"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," is the correct*
inscription at the entrance to the "General Exhibition" Extermination at the
Auschwitz Memorial.
4. "The Jews killed Jesus/God and are forever guilty." This again is a
generalization. The deicide transfers a theological statement to the entire
Jewish community.
There was one fate that moved me to tears.
Alexander was just a boy when he fled his home to Siberia before the
advancing Nazi henchmen invaded the Ukraine, and endured a harrowing train
journey to Siberia. Years of starvation in Russia's eastern provinces left him
permanently hunched. Living in the Soviet Union, he suffered decades of
antisemitism but never stopped being "a proud Jew," as his daughter recalls.
In
1992, after the fall of the Russian Empire, Kleytman took his wife and two
children to Australia, where he continued his professional career.
In a discussion, it is essential to distinguish between two terms.
Anti-Judaism refers to hostility toward Jews based on religious, more
specifically Christian, theological grounds, as opposed to antisemitism,
which is primarily based on nationalist and racist grounds. In practice, the
two terms have been deliberately confused.
The reasons why Jews are and have been persecuted are rarely based on
reality, but are usually based on a multitude of prejudices and invented
myths. Old prejudices are not outdated or forgotten, but they are
maintained, supplemented, updated, and adapted to new situations.
The IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) working definition
of Antisemitism reads: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which
may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical
manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish
individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and
religious facilities."
IHRA then cites eleven specific points of antisemitism:
1. Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the
name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- The 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter posted online that Jews "deserve"
to die before killing 11 worshippers.
- The 1988 version of the Hamas Charter includes language framing the
killing of Jews as religiously justified.
2. Making dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about
Jews as such, or about the power of Jews as a collective, such as the myth
of a "Jewish world conspiracy."
- Henry Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent (1920s),
claimed Jews ran a global conspiracy based on the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion.
- Nazi propaganda films like "Der ewige Jude" (1940) depicted Jews as
parasites controlling finance and media.
3. Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined
wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even by non-Jews.
- Medieval Europe: With the advent of the "Black Death," Jews were
collectively blamed for "poisoning wells," leading to pogroms.
- Today: When a Jewish politician or businessman is involved in
wrongdoing, antisemites make claims such as "all the Jews are behind it."
4. Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms, or intentionality of the Holocaust,
especially the systematic genocide of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany and
its supporters.
- David Irving, a British writer, publicly denied that gas chambers
existed and lost a major libel trial because his claims were proven false.
5. Accusing Jews or Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2009) repeatedly called the
Holocaust a "myth" and "exaggeration".
- Neo-Nazi groups claim the Holocaust was invented to gain "financial
compensation."
6. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged
priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
- In the 1894 Dreyfus Affair, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of
treason, partly based on claims that Jews were disloyal to
France.
- U.S. Jewish politicians are accused "online" of being "agents of Israel"
regardless of their actions.
7. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination —for example,
by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- The Soviet anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s framed Zionism as
inherently racist and illegitimate, erasing Jewish peoplehood.
- Statements such as "Jews are not a people and therefore have no right to
a state," used by some extremist groups.
8. Applying double standards to Israel by requiring it to behave "not
expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."
- Demanding that Israel alone dismantle defensive measures (e.g., borders,
security fences) while not expecting the same of other states in conflict
zones.
- Calling for boycotts of "only "Israeli academics because of government
policy, while not calling for the same with any other country's academics
under similar or worse conditions.
9. Using classic antisemitic symbols or images (e.g., claims of Jews killing
Jesus or a blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Political cartoons showing Israeli politicians drinking blood, echoing
the medieval "blood libel" myth.
- Cartoons portraying Israelis with hooked noses and moneybags - imagery
taken from 19th-century antisemitic caricatures.
10. Drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and that of the
Nazis.
- Posters in protests reading "Stars of David = Swastikas".
- Public figures or activists calling Gaza "Auschwitz" or Israeli soldiers
"Nazis," trivializing the Holocaust.
11. Holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of
Israel.
- After the 2014 Gaza conflict, synagogues in Paris and Berlin were
attacked, and Jewish businesses vandalized, despite having no connection
to Israeli politics.
- Jewish individuals are being asked to "explain" or "justify" Israeli
government policies because they are Jewish.
Back to the Bible.
The anti-Judaism of the early Christians began with Paul's mission to the
Gentiles in the 50s and came to a head with the destruction of the Temple in
70 AD, in the conflict between the group of Jewish Christians and that of
Gentile Christians.
Paul clearly expressed his view in his third letter to the Galatians*, who
were predominantly Gentile Christians:
27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave
or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in
Christ Jesus.
*They belonged ethnically to the Celts and had settled in Galatia in Asia
Minor around Ankyra, today's Ankara.
Prof. Paganini stated that Paul obviously suffered from the failure of his
mission among his former Jewish fellow believers and used two classic motifs
of antisemitism against them: godlessness and misanthropy.
They displeased God and were enemies of all people, and even more sharply in
his second letter to the Greek Christians in Thessaloniki:
15 The Jews killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.
They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep
us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way,
they always heap up their sins to the limit. 17 The wrath of God has come
upon them at last.
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Adolf Hitler on April 21, 1921, in Rosenheim at the first local branch
of the NSDAP outside Munich:
"I cannot imagine Jesus as anything
other than blond with blue eyes,
but the devil only as a Jewish
grimace."
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Prof. Paganini explained: In contrast to the three synoptic Gospels, which are
mentioned in John's Gospel*, Jesus appears in John's theologically reflective
text as a non-Jew.
*John 20:
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples,
which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you
may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by
believing you may have life in his name.
In John, there is no birth story; instead, Jesus comes directly from God.
John 1: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. continues in
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his
glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth.
A central Johannine motif in John 1 is that not ancestry but faith
establishes community:
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become children of God - 13 children born not of natural
descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
In John, Jesus' biological mother takes a back seat to his mission from the
Father.
This becomes evident in John 2 at the wedding in Cana:
1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the
mother of Jesus was there: 2 and both Jesus was called, and his disciples,
to the marriage. 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine. 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to
do with thee?* mine hour is not yet come. 5 His mother saith unto the
servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
*Whenever I listened to the extremely curt German text as a boy, "Weib, was habe ich mit dir zu schaffen? "I was shocked.
It is not Jesus but the apostle John who takes distancing from family bonds
to the extreme here. Jesus' actions do not conform to family expectations,
but are guided solely by the will of the Father, even when he ultimately
performs the all-too-worldly miracle of turning water into wine.
Above all, the Gospel of John takes up the conflicts between the Johannine
community and the synagogue. The Jews are Jesus' adversaries par
excellence.
In John 7, it is recounted that Jesus refuses to attend the Festival of
Tabernacles:
1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about
in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill
him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus'
brothers said to him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your
disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a
public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show
yourself to the world." 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in
him. 6 Therefore, Jesus told them, "My time is not yet here; for you any
time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I
testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not[b]
going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come." 9
After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee. 10 However, after his
brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in
secret. 11 Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus
and asking, "Where is he?" 12 Among the crowds there was widespread
whispering about him. Some said, "He is a good man." Others replied, "No,
he deceives the people." 13 But no one would say anything publicly about
him for fear of the leaders.
In the Book of Revelation, John calls the Jewish house of worship the
synagogue of Satan.
