by Rafael Castro
A culture's respect for the Torah is a good indicator of its respect for its Jews
Mount Timpanogos Church in Utah, photo by Ricaro630 via Wikimedia CC
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 877, June 28, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Anti-Semitism
is the most insidious hatred in history. Aversion to Jews has
flourished under so many circumstances that it is hard to find a common
denominator accounting for its manifold manifestations. However, there
have been periods when non-Jews showed strong sympathy and solidarity
towards Jews. Perhaps the best illustration of this friendship is modern
America.
There are precedents showing that America’s
willingness to befriend the Jews is not a unique case in history.
Calvinist Holland and Puritan England also displayed friendship and
solidarity towards Jews, a sympathy that was expressed by fervent
Christians. The fervor of those Christians was as strong as that of
Catholics who burned conversos at the stake and of Orthodox Christian clergymen who intimidated Jews throughout Eastern Europe.
The difference between Puritans and Catholic or
Orthodox Christians towards Jews was not doctrinal. These streams of
Christianity each embraced the replacement theology of Augustine, which
viewed Christians as God’s new covenant partners. The difference is that
Calvinists and Puritans embraced the Hebrew Bible, whereas Catholics,
Lutherans, and Orthodox Christians tended to view the Torah as the
obsolete relic of an irascible and vindictive Israelite deity.
Nowadays, many Jews are baffled that American
Christians overwhelmingly embrace Jews and Israel, whereas those Jews’
forefathers from the “old country” had good reason to fear and resent
Christianity. This paradox is accounted for by the contrasting attitudes
of Christians in North America and in continental Europe towards the
Hebrew Bible. American Christians are eager and sympathetic readers of
the Old Testament. Historically, European Christians have disregarded
the Torah.
Indeed, the attitude of an ideology or culture
towards the Torah is the best predictor of its attitude towards Jews.
Nazis and Communists were on opposite ends of the political spectrum,
but their hatred for the ethical and theological message of the Torah
made them both implacable enemies of the Jewish people. Nowadays secular
leftists and postmodernists embrace anti-Zionism and flirt with
anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that dismays Jews raised on the axiom that
progressivism is sympathetic to Jews. This animosity explains itself
once we remember that the morality and ethics of Jewish scriptures are
antithetical to postmodernism.
In this discussion Islam also plays a role. As long as Jews were submissive dhimmis of
a self-confident Muslim polity, anti-Semitism played a relatively minor
role in Islamic thought. After all, Jewish scriptures and Jewish
meekness corroborated that Islam was the ascendant faith. However, once
Jews returned to their historical homeland and vanquished Islamic armies
on their home turf, the Torah morphed in Muslim eyes into an immoral
text justifying all sorts of crimes including racism, supremacism, and
genocide. Rabid anti-Semitism in the Muslim world followed.
The secularization of European and American
societies has coincided with a marked rise in anti-Jewish sentiment in
the Western world. University campuses in urban centers are at the heart
of this hostility. This is not a coincidence given that these spaces
are the least Bible-literate in America and Europe.
The Western powers would have never supported the
establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 had their leaders not
attended Sunday school and been knowledgeable about the Biblical stories
that played out in Canaan and Judea. Indeed, Biblical literacy at the
core of one’s cultural identity and ethical self-understanding is the
common thread shared by most Gentiles whose sympathy and support for the
Jewish people has been selfless and spontaneous.
The secularization of Western society and the
hollowing out of Christian culture into a digest of Gospel mantras thus
constitute an existential threat to the Jewish people. Secularization
erodes the traditional American identity whose sympathy and support for
Jews and Israel has historically been so generous. In addition, it
contributes to assimilationist trends by flattening out differences
between Jews and Christians.
The fate of the Jewish people is intimately bound
up with the prestige of the Torah. To strengthen flagging support for
Israel and the Jewish people, the Bible and its ethos must be restored
in the American educational system and culture industry. This
restoration will undermine anti-Semitism more effectively than lectures
on human rights and the dangers of racism.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/bible-secularism-antisemitism/
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