebbe Menahem Mendel Schneerson’s brother, Dov Ber Schneerson. There has also been a recent stabbing and the attempted arson of two synagogues, one last week in Nikolayev.
But the problem is not limited to Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Hungary’s neo-Nazi Jobbik Party won a shocking 21 percent of votes in national elections. Disturbingly, Jobbik now claims particular strength among Hungary’s youth and highly educated voters. Some commentators explain Jobbik’s gains as a protest vote against anti-democratic practices by Hungary’s governing right-wing party amid disarray on the left. Nevertheless, something is gravely wrong when one in five Hungarians votes Nazi.
Then word came out last week that Kazakh’s nationalist magazine, “Star House” displays Nazi symbols and praises Adolf Hitler. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Simon Samuels protested that the magazine “is dedicated totally to Hitler’s so-called ‘positive contribution’ to history, which would perversely include the Holocaust.”
Nor has the United States been immune from anti-Semitism lately. Frazier Glenn Cross, the founder and former head of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, allegedly shot three people dead at two Jewish-affiliated facilities in Kansas just before Passover. The shooter’s Mayor, Dan Clevenger of Marionville, vocally expressed support for him. “Kind of agreed with him on some things, but I don’t like to express that too much,” Mayor Clevenger reportedly told a local television station before announcing his resignation.
Disturbing incidents are also found on some American university campuses. Last month, after a heated debate over an anti-Israel divestment vote, some Jewish students at the University of Michigan at Arbor told Brandeis Center lawyers that they had been called “kike” and “dirty Jew.” One Jewish student reportedly faced death threats. On other campuses, anti-Israel protests have turned similarly ugly.
These incidents are not all of the same cloth. There is a world of difference, for example, between the Kansas City shooter and the Ann Arbor anti-Israel activists. On the other hand, the incidents do point to a common problem. The post-Holocaust taboo against anti-Jewish hostility is eroding in many parts of the world, including even on some American university campuses.
Some people insist that the Jewish community does not need more protection because it is already wealthy and privileged, and often minimize the problem. This line is often heard on university campuses, where anti-racist groups may sympathize with Palestinian activists. In some cases, they believe the anti-Israel rhetoric and are unsympathetic to Jewish students who support the Jewish state.
Even some Jewish communal professionals are leery of being perceived as too powerful or too privileged. They hesitate to speak out against anti-Semitism or to work with Jewish civil rights organizations. In their heart of hearts, they have come to believe that Jews are already too powerful and should not be too noisy in defending their rights.
This is the worst possible response. If we have learned anything from the Holocaust, it is that anti-Jewish hostility must be snipped in the bud. We cannot allow it to fester. Nor should we be afraid to assert our equal rights. If we do not speak out against injustice when our students are being accosted on university campuses, we may soon face the graver threats that some Jewish communities are seeing in Europe.
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