Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
I just looked at Martin Luther's infamous 1543 work ,"On the Jews and Their Lies." The style and substance of Luther's crazed polemic resembles today's Arab antisemitism in many ways.
Some examples:
They are the real liars and bloodhounds, who have not only perverted and falsified the entire Scriptures from beginning to end and without ceasing with their interpretations. And all of the anxious sighing, longing and hope of their hearts is directed to the time when some day they would like to deal with us heathen as they dealt with the heathen in Persia at the time of Esther. … O how they love that book Esther, which so nicely agrees with their bloodthirsty, revengeful and murderous desire and hope! The sun never did shine on a more bloodthirsty and revengeful people as they who imagine to be the people of God who desire to and think they must murder and crush the heathen.They are condemned because they have God’s Commandment and do not keep it, but act against it without ceasing. …Be on your guard against the Jews and know that where they have their schools there is nothing but the Devil’s nest in which self-praise, vanity, lies, blasphemy, disgracing God and man, are practiced in the bitterest and most poisonous way as the Devils do themselves.Even now they cannot give up their insane raving boast that they are the chosen people of God, after they have been dispersed and rejected for 1500 years! Still they hope to get back there because of their own merits. There is no promise for that on which they could lean for comfort, except what they smear into the Scriptures according to their own imagination …Their breath stinks for the gold and silver of the heathen, since no people under the sun always have been, still are, and always will remain more avaricious than they (the Jews) as can be noticed in their cursed usury.Since childhood they have devoured such poisonous hatred against the Goyim from their parents and Rabbis, and still devour such without ceasing, that according to Psalm 109, it has gone over into their flesh and blood, bone and marrow, and has become their life and being.Therefore know, my dear Christian, that next to the Devil you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement an enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew. ...In history, therefore, they are often accused of poisoning wells, stealing children and mutilating them; as in Trent, Weiszensee, etc. Of course, they deny this. Be it so or not, however, I know full well that the full, ready will is not lacking with them if they could only transform it into deeds, in secret or openly. Know this for a certainty and act accordingly!Should they at times do something good, however, know full well that it is not done out of love for you, nor for your good. In order to have space to live among us they must of necessity do something. But their heart is and remains as I have said.A person who does not know the Devil, might wonder why they are so at enmity with the Christians above all others; for which they have no reason, since we only do good to them. They live among us in our homes, under our protection, use land and highways, market and streets. Princes and government sit by, snore and have their mugs (mouth) open, let the Jews take from their purse and chest, steal and rob whatever they will. That is, they permit themselves and their subjects to be abused and sucked dry and reduced to beggars with their own money, through the usury of the Jews. For the Jews, as foreigners, certainly should have nothing; and what they have certainly must be ours. They do not work, do not earn anything from us, neither do we donate or give it to them. Yet they have our money and goods and are lords in our land where they are in exile.Do not their Talmud and Rabbis write that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is sin if he kills a brother in Israel! It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob (as they do with their usury) from a heathen, is a divine service.Now behold what a nice, thick, fat lie it is when they complain about being captives among us. Jerusalem was destroyed more than 1400 years ago and during that time we Christians have been tortured and persecuted by the Jews in all the world. For nearly 300 years (as stated above) we might well complain that during that time they captured and killed the Christians, which is the clear truth. On top of that, we do not know to this day which Devil brought them into our country. We did not fetch them from Jerusalem!On top of all that, no one is holding them now. Land and highways are open to them; they may move to their country whenever they care to do so! We would like to add a present in order to get rid of them. They are a heavy burden to us in our country, like a plague, pestilence, and nothing but misfortune.Whenever you see or think about a Jew, say to yourself as follows: Behold, the mouth which I see there has every Saturday cursed, execrated, and spit upon my dear Lord, Jesus Christ who has redeemed me with His precious blood; and also prayed and cursed before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians should be stabbed and perish in the most miserable manner—would like to do so himself if he could that he might come into possession of our goods.Those Jews professing to be surgeons or doctors deprive the Christians who make use of their medicaments, of health and prosperity, for such Jewish doctors believe they find especial favour with their God if they torment and furtively kill Christians.
The similarities with how Muslims write about Jews today are uncanny. Claiming that Jews had all the rights they needed in diaspora and are ungrateful; that Jews are oppressing non-Jews, the blood libel, projection that Jews teach hate in these very treatises filled with bile.
Although Muslims always showed disdain for Jews, their hate did not have this kind of intellectual underpinning for antisemitism until they were exposed to Christian missionaries and the schools they built in the Levant in the 19th century. There are a number of articles on Christian influence on building Arab nationalism and spreading other Western concepts, but the Christians of the time were virulently and doctrinally antisemitic, and it seems highly likely that their antisemitic ideas gave an pseudo-intellectual rigor to the Muslims who already disliked Jews.
Being given justification for one's pre-existing hate is a very seductive idea. It is the only explanation for the enthusiasm, huge turnouts and party atmosphere seen in the current anti-Israel protests.
Today, the cross-pollination of antisemitism is coming from all directions - from the Arabs to the Western world, from Russia and Iran and the neo-Nazis. The previous paradigms of pretending that they were only "anti-Zionist" and only against the "occupation" and that they found terrorism abhorrent have been supplanted; the support for antisemitism and even terrorist attacks are now explicit and justified after the fact. The Internet allows ideas from the Soviet Union to easily travel to the far-Right, from the anti-religious Marxists to the devoutly religious Muslims. Arguments no longer take centuries to morph from being used by one type of antisemite to another - it now takes hours.
Luther's short book ended up with a series of actions he recommended all right-thinking Christians should take to counter the pernicious Jews. These included
To burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against themTo refuse to let Jews own houses among ChristiansTo burn and censor Jewish religious writingsTo forbid rabbis from preachingTo offer no protection to Jews on highwaysFor all Jews' silver and gold to be removed, put aside for safekeeping, and given back only to Jews who truly convert
Then as now, intellectual antisemitism leads to actions. We are seeing arson and other attacks on Jewish establishments. we are seeing Jews excluded from public spaces, we are seeing attempts to ban any pro-Israel events, we are being told that terrorism is a human right and Jews do not have a similar right to defend themselves. Like Luther, terrorist-supporting media are convinced of the righteousness of their demands. While the progressive protesters are claim they are against violence, their Arab co-protesters have no problem with attacking Jews and the progressives are justifying rather than denouncing their violent cadres.
Maybe we aren't yet at 1939, but it sure sounds a lot like 1543.
