It’s impossible to pick up a newspaper or to listen to a broadcast or podcast and not be barraged with one or more incidents of antisemitism. Whether it is hateful demonstrations, personal attacks or harassments, arson or shootings, there is no end to the list and the variety.
Many wonder about the proverbial day after. Where is all of this leading? Usually, that question is framed in terms of the plight of Jews in particular cities or nations. How much worse will things get, and what will the affected Jews end up doing about it?
This is frightful to contemplate, but we recognize that there is a fallback position that was not available to ancestors facing their own waves of persecution and oppression: making aliyah and moving to Israel.
This option provides a vital and desperately needed escape clause not only for Jews in Europe in particular, but also in other parts of the West. While I worry about my brethren, as an Israeli, I know that they can find respite and relief.
However, what is going to be the fate of their host societies? What will happen to Western societies that are ignoring, enduring or even encouraging such hatred? How do these societies maintain themselves?
It is somewhat axiomatic to state that what happens to the Jews never ends with the Jews. In other words, antisemitism is indicative of a wider, deeper festering rot—a hatred and intolerance of the other that ultimately endangers the welfare and, indeed, the viability of the host.
Antisemitism becomes akin to a metastasizing cancer that spreads from the organ known as the Jewish community to other parts of the societal body. When one is in need of identifying an “other” to be the source of all ills and the repository of all hate, what happens when—voilà!—you have purged yourself of the toxin?
Well, history and human nature show that there will need to be another “other,” perhaps more than one.
So, again, where does this go from here? What happens when a society exhausts itself on Jew-hatred? We are already seeing how, in many Western societies, what used to be political differences have morphed into existential intolerance.
Existential intolerance is often the deflection and the mask for something deeper-seated and more unsettling: self-loathing.
Great civilizations, societies and polities are more often destroyed from within than from without. Oikophobia—the self-loathing of one’s own society—is a destructive force that often arises during periods of prosperity and success, and festers as a societal “luxury” until it starts to erode the pillars of the society itself.
What begins as arrogant dismissiveness towards the rituals and hallmarks of a nation spreads to the very assumptions of what created and prompted the rise and success of it.
In the United States, where I lived a full life until coming to Israel, it became uncool and then oppressive to make children say “The Pledge of Allegiance” in school every morning. Why do we have to inflict this requirement that might run afoul of the sentiments of the child?
For that matter, why do we need mandatory national service? Those who choose to serve can always do so, without forcing the rest of us to do something that is either inconvenient or even repulsive. If I oppose the policies of my government, why must I be untrue to myself by serving the country that they are controlling?
The slope is slippery indeed. When participation in the life of the nation is a matter of personal discretion, then the nation cannot hold. When we are actively discouraged from seeing ourselves as part of something larger than ourselves, then we devolve into tribalism within the larger nation.
The world of “I’m OK, you’re OK” becomes one of suspicion and the unwillingness to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt.
Contemporary antisemitism features the classic trope that the Jews are the cause of our woes. They own everything, manipulate everything—it’s all for their nefarious purposes.
But when you are self-loathing, the removal of one evil tyranny requires its replacement, because it is inconceivable that I will look inside to see if I am the cause of my own discontent.
Losing patriotism and religious observance are signs of the dismemberment of common ties, which in turn leads to finger-pointing and the casting of blame and responsibility.
The West is consumed with a growing self-loathing. Recent polls in England, for example, show that a minority of youthful respondents would rise to defend their country if it were attacked.
In a world where there are destructive forces intent on undermining and usurping Western nations and societies, such disassociation becomes suicidal.
Ultimately, while Jews are, as always, the canary in the mine cage, the mine cage itself is sagging dangerously.
