The Jew in the Mirror

בעה''י

[First Published July 3, 2002]

I received my first Neo-Nazi hate mail this week. As a writer, one strives to communicate ideas, hopefully true and worthy ideas, though you never really know who you reach with your pen. Well, now I know.

Where does blind, irrational Jew-hatred come from? why is it so tenacious? and should we even care?

Of course, we thought we had it cured. The Enlightenment promised a quick death to anti-semitism, but when we embraced emancipation, they hated us for our liberalism. Assimilation pledged to slay anti-semitism, but when we converted, they reviled us for contaminating the Christian race. Socialism declared the blind brotherhood of all workers, but when we joined the great class struggle, Stalin murdered the Jews first. Zionists tried to solve “the Jewish problem,” but were accused of treason and treachery by their host nations. Even the Holocaust, that apocalyptic paroxysm of Jew-hatred, and the eventual establishment of a sovereign Jewish State did not eradicate the scourge of anti-semitism from the face of the earth, only forced it back into dark corners for a while. And in our own day, little girls are gunned down in pizza parlors and synagogues are razed by those who demand “justice for occupied Palestine.”

Who are we Jews, the objects of perpetual vilification? Who is the Jew you see in the mirror?

Open a siddur (prayerbook) and see who is reflected in it’s pages. The Jew, first and foremost, lavishes endless praise on the Creator: “Ilu pinu maleh shira kayam...”

“Even if our mouths were full of song as the sea, and our tongues as full of joyous song as it’s multitude of waves; were our lips as full of praise as the breadth of the heavens, and our eyes as brilliant as the sun and the moon; were our hands as outspread as eagles’ wings, and our feet as swift as hinds - we still could not thank you sufficiently, our Gcd and Gcd of our forefathers”

We are the people who wish only to cling to Gcd and His precious Torah:

“...instill understanding in our hearts to understand and elucidate; to listen, learn, teach, safeguard perform and fulfill all the words of Your Torah’s teaching with love”

We are the people that pray three times a day for insight, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, life and healing, justice, and, above all, peace. Pretty venal stuff so far.

We are the people who, “because of our sins, were exiled from our land.” We are sustained by that one little promise Gcd made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and we are acutely aware that, were we to be adjudged upon our own merits, we would have been long ago consigned to the dustbin of history.

But here we are, against all odds. Players on the world stage. Israel consistently receives more column-inches of news coverage than just about any other single country, issue or conflict. For two millennia we have wanted, above all else, to be left alone by the greater world, unharrassed to study Torah, to deepen our connection to Gcd, and for 2,000 years, the world hasn’t given us a moment’s peace.

There is a screaming dissonance between the way we understand ourselves - devotional, introspective, long-suffering, faithful keepers of Gcd’s light - and the way in which we are perceived by others.

Sample some of the comments posted recently on the website:

“We don't want to pay for your dirty war with our tax dollars. We don't want another hit from terrorists on account of YOUR DIRTY WAR AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS! A Jewish state based on ethnic cleansing and discrimination is immoral!” - Wendy Campbell

“How about Zyklon-B on the Jewish terrorist state?” - Hoeft

“you lot should be fu....ing shot.you have been like this for 3 thousand years killing anybody that is not a fu...ing jew, and you will be persecuted for another 3 thousand years. that's for sure. hitler was right,hitler was right,hitler was right you are not from human race! you have not evolved to human race yet.”
- John Sankho

“Forcing a defenseless (they have no army) people to live in what amounts to a concentration camp, and firing upon them with great frequency, stripping them of any human rights and dignity is what has created their willingness to do whatever it is they are able to do to fight back. Anyone in their position might resort to the same actions.” - anonymous

“In the name of Peace, sacrifice is sometimes necessary! Wouldn't it be easiest to simply eradicate the 14 million jews on this planet, instead of facing unending war and terrorism, caused by rightfully angry Pals and Muslims? After all, you jews started the terrorism when you erected your contemptible little dirt-State: stealing land and homes from the rightful owners; murdering many; then abusing the remnant for decades... Don't be fooled, when enough American Whites learn all the facts, you jews are going to get what you have coming to you. Death to Israel. Death to the jews.” - Mr. Tsun

“There is one simple solution to the end of Martydom [sic] operations - leave the land that Prophet Mohammed NEVER promised you, yet indeed you stole. There will never be any peace in the region where you and your father, the dirty American and British governments interfere.” - Abdullah

“No wonder Hitler did what he did to you. And I think you deserve even more.” - A Moslem

“Yeah, and Sharon, what, he killed only maybe 20,000 people in Lebanon.... nah, that's not a big deal! You people are so AMORAL.” - anonymous

“Let's execute every family member of every American who has ever supported the terrorist state of Israel. It is not only those responsible for the continuing invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine who ought to be murdered, but also all of their innocent relations.” - Kevin Barrett

“The present actions of the Israelis and American jews are already turning blind U.S. support into skepticism and sheer revulsion. When the American public finally decides that unquestioning, blind support of Israel is immoral and suicidal, the situation will come to a head. I'm starting to wonder if Adolph Hitler perhaps knew something that we're only now starting to realize...” - Joe Sixpack

Clearly, we have a public relations problem on our hands. Recent studies prove that such virulent ideas are widely held. We are misunderstood at best, and reviled at worst. Anti-semitism is nothing if not consistent, and every artifice to address it in the past has failed. We must confront it though, because it is our Divine mission to influence the world for good.

We live in a world that confuses technological progress with human advancement. We live in a world that rejects absolutes, and gaily bobs amid a vast shifting sea of relativisms. We are the still, small voice of conscience in a world that has no use for morals. We are the light keepers. No matter how much we are beaten, maimed and scorched, we always get back up to bear witness to the Great Truth. Our very existence puts the lie to every dogma that purports to have supplanted us.

So we are marginalized; we are impugned with the crimes of our accusers; we are repressed; and we are murdered. There is no substantive difference between an innocent 15 year-old girl murdered in a café in Herzliyah, and an innocent 15 year-old girl murdered in a gas chamber.

How do we explain that the good and loving Gcd sees all, reckons all, and has a place in heaven for ALL good people of the earth, regardless of race or creed? How do we explain that Gcd does not stand aloof from His creations, but is invested - every moment of every day - in our lives, urging us on to holiness? How do we explain that, despite our imperfections, the Jews are still Gcd’s “kingdom of priests,” consecrated with the responsibility to bring the Gcdly light into a very dark world? How do we explain that our bechirah (selection) imposes additional restrictions and responsibilities, not additional privilege? How do we explain that there is Divine guidance to human history, meaning that all will be good in the end? How do we explain that the continued existence of the Jewish People, the ingathering of exiles and the renaissance of the Jewish State bear eloquent witness that Gcd keeps his promises for all humanity? How do we urge all mankind to invest the mundane with sanctity, and act upon this imperfect world in goodness?

For two centuries, we have attempted to mitigate Jew-hatred by purging ourselves of our objectionable “Jewishness,” and in this we have utterly failed. It is time to stop fighting our true nature and once and for all embrace our Divine calling. The Jew-haters are wrong: there has never been an international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. But maybe there should be an international Jewish summons to holiness; then, perhaps, the Jew in the mirror will more closely resemble the Jew in the siddur.