The Historical Causes and Perpetuation of Judeophobia

S. K. Byk

      Note: In response to the various, recent attempts to find a more accurate term than Antisemitism to define

               the exploding phenomenon of rampant, unbridled vilification and hatred of Judaism, the Jewish

               people and Israel, Professor Emeritus, Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University has offered the term

               Judeophobia,[1] to replace the common misnomer.

                Finding the suggestion perfectly accurate, I have adopted the term anti-Judaic to describe early

                Christianity’s attitude towards Judaism and use the term Judeophobia to describe the evolved hatred

               and scapegoating of the Jewish people.

                At the same time, this article makes no pretense at being politically correct in its discussion of the

                factual, historical behavior of Christianity, its churches, and its adherents’ directed and sanctioned

                anti-Judaic attitudes and actions.

                Neither does it pander to modern, “PC” and “woke” demands regarding gender reference in its

               discussion of the development of the Judeo/Christian religions. As much as one might abjure the

               fact, those religions were born of cultures and societies that were patriarchal and paternalistic, and

               their gender terminology reflects this history

I

Despite its conception and foundation as a monotheistic religion, if one ignores the confusing and often conflicting chronologies of its evolution and the subsequent development of its devout traditions and practices, Judaism is, at its core, a rational, reality-oriented, philosophical construct that does not require any illogical, irrational, or mystical modes of thought from its adherents. That statement will doubtless puzzle, if not offend all those believers in Kabbalah and other mystical constellations that have evolved within Judaism—mostly, it should be emphasized, since the Christian era began. However, the Judaism under discussion here is that original, pre-rabbinic construct: the Mosaic Ten Commandments.

   Rejecting the superstition-laden, fatalistic, magical thinking of its many, contemporary, animistic and polytheistic cultures, those commandments were the expression of an emerging culture’s seemingly unique, intuitive perception of the human capability to survive and thrive through actions driven by rational and logical thought. Having escaped slavery, its post-nomadic aspiration to create a settled, stable, ruled-by-law society led that evolving culture—in a Kierkegaardian-like “leap of faith”— to choose to believe in, accept and affirm a single, supernatural, invisible but omnipresent and omnipotent Being as its guiding authority. However, reflecting and embodying its recognition of human capabilities, Mosaic Judaism placed the entire responsibility for the establishment and ongoing success of its society, and its putative divine/mortal relationship, directly and solely upon the shoulders and behavior of its believers, both as individuals and as societal members.

  Codified as a simple, scribe-like-outlined memorandum of agreement—its two-part format symbolic of the division between the spheres of divine authority and mortal activity—the first three commandments establish and affirm that deity’s power and the required behavior of the believer towards him. However, they are not mere tyrannical dictates, but in reflection of the evolution of rationality they represent, they include and offer the believer cogent reasons and examples justifying those requirements. That is, they speak to Man’s rationality. Accordingly, and further to the implied movement and emphasis on the relationship as beneficial to the faithful, the fourth commandment, focuses directly on the believers’ well-being and asserts and institutes the recognition of the natural need of all living beings for a formal period of rest and renewal; even including, uniquely for its time, slaves. And finally, by the fifth commandment’s requirement to honor (respect) one’s parents—completing the movement from celestial to terrestrial—the Mosaic ethos rounds out the establishment and chain of authority from the divine /metaphysical to the mortal/corporeal by affirming recognition of the nuclear family’s importance as the transmitter and perpetuator of a society’s beliefs and traditions.

However, whereas man’s required subservience to God’s authority is set forth in no uncertain terms, the second set of five commandments make no direct reference to the divinity or worship. Instead, they focus exclusively on delineating the natural, more primitive, instinctive behaviors that must be avoided if a culture is to build a cohesive, sustainable and expanding society. And the burden and responsibility for defining exactly how man is to behave is, thereby, left to man’s own devising; for it is only its context, as the second half of the contracted covenant, that implies that, if man makes the correct choices, the deity will keep his end of the bargain and guarantee the survival and well-being of his worshipers. In other words, if the Mosaic code were to be inscribed today as a formal business contract, the first five commandments would be formatted as the standard introductory “Whereas…” and the second five as the agreed-upon terms.

Accordingly, and again reflecting the bi-partite structure of its credo, the second most basic tenet of Judaic belief (after the Deity himself) can be summed up in the maxim: “God helps those who help themselves.”  For the deity’s part, he has, and will continue to offer opportunity: as in life itself and the infinitely varied world, but Man must do all the work himself. One may request (pray for) and hope to be blessed with God’s assistance, but the ultimate responsibility is on each and every individual for successful accomplishment.

     Additionally, even as the clearly conceived principles and contractual terms of the Mosaic Covenant establish a direct, personal connection between the deity and each believer, they simultaneously do duty as the moral and ethical framework required for both the society and its individual members. They are, therefore, a totally pragmatic, non-mystical model for the survival and growth of a stable, civilized society. Moreover, and most importantly, the standardization and availability of that promissory covenant in written form confirmed and guaranteed each individual believer’s ability to learn, understand and comply precisely.

  Even without entering into the subsequent processes of evolution, expansion and refinement of thought leading to the detailed codification of laws (Talmud, Gemara, Mishnah, Midrash), suffice it to say that, through the mandated literacy of all adherents, (female as well as male) the Talmudic mode of Socratic-like intellectual training and education created a culture and society of questioning and thinking individuals who were intellectually more flexible than those of other, more mystically reliant, illiterate cultures. Thus, even when conquered and dispersed, Jews were more prepared and capable of coping and thriving within whatever environmental and historical realities they had to face than were many of their host populations.

II

  Unfortunately, emerging Christianity recognized that its fundamental appeal—as a hope-instilling mythos for divine recompense and salvation from an unsatisfactory earthly reality—was in direct conflict with the Judaic mindset of seeking and expanding control of one’s earthly environment.  Moreover, in contrast to Judaism’s direct relationship of the individual to God, Christianity—constructed on what was, originally, the Judaic ethos amalgamated with a variety of pagan belief systems—based itself on the concept of an intervening, transformed and transmuted, messianic human persona who promises (and purportedly facilitates) recompense for the pain and suffering of mortal life (extreme poverty and/or slavery) by offering the possibility of salvation (that is, perpetual peace and rest), through unity with God and Christ in an eternal after-life (Heaven).

Thus, whereas Judaism sought to foster success on earth (by an ever-deeper process of study and expansion of intelligent thought as fostered by rational questioning and logical reasoning), early Christianity—faced with the task of constantly accreting and adapting myriad, disparate pagan belief systems—chose, in contrast, to offer hope to its adherents by utilizing their superstitions to create and perpetuate a non-rational, mystical belief system based on the assertion of the miraculous. 

  Consequently, in its need to prevent its followers from acquiring the Judaic/Talmudic process of rational and logical questioning—and aided, ironically, by Judaism’s own exclusionary principles—the Church’s founding fathers made the conscious, political decision to eschew and prevent the mass literacy of their followers; thereby denying them a comparable, rational and intellectual development. It accomplished this policy by two realpolitik fiats: making the biblical (holy) texts, and their interpretation, the exclusive domain of the Church and its priests (thus eliminating the need for layfolk literacy) and, in parallel, instituting the demonization of Jews and Judaism; and, therewith, its threatening mode of reality-oriented, analytical thought.

In hindsight, that demonization was, for emerging Christianity, a particularly fortuitous stroke of “evil,” socio/psychological genius. Regardless of its initial reasons and impetus—revenge, for Jewish rejection and refusal to aid Christian believers confronting Roman persecution, or merely a shrewd perception of its psychological/ political propaganda value—Christianity’s institutionalization of libelous, anti-Judaic doctrines gave the evolving Church a most needed way to both protect and validate its belief system. And thus, by integrating a dogma that ‘rationalized’ failure—‘life isn’t getting any better, but the Jewish devils are to blame’—it provided its adherents with what they (and the Church) itself needed most: a perpetual, flesh and blood scapegoat that promoted anger and hate as an antidote to despair.   

The sociological perception was profound.  As the psychological equivalent of the somatic drive for physical survival, the need for self-esteem, though often only subconscious, is certainly as basically instinctive and compelling as is its analogous biological imperative. Consequently, in a world in which the overwhelming majority   have only limited survival competence—that is, they are unable to fulfill their basic needs and dreams beyond the lower levels of achievement (either because of imposed circumstances, lack of education or limited, personal capabilities)—the need for self-esteem drives them to try to soothe and reassure themselves by ‘scapegoating’ more successful, minority ‘outsiders.’ Creating conspiracy fantasies and blaming others serves to avoid having to recognize and accept their own limitations as the cause of their failures. Accordingly, the systematic “blaming” of the Jews as enemies of Christ, Christianity and Christians was vehemently propagandized by all the Christian Churches (East and West, Protestant as well as Catholic) and quickly evolved into the wide-spread, virulent Judeophobia seen throughout history. 

III

It is impossible to dispute that blatant, often violent Judeophobia has significantly increased in the past two to three decades, and today has become rife in both the U.S. and in Europe. Clearly spurred by the unfortunate, continuing failure of the State of Israel to equably resolve the “Palestinian issue” (in fairness,  some are simply reacting to the injustice(s) being done to the Arab peoples living in Gaza and the West Bank), many in the BDS and other anti-Israel movements —whose proliferation has greatly accelerated since October 7th, 2023—are, despite their protests to the contrary, virulent

  Judeophobes who are happy to use the ill-conceived policies and behavior of successive

Israeli governments as a justification for their wish to destroy Jews and Judaism.

            At the same time, if one sets aside the terrorist actions of members of the more extreme Arab-Islamic movements, the recent upsurge in Judeophobia and hate-crimes by individual, unaffiliated racists, is an outgrowth of two main factors, the first of which is the increase in Muslim/Arab immigration. The steadily increasing numbers of displaced Palestinian/Muslim academics and Muslim students in schools and universities in the US and Western Europe has combined with the widespread, contemporary intellectual unrest (generated by the emergence of so many, varied sociopolitical protest movements) to again fan anti-Jewish flames.

           In the US, for example, the long-simmering undercurrent of resentment of the traditionally conservative, discriminatory WASP student and alumni populations towards non-WASP “invaders” in general, and the Jews in particular, has boiled over to now combine with the biased teaching of many of those Palestinian/Muslim faculty and academics who have succeeded in hijacking the movement of “woke” curriculum. Jointly, they have fostered the blind, unmitigated rage that has now infected the so-called “liberal” campus movements and organizations of many universities, turning them into promulgators and instigators of virulent anti-Israel demonstrations and Judeophobic incitement. It appears, regrettably, that their education has not proceeded far enough for them to realize that, conceptually, a “liberal” or “woke” hater of Jews is an oxymoron.

            The second factor is the increase in numbers of disenchanted and disaffected Americans who have become members of right-wing and ultra-right-wing organizations. Many are gun-toting, white supremacists who, if not merely unintelligent—their belief in, need for and use of violence is a clear sign of their incompetence—are poorly educated, and with weak, unsophisticated critical faculties. Hateful of a federal government that either ignores or rejects their political complaints and their often-racist resentments, they are ripe to believe in any conspiracy theory, however far-fetched, that makes it possible for them to avoid accepting responsibility for their bewilderment, incompetence and failure to achieve satisfactory lives. Consequently, they are intensely jealous and bitterly resent the often, very visual, success of Jews; perhaps even more than they resent their own government. Usually raised in simplistic, fundamentalist Christian beliefs, such racist malcontents are an additional, metastasizing cancer in America’s body politic.

Similarly, in Europe, the Nationalistic, right-wing governments of those very same countries whose citizens and regimes have been guilty of persecution of the Jews for hundreds of years, are reviving and stoking the fires of Judeophobia; either to deny the guilt and shame of their countries’ active participation in the Holocaust, or as justification for their continued need for a scapegoat for their own, failed, internal Fascist policies. In all such countries, the continuing, Church-sanctioned and perpetuated Judeophobia provides ample and potent fertilizer for their resentful accusations. Neither are certain South American countries free of Judeophobia, either because of their strong, Catholic beliefs or their sympathies with the Nazi fugitives to whom they gave haven.

IV

Unfortunately, the above would seem to imply that Judeophobia will never disappear until the extinction of all religion-supported prejudice and promulgated hatred of the Jews. However, even if such a utopian circumstance were to obtain, or, conversely, if Judaism became extinct—either through genocide or total assimilation—the disappearance of the Jewish people wouldn’t cure the basic problem of the natural disparities in capability among human beings. Out of the continued need of the less competent and psychologically insecure for a scapegoat to blame for their own failures, some other group would doubtless be chosen to become the new, designated “Jews.”  

[1] “An Imaginary Race – A Short History of Judeophobia” The Invention of the Jewish People (Hebrew: מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי?, Romanized: Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?, literally When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) is a study of Jewish historiography by Shlomo Sand, Professor Emeritus of History at Tel Aviv University.

An English translation of the book was published by Verso Books in October 2009.[13] The book has also been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French and Russian.