A Unified Field Theory of Antisemitism

Jews' and Israel's very existence is considered an attack on deeply held beliefs

Why is there so much outsized hate for Jews?

Antisemitism is not like other hatreds. Most other forms of hate hinge on disliking the other purely because they are different. Jew-hatred goes way beyond that; the hate is more extreme, more personal.

What explains the obsession that so many have against Jews - and in recent times, against Israel - that goes way beyond hating the other? After all, most of the world is "other" to everyone.

Ten years ago, I wrote about how many historic cathedrals in Europe depict two figures, Ecclesia and Sinagoga, which symbolize the triumph of the Church over the Jewish people. Ecclesia is a figure bathed in light wearing fine clothing and holding a chalice, while Sinagoga is a defeated, blindfolded figure with the Tablets falling from her hand. The message was one of supersessionism, where the Church replaced Jews as the Chosen People. The churches with the artwork tended to be built in areas with larger Jewish populations: they weren't only a message of Church superiority but also an insult to the Jewish community, reminding them of their despised status.

To the Church, the very existence of Jews centuries after they were supposed to have disappeared by the sheer rightness of Christian faith was a poke in the eye. As long as Jews existed and thrived, it meant that there might be a problem with the doctrine - how could reasonably smart people not automatically flock to what is so clearly superior? One of them must be wrong, and the creation of Ecclesia and Sinagoga is itself a form of grappling with the threat to Christian certainty.

From the church's perspective, this is not just a disagreement between religions. Jews themselves were a challenge to the entire narrative behind Christianity. They are seen as a direct assault on Christians' basic faith, one that could not be adequately answered within Christianity.

This reached a peak with Martin Luther, who could not conceive how Jews would not convert on their own. This culminated in his desire to destroy Judaism itself - burning synagogues and schools, confiscating Jewish holy books, and creating a world where Jews could either convert or be driven out.

This sense of Jews' very existence being an attack on the most treasured tenets of faith explains how antisemitism goes way beyond "normal" hate. Killing Jews is almost self-defense for those with that mindset.

During the Holocaust, some fundamentalist Christians found a silver lining in the genocide, that their scripture was finally being validated. The rebirth of Israel gave these folks whiplash - suddenly, the permanently wandering Jews had a place of their own, and even worse, in the same spot that they had built a nation before.

Theologically, hating Israel is a direct outcome for age-old Christian antisemitism.

This way of thinking has been baked into the Western world. Vatican II softened supersessionism, giving Jews a covenant role within the Roman Catholic church but not other churches like Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran. Supersessionist theology persists in Catholic circles, and for tens of millions, Jews’ existence subtly challenges one of their faith’s beliefs.

We can say the same thing about Islam. Here is a faith that also is, to a degree, supersessionist. Mohammed is supposed to be the last, perfect prophet, but all of the preceding prophets were Jews. The Quran is supposed to be the perfect word of Allah that replaces the "corrupted" Torah that precedes it and contradicts it. Mohammed tried to attract the Jews to his religion (this is why he first set the prayer direction to be Jerusalem) but they spurned him.

Yet the Jews still exist. Jews who do not accept Islam, Jews who consider Mohammed to be a false prophet, Jews who study the Torah that Islam claims is corrupted.

The continued existence of the Jewish people is not as much of a theological challenge to Islam as it is to some churches, but it rankles. Jews are supposed to be second class citizens in Islamic societies, and over the centuries, while Christians gained a measure of respect when they defeated Islam militarily, Muslims could still consider themselves to be stronger than the Jews.

Until the rebirth of Israel.

Israel's victory in 1948 was no less an earthquake in the Muslim world than it was in many churches. Jews were not meant to be stronger than Muslims, who pride themselves on their warcraft. The Zionist victories were a source of intense shame, and the reason for the shame was that it violated a deeply held belief among Muslims - not necessarily a religious belief but one that was no less sacred to Arab Muslims.

The antisemitism we have been discussing so far has been ascribed to Jews' existence being a direct challenge to faith. Faith is intensely personal and seeing it called into question naturally evokes an emotional reaction. This explains why Jews and Israel are seen as actual enemies, not just different.

Today's antisemitism, however, does not appear at first glance to fit that paradigm. Most Westerners are not religious and the idea of supersessionism is not fashionable in the liberal world.

This ignores human nature. People naturally tend to seek spirituality; they want to be part of something much bigger than themselves. When the church falls by the wayside, the vacuum that results must be filled with something.

Today, that "something" is often progressivism, or socialism in general. Many have noted how this has become a creed in itself. From animal rights to environmentalism to settler-colonialism to critical race theory, each of the tenets of this modern faith must not be questioned. Like any faith, there is an orthodoxy of belief, and excommunication ("canceling") of those who disagree or question the official line.

Israel challenges the progressive orthodoxy no less than Jews challenge Christian orthodoxy.

Here is a state that is meant to be a refuge for Jews only. It is unapologetically capitalist. It is unapologetically military - by necessity. It is unapologetically particularist.

Worst of all, it is wildly successful. It has grown and thrived while breaking the rules created by today's progressives. It is an economic, military and technological powerhouse. It has even made peace by being strong.

To these people, progressivism is just as supersessionist as Christianity historically has been. Their worldview is that they are on the "right side of history," the idea that over time their ideas and theories will be proven correct. Israel's existence and success contradicts this deeply held belief.

Hence, hate. Not disagreement, not measured criticism, but obsession and visceral loathing that go beyond their opinions of any other country. Israel does not fit their belief system and therefore it must be delegitimized, and any attackers are heroes.

This theory that obsessive hate of Jews driven by faith is further strengthened by counterexamples of cultures that have no such levels of antisemitism.

Asian nations like India, China and Japan do not have the same strong feelings about Jews as their Western and Muslim counterparts. Their religions are not based on Jewish concepts of monotheism and their cultures are not based on Western values that trace back to Judaism. To them, Jews are just another people: they may disagree with Israeli policies but they lack the obsessive nature of the antisemitism of the Western and Muslim worlds. The Korean obsession with the Talmud from a few years back is not antisemitism, it is curiosity.

The hate for Jews and Israel isn't because of anything that Jews are doing. It is entirely due to Jews and Israel being an eternal contradiction to the deeply-held belief system of hundreds of millions of people.