![]() There has been a moving image circulating of a woman lighting her Chanukah candles before the outbreak of World War II in Germany. They fought for their identity, and united the people in doing so. Just as the Maccabees fought bravely against the ancient Greeks – who weren’t trying to physically destroy us but to Hellenise us and disconnect us from our religious practise. Our default position would be to run and hide our Jewishness, to be more like everyone else, but the opposite it true. ![]() If that’s the case, then the real antidote to antisemitism is a mindful and deliberate increase in Jewish identity and pride. Those who hate us are sent as a stark reminder about who the real enemies are. Sometimes we fight one another over politics, religion, tradition, and even good old baseless faribels. When we stray from our traditions and heritage or when we hate one another, Hashem reminds us who we are and who our real enemies are. Some Jewish rabbis and scholars suggest that antisemitism exists as Hashem’s values-clarification mechanism. Yet that remains the pattern, even today. One would assume we would be praised and thanked, not derided and reviled. Our impact far surpasses our meagre numbers. Jews have done more to advance their countries of sojourn in the diaspora than any other minority in the history of mankind. Rationale defying, and simply beyond any reasonability. And so is born the essence of antisemitism – Illogical to the core. ![]() Why in the world would patriotic Egyptian Jews turn on their country of birth after 200 years of naturalisation? They wouldn’t. He claims that should Egypt be attacked by foreign invaders, the Jews would join forces with the enemies and revolt against the Egyptians. Pharoah somehow manages to convince the Egyptian people that their successful and fully enculturated Jewish Egyptians neighbours are a threat to national security. I heard once from local scholar Cecil Steinhauer that the first time we encounter systemic antisemitism in the Torah is in the context of the slavery of Egypt. We have a tradition that the first time something, a word or a concept, appears in the Torah is the paradigm that describes the essence of that item. It has been ever present, and it merely mutates as we traverse the passage of time. There are few societal ills as ancient and as virulent as antisemitism.
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