Reading the news today, I came across an interesting story about the former Spanish Prime Minister's private conversations with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It caught my eye because of a conversation I had when I was teaching a Jewish History class the other day, giving the recap of the course, from ancient Israel to modern American Judaism. After listening to the recap, one of my students apparently had the aha moment. She very sincerely asked a question that has troubled us all at one point or another: Why do people hate the Jews? It is a great question that deserves a serious answer. The problem, of course, as with all great questions, is that the answer is not so simple. The question is completely at odds with our daily personal experience here in the United States of America, because for the most part in the United States, people don't really hate the Jews. So, getting an American student to the point where she understands enough Jewish history to realize the patterns of historical anti-semitism gives me some pride in accomplishment for the school year.That of course still leaves the question of why? In order to answer it, one needs to grapple with the uniquely Jewish problems of believing exclusively in one God. If there is a God that created and sustains the Jewish people through their troubles... and that God also sustains the world... and there is no other God... then this God has sustained us through troubles that He created. The inescapable conclusion of this line of reasoning is that anti-semitism is not some temporary problem, but it is part of the historical plan created and approved by God. Why would He do this to us? That was really the core of her question.
This is how I answered:
The Jewish people are unique in history. No other people has been through what we have and survived. No other people have resurrected a dead language and created a first world country out of nothing in sixty years after 2000 years in exile. If you set out to do what the Jews have done over the last 3000 years of human history, you would fail. It is an impossible task. The fact that we exist is the closest thing you will ever get to actual proof of God's existence. In that 3000 years we have brought into the world the Torah... the basic ideas in the Torah are the foundation of the Western world. The places in the world that have adopted those ideas are better places to live than those places that have not.
If you look at all of the world's most prominent Jew haters...
Antiochus Epiphanies
The Roman Emperors (Vespasian, Titus, and others)
Hitler
Stalin
They all have one thing in common. Each believed that he ought to be a god. The title Epiphanies taken by Antiochus means "god on earth." The Roman Emperors were worshiped as gods after their death and sometimes before. Hitler attempted to reestablish the ancient Teutonic pantheon of gods and intended to join that pantheon. Stalin rejected the notion of God altogether to replace it with the power of the state... with him at the head.
The Jewish people are an unpleasant reminder to would be human gods that they are only human beings.
It gives a new perspective to the concept of Jews as the chosen people. We were chosen for the task of being indisputable proof of God's existence in the world, which is sometimes a very unpleasant task.
The question on many minds right now is if the Iranians will join this list of infamous and successful Jew haters. Is their rhetoric political posturing or something more sinister? One of Khamenei's comments to the former Spanish Prime Minister was very revealing in this regard.
Khamenei described Israel as "an historical cancer, an anomaly," and said that he was "working toward Iran defeating the United States and Israel in an inevitable war against them."Khamenei is right that Israel is a historical anomaly. He correctly recognizes its existence as a challenge to his notion of himself as an executor of God's will. The Jews and Israel are an inconvenient fact. Khamenei can not be who he thinks he is as long as the Jews exist. This puts him in dubious company and makes him very dangerous to the Jews and to the world.
