The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism | Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Summary
TLDRThe speaker emphasizes the universal threat of antisemitism, asserting it's not just a Jewish issue but one that endangers European freedoms and societal values. They clarify that antisemitism is about denying Jews collective rights, not personal dislikes or political criticisms of Israel. The talk outlines the evolution of antisemitism, from religious and racial hatred to contemporary forms fueled by anti-Zionism and misinformation. The speaker warns that the rise of antisemitism is a symptom of societal breakdown and calls for vigilance, stressing that it's a precursor to broader intolerance and the erosion of human rights. They conclude with a call to action for European leaders to prevent the resurgence of this destructive ideology.
Takeaways
- 🌐 Antisemitism is not confined to Jews: The speaker emphasizes that hatred often starts with Jews but doesn't end with them, affecting broader society and threatening European values and freedoms.
- 🔍 Antisemitism is not merely disliking Jews: The script clarifies that personal dislike is different from the systemic denial of Jews' collective rights, which is the essence of antisemitism.
- 🏛 Historical blame-shifting: Throughout history, when societies faced failure, they often blamed Jews, a pattern that continues today with new scapegoats.
- 🕊️ The danger of unchecked antisemitism: The speaker warns that allowing antisemitism to flourish could signal the end of Europe as we know it, undermining its foundational values.
- 📚 Defining antisemitism: The transcript provides a clear definition, distinguishing between disliking Jews and denying their collective rights to exist with equal status.
- 📉 The resurgence of antisemitism: Despite significant efforts post-Holocaust, antisemitism has reemerged, with some Jews considering leaving Europe due to fear and insecurity.
- 🏙️ The new epicenters of antisemitism: The script points out that the Middle East, not Europe, is now the primary source of modern antisemitism, spread globally through new media.
- 🏡 The impact on Jewish life in Europe: Jewish communities across Europe are fearful for their future, with many considering emigration due to rising antisemitism.
- 🔗 The link between antisemitism and broader societal collapse: The appearance of antisemitism is likened to an early warning sign of societal breakdown and collective failure.
- 🌍 The mutation of antisemitism: The new forms of antisemitism are different, focusing on Israel and using human rights as a justification, which complicates recognition and response.
- 📈 The rise of anti-Zionism as antisemitism: The speaker argues that contemporary anti-Zionism is a manifestation of antisemitism, targeting the Jewish state and its right to exist.
- 👥 The societal consequences of unchecked hate: The script concludes with a warning that societies built on hate will ultimately destroy themselves and their values.
Q & A
What is the central message of the speaker regarding antisemitism?
-The speaker emphasizes that antisemitism is not just a threat to Jews but to the entire society and its values of freedom, compassion, and humanity. It is a symptom of a collective breakdown and a sign of societal disease.
According to the speaker, what is the definition of antisemitism?
-The speaker defines antisemitism as denying the right of Jews to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else, rather than simply disliking Jews or criticizing Israel.
How does the speaker describe the evolution of antisemitism over time?
-The speaker describes the evolution of antisemitism from being based on religion in the Middle Ages, to race in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and currently focusing on the nation-state, specifically Israel.
What historical efforts did Europe undertake to combat antisemitism?
-Europe undertook significant efforts such as anti-racist legislation, Holocaust education, and interfaith dialogue to ensure that antisemitism would not infect the body politic again.
Why did the speaker mention the year 9/11 in the context of antisemitism?
-The speaker mentioned 9/11 as a turning point when conspiracy theories blaming Israel and its secret service, Mossad, for the attacks began to circulate, indicating a resurgence of antisemitism.
What is the speaker's view on the future of Jews in Europe if antisemitism continues to grow?
-The speaker warns that if antisemitism continues to grow, Jews will continue to leave Europe, potentially leading to Europe becoming 'Judenrein' and the loss of European liberty.
How does the new antisemitism differ from the old, according to the speaker?
-The new antisemitism differs in three ways: the focus has shifted from religion and race to the nation-state, its epicenter has moved from Europe to the Middle East, and it uses human rights as a justification for its hate.
What is the connection the speaker makes between antisemitism and the State of Israel?
-The speaker connects antisemitism to anti-Zionism, stating that the new form of antisemitism denies the right of Jews to exist as a nation-state, Israel, with the same rights as everyone else.
How does the speaker describe the role of human rights in the new antisemitism?
-The speaker describes human rights as the highest source of authority worldwide, which the new antisemitism uses to justify its hate by accusing Israel of human rights violations.
What is the speaker's warning about the consequences of not addressing antisemitism?
-The speaker warns that if Europe does not address antisemitism, it will not only lead to the departure of Jews but also the death of European liberty and a permanent moral stain on Europe's name.
What historical parallels does the speaker draw to highlight the seriousness of the current situation?
-The speaker draws parallels to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mentioning key moments such as the founding of the League of Antisemites in Germany, the publication of 'La France Juive', and the rise of Karl Lueger in Vienna, to warn of the potential consequences of unchecked antisemitism.
Outlines
🌍 The Broader Threat of Antisemitism
The speaker begins by emphasizing that the hatred targeting Jews has historically never been confined to them alone, citing the suffering of non-Jews under Hitler, Stalin, ISIS, and Al Qaeda. Antisemitism is presented as a threat to Europe and its hard-won freedoms, and it's defined not as personal dislike or criticism of Israel, but as a denial of Jews' collective right to exist with equal rights. The speaker warns that antisemitism is a symptom of societal breakdown and could signal the end of Europe if unchecked. The talk aims to clarify misconceptions about antisemitism, highlighting its evolution from religious and racial hatred to a hatred of the Jewish state, Israel.
📉 The Alarming Rise of Antisemitism in Europe
This paragraph discusses the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe, despite efforts to prevent it through anti-racist legislation, Holocaust education, and interfaith dialogue. The speaker recounts specific incidents and statistics indicating an increase in antisemitism, including the consideration of emigration by a significant portion of Europe's Jewish population. The narrative describes the fear and insecurity faced by Jews across Europe, suggesting that if the trend continues, Jews may leave until Europe becomes 'Judenrein' or free of Jews. The new forms of antisemitism are outlined, including its shift from a European to a Middle Eastern epicenter and the mutation of its justifications based on human rights discourse.
🔄 The Mutation and Spread of Antisemitism
The speaker explains how the new antisemitism differs from the past by focusing on the State of Israel, the shift of its epicenter to the Middle East, and its global communication through new media. It highlights the misuse of human rights as a justification for anti-Jewish sentiment, with Israel being falsely accused of severe human rights violations. The paragraph also discusses the conflation of Zionism with Judaism and the antisemitic trope of Jews being both victims and perpetrators, which is propagated widely, including within Muslim communities and the far left and right political spectrums. The speaker warns that Europe, once cured of antisemitism, is now at risk of being reinfected by these new strains.
🕊️ The Consequences and Call to Action
In the concluding paragraph, the speaker underscores that antisemitism is not just about Jews but reflects a group's inability to accept responsibility for its failures and to build a future through its efforts. It argues that societies fostering antisemitism cannot sustain liberty, human rights, or religious freedom. The speaker draws parallels between historical moments of antisemitism and the current situation, urging Europe's leaders to remember the past and not to let history repeat itself. The speech ends with a plea to the leaders of Europe to act against the rising tide of antisemitism to preserve the values and soul of Europe, emphasizing the moral responsibility they hold.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Antisemitism
💡Holocaust
💡Collective breakdown
💡Human rights
💡Zionism
💡Judenrein
💡Mutating
💡Prejudice
💡Tolerance
💡Conspiracy theories
💡Humanity
Highlights
The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.
Antisemitism is not about Jews; it is about antisemites.
Antisemitism is a threat to Europe and the freedoms it took centuries to achieve.
The appearance of antisemitism in a culture is the first symptom of a disease.
Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism.
Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else.
The new antisemitism targets Jews for their nation state, the State of Israel.
The Holocaust must never happen again, but Israelis are now being labeled as the new Nazis.
Antisemitism today is spread through new electronic media.
Europe is being reinfected by parts of the world that never went through the self-reckoning of the Holocaust.
Antisemitism is a form of cognitive failure, a result of groups failing to take responsibility for their own failures.
Antisemitism re-emerges in times of recession, nationalism, and backlash against immigrants and minorities.
Jews were hated because they were different and the most conspicuous non-Christian minority in a Christian Europe.
No group that adopts antisemitism will ever create a free society.
Europe must act now to stop antisemitism to avoid a moral stain on its name for eternity.
Transcripts
Distinguished friends.
The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.
That is what I want us to understand today.
It was not Jews alone who suffered under Hitler.
It was not Jews alone who suffered under Stalin.
It isn't Jews alone who suffer under ISIS or Al Qaeda
or Islamic Jihad.
We make a great mistake if we think antisemitism
is a threat only to Jews.
It is a threat, first and foremost, to Europe
and to the freedoms it took centuries to achieve.
Antisemitism is not about Jews.
It is about antisemites.
It is about people who cannot accept responsibility
for their own failures and instead have to blame
someone else.
Historically, if you were a Christian at the time
of the Crusades, or a German after the First World War,
and you saw that the world had not turned out
as you thought it would, you blamed the Jews.
That is what is happening today.
And I cannot begin to say how dangerous it is.
Not just to Jews but to everyone who values freedom,
compassion and humanity.
The appearance of antisemitism in a culture
is the first symptom of a disease,
the early warning sign of collective breakdown.
If Europe allows antisemitism to flourish,
that will be the beginning of the end of Europe.
And what I want to do in these brief remarks
is simply to analyse a phenomenon full of vagueness
and ambiguity because we need precision and understanding
to know exactly what antisemitism is, why it happens
and especially why antisemites are convinced
that they are not antisemitic.
First, let me define antisemitism.
Not liking Jews is not antisemitism.
We all have people we don't like.
That's okay;
that's human;
it isn't dangerous.
Second, criticising Israel is not antisemitism.
I was talking to some children in Britain the other day
and they asked me is criticising Israel antisemitism?
I said No, and I explained the difference.
I asked them: Do you believe you have a right
to criticise the British government?
They all put their hands up.
I said now which if you believes that Britain
has no right to exist?
None of them put their hands up.
Now you know the difference, I said, and they all did.
Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews
to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights
as everyone else.
It takes different forms in different ages.
In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
there were hated because of their race.
Today, they are hated because of the nation state,
the State of Israel.
It takes different forms but remains the same thing:
the view that Jews have no right to exist
as free and equal human beings.
If there is one thing I and my contemporaries
never expected, it was that antisemitism would reappear
in Europe within living memory of the Holocaust.
The reason we didn't expect it was that Europe
had undertaken the greatest collective effort
in all of history to ensure that the virus of antisemitism
would never again infect the body politic.
It was a magnificent effort of anti-racist legislation,
Holocaust education and interfaith dialogue.
Yet antisemitism has returned despite everything.
On the 27th of January 2000,
representatives of 46 governments from around the world
gathered in Stockholm to issue a collective declaration
of Holocaust remembrance and the continuing fight
against antisemitism, racism and prejudice.
Then came 9/11 and within days, conspiracy theories
were flooding the Internet claiming it was the work
of Israel and its secret service, the Mossad.
In April 2002, in the middle of Passover,
I was in Florence with a Jewish couple from Paris
when they received a phone call from their son saying,
"Mum, Dad, it's time to leave France.
It's not safe for us here anymore."
In May 2007, in a private meeting here in Brussels,
I think in this building, I told the three leaders of Europe
at the time, Angela Merkel,
President of the European Council,
Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission,
and Hans-Gert Pöttering,
President of the European Parliament,
that the Jews of Europe were beginning to ask
whether there was a future for Jews in Europe.
That was more than nine years ago.
Since then, things have become worse.
Already in 2013, before some of the worst recent incidents,
the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
found that almost a third of Europe's Jews were considering
emigrating because of antisemitism.
In France, the figure was 46 percent.
In Hungary, 48 percent.
Let me ask you this.
Whether you are Jewish or Christian or Muslim,
would you stay in a country where you needed armed police
to protect you while you prayed?
Would you stay in a country where your children need
armed guards to protect them at school?
Where, if you wear a sign of your faith in public,
you risk being abused or attacked?
Where, when your children go to university,
they are insulted and intimidated
because of what is happening in some other part
of the world. And where, when they present their own view
of the situation, they are howled down and silenced?
This is happening to Jews throughout Europe.
In every single country of Europe without exception,
Jews are fearful for their or their children's future.
If this continues, Jews will continue to leave Europe,
until, barring the frail and the elderly,
Europe will finally have become Judenrein.
How did this happen?
It happened the way viruses always defeat
the human immune system, namely, by mutating.
The new antisemitism is different from the old
in three ways.
I've already mentioned one.
Once Jews were hated because of their religion,
then because of their race,
now because of their nation state.
The second difference is that the epicentre
of the old antisemitism was Europe.
Today it's the Middle East and it is communicated globally
by the new electronic media.
The third is particularly disturbing.
Let me explain.
It is easy to hate but very difficult
to justify hate in public.
Throughout history, when people have sought to justify
antisemitism, they have done so by recourse
to the highest source of authority within a culture.
In the Middle Ages, it was religion.
So we had religious anti-Judaism.
In post-Enlightenment Europe, it was science.
So we had the twin foundations of Nazi ideology,
Social Darwinism
and the so-called Scientific Study of Race.
Today, the highest source of authority worldwide
is human rights.
That is why Israel - the only fully functioning democracy
in the Middle East with a free press
and independent judiciary – is regularly accused
of the five cardinal sins against human rights:
racism, apartheid, crimes against humanity,
ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide.
The new antisemitism has mutated
so that any practitioner of it
can deny that he or she is an antisemite.
After all, they say, I'm not a racist.
I have no problem with Jews or Judaism.
I only have a problem with the State of Israel.
But in a world with 56 Muslim nations
and 103 Christian ones, there is only one Jewish state,
Israel, which constitutes one-quarter of one percent
of the land mass of the Middle East.
And yet Israel is the only one of the 193 member states
of the United Nations that has its right to exist
regularly challenged with one state, Iran,
and many, many other groups committed to its destruction.
Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews
to exist as Jews with the same rights as everyone else.
The form this takes today is anti-Zionism.
Of course, there is a difference between Zionism and Judaism,
and between Jews and Israelis.
But this difference does not exist
for the antisemites themselves.
It was Jews, not Israelis, who were murdered
in terrorist attacks in Toulouse, Paris,
Brussels and Copenhagen.
Anti-Zionism is the antisemitism of our time.
In the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of poisoning wells,
spreading the plague and killing Christian children
to use their blood.
In Nazi Germany, they were accused of controlling both
capitalist America and communist Russia.
Today they are accused of running ISIS, as well as America.
All the old myths have been recycled
from the Blood Libel to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The cartoons that flood the Middle East today
are clones of those published in Der Sturmer,
one of the primary vehicles of Nazi propaganda
between 1923 and 1945.
The ultimate weapon of the new antisemitism
is dazzling in its simplicity.
It goes like this.
The Holocaust must never happen again.
But Israelis are the new Nazis;
the Palestinians are the new Jews;
and all Jews are Zionists.
Therefore, the real antisemites of our time
are none other than the Jews themselves.
And these are not marginal views.
They are widespread within the Muslim world,
including Muslim communities in Europe,
and they are slowly infecting the far left,
the far right, academic circles, unions
and even some churches.
Having cured itself of the virus of antisemitism,
Europe is being reinfected
by parts of the world that never went through
the self-reckoning that Europe undertook once the facts
of the Holocaust became known.
How do such absurdities come to be believed?
This is a vast and complex subject,
I've written a book about it,
but the simplest explanation is this.
When bad things happen to a group,
its members can ask one of two different questions:
one, “What did we do wrong?”
Or two, “Who did this to us?”
And the entire fate of the group
will depend on which it chooses.
If it asks, “What did we do wrong?”, it is beyond
the self-criticism essential to a free society.
If it asks, “Who did this to us?”, it has defined itself
as a victim.
It will then seek a scapegoat to blame
for all its problems.
And classically, this has been the Jews.
Antisemitism is a form of cognitive failure,
and it happens when groups feel that their world
is spinning out of control.
It began in the Middle Ages when Christian saw
that Islam had defeated them
in places they regarded as their own, especially Jerusalem.
And that was when in 1096, Crusaders,
on their way to the Holy Land, stopped first
to massacre Jewish communities in Northern Europe.
It was born in the Middle East in the 1920s
with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Antisemitism re-emerged in Europe in the 1870s
during a period of economic recession
and resurgent nationalism.
And it is re-appearing in Europe now for the same reasons:
recession, nationalism and a backlash against immigrants
and other minorities.
Antisemitism happens when the politics of hope
gives way to the politics of fear,
which quickly becomes the politics of hate.
This then reduces complex problems to simplicities.
It divides the world into black and white,
seeing all the fault on one side
and all the victimhood on the other.
It singles out one group among a hundred offenders
for the blame.
The argument is always the same. We are innocent;
they are guilty.
It follows that if we are to be free, then they,
the Jews or the State of Israel, must be destroyed.
That is how the great crimes begin.
Jews were hated because they were different.
They were the most conspicuous non-Christian minority
in a Christian Europe.
Today, they are the most conspicuous non-Muslim presence
in an Islamic Middle East.
Antisemitism has always been about
the inability of a group
to make space for difference.
No group that adopts it will ever, or can ever,
create a free society.
So I end where I began.
The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.
Antisemitism is only secondarily about Jews.
Primarily it is about the failure of groups
to accept responsibility for their own failures
and to build their own future by their own endeavors.
No society that has ever fostered antisemitism
has ever sustained liberty or human rights
or religious freedom.
Every society driven by hate begins
by seeking to destroy its enemies,
and ends by destroying itself.
Europe today is not fundamentally antisemitic,
but it has allowed antisemitism to enter
via the new electronic media.
It has failed to recognise
that the new antisemitism is different from the old.
We are not today back in the 1930s.
But we are coming close to 1879 when Wilhelm Marr
founded the League of Antisemites in Germany;
to 1886 when Édouard Drumont published La France Juive;
and 1897 when Karl Lueger became the mayor of Vienna.
These were key moments in the spread of antisemitism,
and all we have to do today is to remember that
what was said then about the Jews is being said today
about the Jewish state.
The history of Jews in Europe
has not always been a happy one.
Europe's treatment of the Jews added certain words
to the human vocabulary:
disputation, false conversion, inquisition,
expulsion, auto da fe, ghetto,
pogrom and Holocaust,
words written in Jewish tears and Jewish blood.
Yet for all that, Jews loved Europe
and contributed to it some of its greatest scientists,
writers, academics, musicians
and shapers of the modern mind.
If Europe lets itself be dragged down that road again,
this will be the story told in times to come.
First they came for the Jews.
Then for the Christians.
Then for the gays.
Then for the atheists.
Until there was nothing left of Europe's soul
but a distant, fading memory.
Today I have tried to give voice
to those who have no voice.
I spoken on behalf of the murdered Roma, Sinti,
gays, dissidents, mentally and physically handicapped
and a million and a half Jewish children
murdered because of their grandparents' religion.
In their name, I say to you:
You know where the road ends.
Don't go down there again.
You are the leaders of Europe.
Its future is in your hands.
If you do nothing, Jews will leave,
European liberty will die,
and there will be a moral stain on Europe's name
that all eternity will not erase.
Stop it now while there is still time.
Thank you.
(applause)
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