Anti-Semitism, or antagonism and hatred of Jews, is hard for me to understand. Let’s explore this a bit since it is spewing out in places like the campuses of Harvard, Colombia, etc. and it seems to be very popular among segments of our general population. It’s a subject I wrote about not too long ago, but it needs to be revisited. Like some horrible disease, it isn’t going away.
From Merriam-Webster’s dictionary online, we find the definition of Semite.
a: a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs
b: a descendant of these peoples
So, logically, to be anti-Semitic is to be anti-Phoenicians, anti-Hebrew, anti-Arab, anti-a lot of people from that part of the world.
In our modern English, however, “anti-Semitism” has come to mean largely “anti-Jewish.”
Anti-Semitism has also been springing up across Europe. And this is in light of the Holocaust still alive in the memories of Europeans. If you don’t know, over six million Jews were slaughtered by German Nazis during the Second World War.
It is extraordinary to me that so many Europeans, and I am by no means excusing the descendants of Europeans like us, have harbored and expressed anti-Semitic sentiments for so long and with such vitriol.
It begs the question: why is this?
The old answers basically are theological in nature at their core but tinged and sometimes overlaid by economic and political realities. Or, to put it another way, driven by greed, envy, and a number of other of the deadly sins identified in the Bible.
Theologically, Jews were held accountable for the death of Jesus. They accused him of a bunch of sins, including blasphemy.
The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, did not find Jesus guilty of any crime against Rome and so was going to set him free. But, faced with a loud, angry, and unruly Jewish mob, and with only a few Roman legionnaires stationed in Jerusalem, Pilate caved and had Jesus flogged and then executed like a common criminal. End of story. And, of course, not.
It was in fact the beginning of Christianity, launched by the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb on the third day after his execution.
Over the centuries, Jews have been held accountable for the death of Jesus, even though Jesus prophesied his death as necessary at the hands of the Jews, his own people.
The Jews of Israel and Judea rose in rebellion in 66 A.D. against the Roman Empire, and Roman legionnaires thoroughly sacked the Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The Romans destroyed the Temple and exiled thousands of Jews for good measure in a process called the Diaspora.
Colonies of Jews settled all over the Roman Empire, from Africa to Germany, and over the hundreds of years these frugal, industrious, creative, and incredibly enduring people flourished. As they flourished, especially in the areas of banking, finances, commerce, lending and so forth, they drew the attention of their neighbors, invariably Christians or Muslims.
This attention turned to envy, and the persecution of Jews became a commonplace occurrence throughout Medieval Europe and into modern times.
That the Jewish people survived is a spiritual matter between them and their God. Providentially, he intervened in their life thousands of years ago, read Genesis and Exodus if you want the full story—and has been a part of their communal life ever since.
U. S. Soldiers View Bodies of Jewish Victims, Dachau Concentration Camp, April 30, 1945
While Europeans across the board discriminated against Jews in far too many ways to list and analyze here, none came close to matching the fury of Adolf Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. They exterminated six million men, women and children in the ovens of Auschwitz and other concentration camps before the armies of the allies—Americans, Russians, English, and others—blasted and shot their way into Hitler’s German empire that was to last 1000 years (it lasted about ten) and stopped the slaughter.
In 1948, keeping a promise first made by the English in 1917—the Balfour Declaration—to establish a national home for the Jewish people, modern Israel came into existence under the auspices of the United Nations. Six Arab nations immediately attacked Israel, and she has been at war with her Arab Muslim neighbors off and on since then, most of them bent on destroying the Jewish state in their midst.
We come full circle. Why anti-Semitism? Envy? Fear? Religion? A witches’ caldron of those and more ingredients?
What is perhaps the most curious turn of events is how modern Christians, especially the charismatic, Pentecostal, evangelical brand, have embraced Israel and the Jewish nation.
Part of the Christian message, contained especially in the Books of Daniel and of Revelation, is that the Second Coming of Jesus is soon to happen. Certain signs, depending upon your interpretation of Scripture, have to occur and many Christians see the world as close to the end. And for this to come about, the Jewish people and Jerusalem are deeply involved.
Anti-Semitism today has a rabid, anti-Israel component to it that simply ignores the rights of the Jewish people to exist as any true democracy in the world.
I’d give it a wide berth spiritually, and I condemn it thoroughly in the natural. Hate replaces love in your calculus of life, and that denies the central—and empowering–doctrine of love in my faith.
Posted on April 29, 2025
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