To the Editor:
Ruth R. Wisse makes cogent comments on the forces aligned against Israel in her article on anti-Semitism [“The Anti-Semite’s Pointed Finger,” November]. She correctly states that early Zionists believed that the establishment of a Jewish state would “mitigate the hostility directed against them.”
As thoughtful as this piece is, a significant facet of the problem is not discussed by Professor Wisse. It can be argued that the anti-Jewish hostility of the Islamic world is based on their religious belief that the existence of a Jewish state is an affront to Islam. Muslims have articulated this theme ever since the political Zionist movement was started in the 19th century. The conflict is essentially a religious one. The assertion that people hate Jews primarily because of “the systematic oppression and immiseration of their own people” ignores the fact that religion plays a much stronger role in the functioning of humanity than was acknowledged by early secular Zionists.
Christians have, in many cases, confronted the theological challenge of the existence of Israel by absorbing it into their theology. The reality of Israel can be perceived as miraculous and ratifies the concept that there was a divine transmission to mankind of the moral values that can be extrapolated from the Hebrew Bible. That the Jews have not accepted the “New Revelation” is to some extent a detail.
Such a transformation has not occurred in Islam and is unlikely to do so in the near future. Until there are enough Muslims with political power who can be theologically comfortable with a world in which Israel exists, it is hard to imagine permanent peaceful coexistence.
Liberals in the West are secular in nature. They have absorbed the ideology that looks on religion as an obstacle to “progress.” Their mindless pursuit of the peace process in the Middle East is based on the idea that religion is irrelevant to the modern world. History tells a different story. Transcendent beliefs are at the very core of humanity. The liberals’ yearning for “progress” generates hostility toward those who promulgate moral absolutes. This is a recurring theme in the history of anti-Semitism.
Solomon Max
New York City
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To the Editor:
Ruth R. Wisse describes the Jews, and Israel, as liberal “on account of the way they are constituted as a people.” It seems to me that people are not born with a polarized ideology but are socialized either to the left or to the right by experience. That the Jews “as a people” are liberal may be due to their pride in accomplishment and survival in the face of illiberal enemies.
In regard to those who attack Jews, pride’s problematic twin sibling, shame, may be at fault. The success of Israel and the failure of the countries and cultures that surround it give a clue. Professor Wisse cites “hostility that is not subject to rational persuasion.” But all behavior has emotional roots that resist rational persuasion; and shame is often an unfortunate taproot. Altering the above-ground-level growth is no easy task when it is fed by underground emotion.
John Brodsky, m.d.
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
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To the Editor:
While I understand Ruth R. Wisse’s thesis that anti-Semitism’s continuing success resides in its political origins, I must respectfully disagree. In my view, it is based upon a rejection of the ideas, ideals, and values enunciated by Judaism and the Jewish people. Concern for the rule of law, the value of life itself—as epitomized by the Abraham and Isaac story—the requirement that one should not treat another as one would not wish to be treated, and finally the importance of not deifying any human being however virtuous he may be are not easy sells in the world at large.
It is what Judaism stands for that challenges many who are unwilling to meet the prescribed standard. This has been responsible for the persistence of anti-Semitism from before Jesus until the present day.
Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat for the ills in any society, and that will never change. The Jewish people have been the proverbial canary in the coal mine, measuring how tolerant and accepting any society will be to those with diverse views or religious beliefs or of a different ethnic background.
Albert H. Soloway
Columbus, Ohio
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Ruth R. Wisse writes:
I appreciate that readers want to fill in missing elements in my political analysis of anti-Semitism. Solomon Max rightly reminds us that Islam has yet to undergo the reformations that transformed Christian societies over several hundred years. (Therefore, anti-Semitism comes ready-made for modernizing Muslim leaders to adapt and appropriate.) John Brodsky correctly points to emotional roots of group behavior in determining the development of nations. The “ideas, ideals, and values” of Judaism that Albert H. Soloway credits with shaping the Jewish people have indeed determined their political nature and aroused some of the aggression against them. I agree that the nature of Jewish life among the nations is complicated by almost every conceivable aspect of religion, anthropology, psychology, economics, linguistics … and as we are learning, also genetics. Yes, assuredly. But that only gets us so far.
Anti-Semitism as a modern political phenomenon arose in reaction to liberal democracy to serve various leaders and constituencies as an anti-liberal force. I think that it is high time for students of politics to recognize, identify, and distinguish the various political uses and strategies of anti-Semitism, and its effects on advocates and targets alike. I believe it is no longer enough to track the stock market of anti-Semitism (up in Turkey, down in Texas), mourn its victims, trace its history, bemoan its spread, or even correct its most egregious distortions. Anti-Semitism will not be reduced unless and until we first investigate how and why it works.
James Watson is quoted as saying that a cure for cancer will be found in his lifetime, and he is 84. He can afford to be hopeful because the process is under way. Let’s get serious about identifying how anti-Semitism takes control of the political organism.
