One Hate to Unite Them All
First off, I am not a Jew. Rather I'm just an observer in the sidelines. I've always wondered why the Jewish people keep getting attacked though. Why them? After the horrors they suffered in World War II, you'd think other people would leave them alone. But they're still in the crosshairs somehow. This provocative article has an interesting answer to that.
There are numerous historical and sociopolitical reasons why anti-Semitism has the dark power to unite political, cultural, and religious rivals, but perhaps the deepest explanation is theological: it was the Jews who first shattered the world’s multifaceted idols, announcing the revelation that there is one living God who created and continues to sustain all existence, including human existence. This is the theological, metaphysical, and moral core of the shema, which comes from the Old Testament books of Deuteronomy and Numbers, though its core is in Deuteronomy 6:4-6:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might.
This is the great idol-smashing declaration of the Hebrew Scriptures. And it indelibly changed history. Inter-tribal enmity has been with us since the fall, but the terms of warfare, prior to the arrival of the Jews, were stable: you get to have your gods, and we get to have ours; we may, and likely will, do everything in our power to destroy you and your gods, but we will not deny that there are multiple gods. Despite lethal disagreement over whose gods were superior, in other words, a quiet polytheistic understanding held the whole melee together, forming the battlefield upon which all tribes advanced their respective deities.
But then came the Jews, announcing that there was—there is—one God, and that that God, while active in the world, is not to be found anywhere in the world. The Jews also affirmed that the whole purpose of human life was—is—to love the one God with all your being. There could be no substitutes.
The author is saying, everyone hates the Jews because they are the first ones to tell people something like, "Hey, you don't control your life, rather you are part of God's plan. Also, there's only one God and you are worshiping the wrong God."
You know, I can see how that can rub people the wrong way. But enough to justify a genocide? I'm not so sure. That suggestion seems to be a little far fetched. On a conscious level, I don't think people look at Jews or the effect of their beliefs/religion, in this way.
But what about on a subconscious level? Is the hate they're getting now, subconsciously manifested because of beliefs that have built up over hundreds of years. Are they a result of philosophical or political ideas that push back on this idea of a one true God? Ideas that have been slowly planted into the minds of people through influential thinkers like Marx and Nietzsche? Interestingly, when viewed from that lens, I can see why they would be a constant target.