Trudy Gold
The History of Jew Hatred, Part 1
Trudy Gold - The History of Jew Hatred, Part 1
- Good evening everyone and welcome to a subject that I’ve been threatening you with for a long time. It’s a very tough subject to deal with, but I felt as though we are going to spend three months looking at the history of Germany, and because antisemitism is again rearing its ugly head at an alarming rate, probably the highest it’s been since the war, I thought it important to at least begin to lay down the origins of this terrible, terrible disease. Now, the first thing we have to think about is prejudice itself. That we all prejudge one way or the other. Particularly when there’s economic or social or political unrest, we tend to look at another group that we see as different. And if you want to take the Jewish theory of the scapegoat, we then plunge all the sins of our group onto the scapegoat which we sacrifice. Now, obviously through history, there have been many different scapegoats, many different victimised groups at various times. If one looks at the Roma persecuted everywhere, homosexuals, it’s a very dark and difficult subject to deal with. However, one of the reasons I have decided that we really need to look at anti-Judaism outside the context of anyone’s specific history is that it is very much a product of the world of monotheism, particularly the world of Christianity. And that is a terrible accusation to make because what we are actually saying is that Christianity, which is the largest religion in the world, there are more adherence to Christianity than any other religion. Islam will probably overtake Christianity by the middle of this century, but these are the two largest religions and they both have a problem with the Jews, particularly Christianity.
And having said that, and I know if there are Christian believers listening to me, it is a religion of love. It is a religion of conscience. It is a religion of the moral law. But unfortunately, at base, there is a problem with the Jews. And I’m going to read to you from one or two important writers of this period. Now, let me start with Trachtenberg. And the reason I’m starting with Trachtenberg is that he actually was writing this in 1943. His book is called “The Devil and the Jews.” And he says this, 1943 he’s writing this in America, “By what mysterious legerdemain can a weak, defenceless people minority be invested with the awesome attributes of omnipotence? How is it that men believe of the Jews what common sense would forbid them to believe of anything else or anyone else? When everything possible is being said about the psychological xenophobia that rejects difference in minority cultures about economic and social frictions, about the astute propaganda techniques of demagogues, about the need for scapegoat, for release of social tension, about the imperfections of the Jews themselves and their abnormal economic status, all these are potent stimuli. But the ultimate source buried deep in the mass subconscious is still untouched. There lies a powder keg of emotional predisposition of the Jew, which has nothing to do with facts or logic. The Jew is the archenemy of Western civilization. He’s alien, not to this or that land, but to all western society. Alien in his habits, pursuits, interests, character, and very blood. Wherever he lives, he is a stranger apart. He is the arch-degenerate, infecting literature, art, music, politics, and economics with a subtle poison of his insidious influence, ripping out its moral foundation stone by stone until it will collapse helpless into his hands.
This is his final goal to conquer the world.” I mean, this is absolutely extraordinary. How did it come to that? And yet, if you think about it, when we talk about the Shoah itself, in the end, the most civilised nation, best educated nation, we have to rethink education, we have to rethink civilization, decided to exterminate a whole people. Anti-Judaism is going to transmute into antisemitism in the 19th century. Anti-Judaism is about theology. Antisemitism is about race, that the Jewish are Jew by blood. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Hasidic Rebbe or a Karl Marx, you have Jewish blood and that is your taint and you cannot get away with it. And then as Rabbi Sacks said, what we now have is the, what we now have is the third hatred. First, they hated our religion, then our race, now our nation. Now, I am not, in this series, going to get involved in the politics of Israel. This is not what I’m talking about. But what I will say is that Israel has more appropriate put on its head than they are the nation in the world. That if you look at the motions in the United Nations, if you look at the boycott campaign, et cetera, et cetera, and yet Israel is a democracy, so I think we would say in the end, and I’m not talking policy here, in the end, why is it that the tiny Jewish state is so much at the centre and is at the centre of so much hostility. And the majority of historians now think it’s because of that hatred that goes back 2,000 years. Post Shoah, there was, there was post-Holocaust theology, and this is from a man called Franklin Littell, very interesting American. The earliest Christians were Jews. And however harshly a Jew may criticise his own people, his stance is vastly different from that of a Gentile using the same proof text and interpretations. James and Peter and Paul would’ve perished at Auschwitz, a latter-day fact. Gentile Christians do not dare forget.
Occasionally, particularly in the modern period, they resonated Jewish intellectuals, children of the Enlightenment have adopted concepts and news language, which originated amongst Gentile cultured antisemites. But the only real amongst, but that is only Jewish self-hatred, which is something I will be touching upon. So basically, and he says, it’s a psychological condition that you find amongst many marginal Jews. And this is another byproduct of Jew hatred, Jewish self-hatred. And we have to be very careful where we use that term because of course, that doesn’t mean anyone who criticises the policies of Israel suffers from Jewish self hatred. Of course not. But it’s that other layer, and I think many of you know what I’m talking about. So how did it all go wrong? This is, again, Trachtenberg, anti-Jewish prejudice is older and more extensive than Christendom, but its unique, demonological character is of mediaeval origin. “The Demon and the Jew” was born in a combination of culture and historic facts peculiar to Christianity in the late Middle Ages. So of course, there was anti-Jewish prejudice prior to the coming of Christianity. Let’s be careful here. Look, there are certain aspects of Judaism which made Judaism quite unpopular with the Greeks and with the Romans. If you think about it, when the Greeks conquered the known world, they were very democratic. Provided you worship their gods, they would take yours on. The same with the Romans. The Romans may have conquered the Greeks, but to a large extent, Greek culture conquered the Romans. But that would never work with the Jews. That strain of strong prophetic Judaism, there is only one all-powerful unseen God. And already in the third century, before the Common Era, we have Manetho very much speaking out against the Jews. This is repeated in Alexandria.
This is by Appian. Alexandria was a city that was 40% Jewish and there was huge trade competition between Greeks and Jews. And Appian says they are separatist, they are misanthropic, they hate the gods, et cetera, et cetera. Now, and also it reaches Rome. So important to remember, it doesn’t begin with Christianity, but it is with Christianity that we have the real problem. Now, the New Testament. It consists of 27 books, gospels. Gospel means good news. It is not a historic account. It is a propaganda document. Propaganda, by the way, is a word of the Catholic church. It’s Jesus’ life and his death. The Acts of the Apostles discuss the spread of Christianity. The next 21 books after the gospels were written mainly by Paul to Christian communities in the Greco-Roman world. All the books of the New Testament were written in the century following the death of Yeshua of Nazareth, give him back his Jewish origins, call his mother Miriam. It’s interesting that only the father in inverted commerce is Joseph. Now, what happened in that century? The Jewish revolt, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Jews had seen to have failed. And Christianity had a very precarious existence during that century and the next two centuries. It’s only in 311, following a great military victory that Constantine embraced it. Now, did he do it because it was a unifying factor in his empire? Or did he do it because his mother had converted whatever? Rome becomes Christian. And in 313 of the Common Era, Christianity could be practised in Rome, in the Roman Empire. Then you have the Council of Nicaea. And in 379, Christianity becomes the state religion of Rome. And that is where everything goes wrong.
Now, before we actually look at some of the texts, if you think about the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament for the Christian world, the Hebrew Bible becomes the Old Testament. And the whole purpose of the Old Testament is to prepare for the coming of Jesus. But what is fascinating is how Hebrew names for children, Jewish places of worship, church services full of Jewish psalms. So on one level, the new religion takes on much of Judaism. The other great problem though is this. It’s the dehumanising of the Jew. Because in the account of the gospels, who is responsible for the death of Jesus? It is the Jew. And I have a slight problem with, I’m actually speaking from my phone, so can you show the first slide, if you don’t mind, Lauren? And Lauren, can I ask a huge favour of you? Could you read it?
[Lauren] Okay, it says, “The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. ‘Which of the two do you want me to release to you?’ asked the governor. ‘Barabbas,’ they answered. ‘What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?’ Pilate asked. They all answered, ‘Crucify him!’ ‘Why? What crime has he committed?’ asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, ‘Crucify him!’ When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood,’ he said. ‘It is your responsibility!’ All the people answered, ‘His blood is on us and on our children!’ Then he released Barabas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”
And this is the line, ‘His blood be upon us and our children,’ which some historians and Jewish theologians now call the warrant for genocide. Now, it’s 2,000 years ago. Can we apply reason to this story? There’s no cross-referencing of Jesus into any other source, but the Christian sources. There are lines in Josephus, but many Christian theologians now believe they are later editions because Josephus uses the word Christ, which no Jew would ever have used. We do know a lot about Poncius Pilate. We know that he is the governor of Judea. It is Passover time. It is Jerusalem. It’s a time of huge unrest. It’s not long before the great revolt. He’s a very harsh governor. Now, do you honestly believe, when there’s a million people in Jerusalem for the Passover, that the governor would release a prisoner to the crowd? There is no evidence anywhere for this practise. But the point is, this is the story that is told. And when does a story have the real power of a myth? And this is the story that is told. And it is the deicide. Because if you think about it, the gospels are written in the first century when Christians are being persecuted by the Romans. There’s no way that they’re going to blame the Romans. And obviously crucifixion was the Roman method of execution. The Jews had no power to crucify. It’s a horrific method. But if you want evidence of that, when Spartacus revolted, 2,000 of the slaves were actually crucified upside down. That is how the Romans executed. So it is a Roman execution, but the Romans are absolved of guilt, and Pilate, by washing his hands, the blame goes to the Jews. So it’s the day side, which is the greatest crime in history. And that’s where you get the notion of Jew and power. But it goes on. It’s also the Jew and devil.
And not only that. Christianity has superseded Judaism. And this is what John Grey had to say, “When would the Jews ever be forgiving Christianity its religion?” Howard Jacobson said, “Judaism is Christianity’s guilty secret. When will the Jews be forgiven for the Holocaust?” Now these are very profound statements. They all saw statements in anger. Let’s not make any bones about it. This is post-Shoah and this is anger. I’m quoting now John Grey. “Jesus’ Jewishness is as essential to Christianity as it is embarrassing. To Christians, Jesus was the Messiah itself, a Jewish concept whose coming had been foretold in Jewish scriptures. It is Jewish history that Jesus fulfils. And to Christians, Jesus closed the story in order to tell another. And don’t forget the Jewish concept of the Messiah. And there are, in the Hebrew Bible, there are prophecies. A messiah will come. He’s to be a prophet. He will preach of the end of days. He is a soldier of liberation. He’s of the line of David. He’s ben David. He’s Ben Adam. And also he is the, if you think of that wonderful passage in Isaiah. So it was an order to show that Jesus fulfilled these essential parts of the prophecy that Matthew employs the 25 opening verses of the New Testament to establish Jesus’ line of dissent through Joseph, not just to David, but through Abraham. But the Jews were expecting a Messiah. But what does Messiah mean in Jewish context? You can say that Jesus was a failed Messiah because what was the Messiah to do? The coming of the Messiah, he will liberate the land, he will bring in God’s kingdom. And so to the Jews, because it didn’t happen, the world is still redeemed.
And what Christianity did, which is a fascinating sort of turn of events, it turns Jesus’ materialistic failure into spiritual success. God’s kingdom is elsewhere. And of course, it coincides with the Jews losing their land and moving into the diaspora. So the Jews have failed. But in the synoptic gospels, that’s the first three, Matthew, Mark, Luke, he is still a Jewish prophet. But when it gets to John, it has been far more dejudaized. Can we come to the next slide if you don’t mind, please?
[Lauren] "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding onto the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks with native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!”
Thank you. So this comes from Saint John’s gospel, which is for many Christians, the most beautiful gospel of all. Now, this theme is followed through in the church fathers, the saints. You see, Christianity, it’s far more of a dualistic religion in Judaism. And most historians would actually say it isn’t Jesus, Joshua of Nazareth, who creates the new religion. In fact, we know that his early followers worshipped in the synagogues. There were many wonder rabbis at that time. It is actually Paul of Tarsus who came, now Tarsus was the centre of mystery cult religions. Paul divorces Christianity from its Jewish origins and preaches to the Gentiles. And he does it in one huge way. He says Jesus has fulfilled the law. You no longer have to be an observer of the commandments. All you have to do now is to believe in Jesus and you will be saved. And it spreads like wildfire because it takes on the moral law, the 10 commandments, the decalogue. It takes on the glory of the prophets because this is now all part of Christianity. But Judaism has been superseded. And Christianity is the way. And the way they get round the fact that the world did not change for the better, we are awaiting the Second Coming. Now, let’s have a look at some of the church fathers. And I had to choose, frankly, there were so many I could have chosen from. I’m sorry, Lauren, if you don’t mind reading the next one. This is Saint Gregory of Nyssa.
[Lauren] “Slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, adversaries of God, haters of God, men who show contempt for the law, foes of grace, enemies of their father’s faith, advocates of the devil, brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men whose minds are in darkness, leaven of the Pharisees, assembly of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners, and haters of righteousness.
Thank you, and now Saint John Chrysostom, so beloved of art historians.
[Lauren] This one says, "Of what to accuse the Jews? Of their repine, their cupidity, their deception of the poor, of thieveries, and huckstering? Indeed a whole day would not suffice to tell all.”
Thank you very much, Lauren. Now, the early documented accusation of the deicide is actually in 167 of the Common Era, Melito of Sardis. He blames the Jews in the following way. “You did not know all Israel that this one was the first born of God. And Pilate washed his hands of all the guilt.” It’s written in Greek and it doesn’t use the Latin deicide. Deicide is first used by Peter Christostulum. He says . Jews committed deicide. And the term perfidious Jews is something that’s going to be used by the Roman Catholic Church right up until the sixties. It’s not until the second Vatican Council, 1962 to ‘65 Nostra Aetate, Pope Paul VI, he said that the Jews know, even though some Jews of the time called for Jesus’ death, the claim can no longer be laid at the door of all Jews present and for all time. Now that is in the sixties. And then, actually, the liberal cardinals, very much led by the Americans, remember you had Kennedy in New York, the Catholic, in Washington, the Catholic Kennedy, they wanted a statement. But the more illiberal cardinals, the more conservative cardinals, I should say, they wanted to say that the Jews of the time were responsible. So they came up with this formula that the Jews are no longer responsible for all time for the death of Jesus. And in fact, 2011, Benedict the 16th, he questioned the historiography of the passage in Matthew. So there has been movement in the Catholic church. But is it enough? And for many Jews, it was too little and it was too late. And one of the questions I know many people ask, “Well, what is the future of all this? Will dialogue actually help?” And I think we have to put some’s faith in dialogue.
Now what happens is that, as Christianity goes on the march, and by the last country in Europe to Christianize was in fact Lithuania in 1367. So gradually, the whole of Europe is Christianized. It is under the Roman church. You have the Orthodox church in the East, but more about that later. And gradually, as Christianization takes over, and the church, there is only one way to God, and that is through the church. So you have the conversion of all the pagans, you have the conversion of all the peoples. And what happens? Now, think normal occupation patterns. The Jews have spread throughout the diaspora. What on earth can they do? You can no longer belong to the Christian guilds. Every trade and profession had a Christian guild. But although one of the great, I suppose one of the great kind of motifs of history at this period is who is the real ruler in the land. Is it the church? Or is it in fact the secular rulers. And secular rulers need to create trade. They need to create a good economy. And ironically, the Jews who had literacy, all male Jews were literate, and we know from codes of education, I mean there’s a wonderful 11th century code of education for Jews in France and later on in England, that they would speak the vernacular, they would learn Hebrew, they would learn Aramaic, they would speak the vernacular. And also because there are Jewish communities from country to country to country, they become very important in early mediaeval times in the economy. They are traders. And different times I’ve lectured about the Radanites, those extraordinary traders who really, they were in charge of the silk route going all the way from France to China. But in thinking any society, those of you who are interested in mediaeval history, think of the costumes, think of the swords that people needed, think of the furs, think of the silks.
Where do they come from? And in the main, it is Jewish traders. And also in the early seventh century, you had the rise of the second great monotheistic religion after Christianity. Now Judaism is the parent religion, then you have Christianity, and then Islam. Within a hundred years of Mohammed’s birth, he had created the largest land empire the world had ever known so far. Now who could cross the world of Christianity in Islam? Because despite the fact they both believed they had the only path to truth and they were both converters, nevertheless you still traded, there is still practicalities. And what we do know is in this period, in early mediaeval times, it really was, you know, Jews did coexist. We know that there was social intercourse. For example, in the reign of William Rufus who was the second Norman King, the church, and the church were always the chroniclers, they gave John a terrible time because we know that he would actually invite Jews to court. And the rabbis complained that there were Jews who were drinking ale in the land of the angles. And you get many of these kind of allusions. So we know that despite the pressure of the church and despite the fact that the Jews are excluded from so much, they have their own society. And another point I would make, I think it’s fair to say that at this time, the Jews would’ve been pretty sure that their culture was superior. Later on, of course, particularly in the European enlightenment, things are going to be very, very different.
But it all changes. And why does it change? And can we see the next slide, if you don’t mind? Now what makes the great change, and it’s the crusades. Islam, the great conquering religion, had taken the place of Jesus’ execution for itself. This was a rallying cry for the popes and the kings. Now, if you are a cynical secular historian, you would say that the Pope wants to control all the kings and princes who are in his domains. You know, in England for example, the church had huge amounts of land. Where I live, I live in Kilburn Prairie, up the road. Those of you who live around Golders Green, don’t forget Temple Fortune and that whole area, that’s the land of the templers. The church monks and nuns had no, they were never tried in secular courts. They’re always tried in church courts. The church was the second power in the land. And there’s always been this tussle. Those of you who love literature, read Henry II. Those wonderful different plays of Henry II, who is in charge the king of the pope or the bishops. Now, one of the ways the church excised power was because of its hold on the afterlife. The belief was that when you died, you went to purgatory. And in purgatory, your sins would be weighed up. And if you were found wanting, you would go to hell. And if not, you would sit with the saints. To be a saint, made by the Catholic church, meant that you sat with Jesus and with God. So it’s a very important thing in a world that was totally religious. Look, I can’t look into the hearts and souls of everyone, but what I can do is tell you how people acted. Outwardly, everybody would’ve gone to church or to synagogue or to the mosque. We lived in a religious worldview. Anyway, the great rallying cry was of course to capture Jerusalem from the infidel, the Muslims.
And if you think about it, why would that have sway over various kings and princes? Because it would buy them time off purgatory. There were many ways of taking time off purgatory. Giving tithes to the church. Those of you who know Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, why were they going to Canterbury? To make a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket that would buy them time off purgatory. So also the promise of plunder. Many of the people who went on crusades were younger sons who were landless. So it’s plunder. It’s the lust for war. And of course, it’s to save your soul. It’s a very, very heady wine. And of course, it’s in that terrible period that you see the first serious, terrible massacres of the Jews. And it sweeps her out. Because think about it, they’re going on March to Jerusalem, they’re marching through France, they’re marching through the Rhineland. Why go all the way to Jerusalem to kill the heretic? When you have the heretic, the arch-heretic, the killers of god in your midst, and the Jewish communities were just wiped up in the Rhineland. And it’s really the beginning of a terrible, terrible period of Jewish history where ironically, Jews are pushed, and it’s the beginnings of expulsions. They’re first expelled from England in 1290. They’ve outlived their financial Islamist. They’re from France. They move further and further, and gradually, certainly in the Ashkenazi world, they go to the kingdom of Poland where you have some very interesting secular kings who want them there. They have a huge country, a peasant population with a large land owning class. Let’s bring in the Jews. So that’s another interesting aspect of Jewish history. Even when times become terribly dark, there usually was somewhere that was opening up.
But going on this theme, it’s really the beginnings, it’s the beginnings of the crusading period. And there were many, many crusades. And not only that. In this period, you see the growth of the blood libel and of course the blood libel first begins in England. Can we go on please? Can we see the next slide please, Lauren? Yes, this is woodcuts of a blood libel. Let’s see the next one, please. This is the burning of Jews during the terrible period of the ravishment of the Rhineland. The next one please. This is the terrible case of Simon of Trent. So let’s talk a little bit about the blood libel, because the blood libel begins in England. It begins in England in 1144, which would give us a big clue because there’s a civil war in England. And in a civil war, we’ve already had the first crusade. Crusaders back in England whipped up because the crusade failed. And Richard I, the great English king, has gone, sorry, I’m about, no, sorry, go back on that. I beg your pardon. The crusades have begun. England hadn’t been involved, but some British knights had gone on crusade. Now, what happens is this. During the English civil war, Henry I had died without a male heir. His son had actually drowned in the channel. The throne passed to a daughter. Could a queen rule in England and civil war between Queen Matilda and her cousin. And the Barons took sides. So they are armed. They are arming their knights, so they’re in debt to the Jews. And at 1144 in Norwich, and we now know this was a put up job by the local bishop and the local lord. It was Easter time. And it’s always easy to hate the Jews at Easter time because think, in the main, it’s an illiterate population, the story of gentle Jesus. Look, I’m showing you woodcuts. Those of you who spend time in the great cathedrals of Europe, look at the image of the Jew. It will actually depress you unutterably because on the other hand, you have the great beauty and art of Christianity.
And yet as far as Jews are concerned, there’s this underlying terrible story. Jews are also accused of desecrating the host. There is a church in the Roman part of Paris that Patrick took me to. He showed me a stained glass window at the back of the church, which shows a group of Jews coming into the church and sticking pins in the wafer. And the wafer floats up to heaven. And what happens, a miracle occurs. The wafer escapes the clutch of the evil Jews, land somewhere else where they build a new church. In the 14th century, 200 Vienna’s Jews, merchants who were really trade rivals to Christian merchants in Vienna, they were accused, 200 of them were accused of going into Saint Stephen’s Cathedral and desecrating the host. Because in Catholicism, the wafer and the wine become the blood and body of Christ. So they’re murdering Jesus again. 200 will hand. So it’s a very, very potent story. Now, the blood libel. The rumour spreads that a little Christian child had been taken by the Jews and murdered for his blood, the ritual blood. Anyone who knows anything about Judaism will know that blood is taboo. However, it didn’t satisfy the mob. The Jews were accused of murdering the child. The mob are whipped up. They go into the Jewish section. They burned down the wooden houses. They burned the inside of the houses which contain the wooden chests, which contain the depths. Now the blood libel, the notion of the merger of children or virgins, it’s as old as paganism. We know that certain peoples did sacrifice blood to the earth. We know that it was applied to witches. Who were witches in the main?
They were really the faith women of the village, the midwives, the gatherers of herbs, et cetera. When anything went wrong, they were blamed. They usually had a cat to familiar. So that story which had only applied to other Jews, was applied to other people, was applied to the Jews. And it starts with William of Norwich. It spreads throughout England. There’s another one in Bury Saint Edmunds. The most famous is in Lincoln, St Hugh of Lincoln, Lincoln Cathedral. When Geoffrey Chaucer writes the Canterbury Tales, one of the tales told by the second nun is the blood libel. And in fact, there was a statue to Saint Hugh in Lincoln Cathedral. And the tablet accusing the Jews of the blood libel was not taken down until 1959 where a new tablet was erected saying that there are certain episodes that do not read down to the credit of Christianity. But the point is, when it’s there, it stays.
And you can even interpret the Shylock story, which is based on an Italian tale from the blood libel. So it spreads throughout Europe. It later enters the Muslim world in 1840 through Christianity. And in the modern world, it really, I’m just going to give you a few important examples of the blood libel. Because even after racial antisemitism becomes the new kind of hatred, they still take on some of these Christian forms of Jew hatred. 1840, the famous Damascus affair. 1879 in the Russian Empire. In 1882, the Tiszaeszlar case in Hungary. In 1899, the Hilsner case in the Czech lands. I’m only pointing to the most important post, the modern ones. 1903, of course the Kishinev pogrom. 1913, Kiev, the Beilis case. 1911, Frank in America, in the Southern states. And of course, in Nazi Germany. In England, the UK fascist leader release, he actually wrote a whole paper in 1938 in defence of the blood liable. There were blood liables post-war in Poland in Kielce where 71 Holocaust survivors were murdered. 1986, “The Matzah of Zion.” Can you still hear me, sorry? Was there a break, Lauren?
[Lauren] Nope, you’re fine.
1986, “Matzah of Zion,” which was written by a Syrian Minister of Defence. 1991, at the UN Conference, cited by a Syrian deputy at the Great UN Conference. 2002, the London-based Arabic paper reported on “The Matzah of Zion” eight reprints. And I can go on and on and on. There was a Syrian film called “The Diaspora” in 2003. In January 2005, 20 members of the Duma made the blood libel accusation against the Jews. They said it’s anti-Christian, inhumane, and Jews are guilty of ritual murder. And so it goes on and on and on. Now why is it so potent? And I think the reason it’s so potent is because if you believe a people are guilty of the crime of deicide, then they can be guilty of anything. So going on, let’s have a look at the picture of Chaucer. You know, this is an issue because Chaucer of course, can you show us the next slide, there you see Simon of Trent. This is another blood libel. This is a best relief of course. So this is of course Geoffrey Chaucer. Now Chaucer was writing in England when there were no Jews here. Jews had been expelled in 1290, remember? So there are no Jews in England whilst he is writing. And yet one of the great tones of English literature, when I was an A-level student, we studied Chaucer and Shakespeare paper.
And of course, on the Shakespeare paper, we also branched into Marlowe. And Marlowe wrote the infamous “Jew of Malta.” So you’ve got this hardening post the crusades and also during the first half of the 13th century. Now, why? Because the church is beginning to fight heresy on every level. If you think about the south of France, southwest France, if you think about the Albigenses, later on about the Hussites, so the church is going to have to harden up. And what it does, it creates different orders. It creates the Franciscans and the Dominicans, domini canis, the hounds of God, and they are going to be responsible for the inquisition. Now, the inquisition is very, very important because the inquisition has power, it doesn’t have power over Jews, but it has power over heresy. And the church also sanctioned the use of torture. And of course, Jews who converted to Christianity, and later on in Spain, where after Spain is Christianized, many Jews stayed behind to keep their places in Spanish society, they were subject to the inquisition. Also the Fourth Lateran Council, this is the church summoned by Innocent III. And here you have the Fourth Lateran Council fighting heresy. This is Canon 68. Jews and Christians shall wear a special dress to enable them to be… Jews and Muslims, I beg your pardon, shall wear a special dress to enable them to be distinguished from Christians. So no Christians shall come to marry them ignorant of who they are. That shows us this into marriage. But this is the church coming in very strong. Canon 69. Jews must never be given preference in office in the pretext of wrath against the Christians. It would be too absurd for a blasphemer of Christ to exercise power against Christians. And Innocent II, by the way, is one of the two popes depicted in a marble relief above the gallery doors in the House of Representatives in America in honour of his influence in the development of American law.
Now, there were a thousand delegates at the Lateran Council. And Peter the Venerable said, “It’s a duty to hate Jews but not to kill them.” Now this is what Pope Innocent III said. The Jew who denies the Messiah has come lies. Herod is the devil, the Jews, demons. There is one king of the Jew. One is king of the Jew, the devil, and this is the king of the demons. And this is the remark at the council. Do not wipe up the Jews completely less perhaps Christians might be able to forget thy law, which the former, although not understanding it, presented in their books to those who do understand it. We understand the Old Testament, they do not.“ So this establishes that Jews have to wear a special dress. And ironically, it was England, was the first country to insist on the wearing of the Jew badge. And gradually, countries occupy one after other. The other took this on. And of course, the Dominicans were established in 1216. So it’s all around this time that you have the zealousness of the church. And of course Oxford University charter of 1248 in the reign of Henry III, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Augustinians all said they all settle in Oxford. And it’s interesting. This is actually a statement around, this is the statement of last year because it was the 800 anniversary of the Council of Oxford where they promulgated the rules of the Lateran Council. And this was the church because the church need, wanted to make reparation to the Jews.
Next year is the 800th anniversary of 1222 Council of Oxford, which implemented some of the most egregious antisemitic degrees of the full Lateran Council, such as the law that Jews were a badge of shame to isolate them from the Christian public around them. These laws heightened antisemitic feeling and led to the first nationwide expulsion of all the Jews from England in 1290. And of course it was all whipped up because the Albigensian Crusade was 1209 to 1220. So basically, this is the kind of background. And let me complete this by reading to you from Matthew of Paris. He’s a benedicting monk and he’s an English chronicler. And he’s talking in the Historia Anglorum, "Oh young Hugh of Lincoln slain also with cursive Jews as is notable for this but a little while ago pray each for us, we simple folk, that obvious mercy, God so merciful, on us his great mercy multiply for reverence of his Mother Mary.” So that I will stop there and I will continue on Thursday. Hopefully, we will have mended my machine by then. And I believe I’m going to have to rely on you for the questions, if you don’t mind, Lauren.
Q&A and Comments:
Q - [Lauren] Sally says, “A friend of mine posted one of Lord Rabbi Sacks’ marvellous talks on Facebook. Someone, perhaps a bot, and not even a person, posted a hate-filled rant in the comments. Rather than ignore this superfluous rant that has little to do with Rabbi Sacks lecture, people posted responses to it engendering even more hateful rants.
A - Yes, this is one of the problems I think. I think what has happened certainly in certain areas of Jewish scholarship, there are many, many Jewish historians and some Christian historians, and also Christian and Jewish thinkers and Muslim thinkers, who do believe there has to be some kind of reconciliation. The problem, the real problem, is it is deep. It’s a 2000-year-old disease. Now, how do you eradicate it? Now some of you may believe that we can do it through meeting, that the more we communicate with each other, the better. There are others who take the angle that they will never, that all we need to do is to be strong and have our own strong country. That is one response to the show up. How on earth do you root out a prejudice? I don’t believe you ever root out prejudice. I do believe that this level of hatred will quieten when we have economic, social, and political stability. I do believe that. But it’s going to take a lot more. And I think one of the problems is that most Jewish organisations find themselves so bewildered and hurt by all of this. And we don’t come together on these things. One of the most extraordinary things that has happened in the past few weeks, Holocaust Memorial Day, that week, I can only talk for British television, it was full of films on the Shoah. There is no linkage between the Jews who were victims of the Shoah and the Jews of today.
I hear this so often from survivor friends who go into schools and say, "Yes, people are terribly sorry for us, for us, little old ladies.” I’m quoting my friend Joanna here. “They feel sorry for us, but they do not equate us with Jews.” And there’s no teaching of 45 to 48. And as a result, the Shoah is taken kind of in isolation. It’s now, unfortunately, it’s almost being dejudaized. Something rather special happened. I had email from a Muslim friend of mine who is actually a Holocaust educator, believe it or not, to say how appalling it was that the terrorist, he used the word terrorists, had perpetrated an atrocity in Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day. Not one British news channel picked that up. I know it was picked up in America, but it’s a kind of slight of hand. And I think these are the kind of things we have to fight. And I know it’s my own personal view and I probably drive you mad with it, but I really think that concentrating on Holocaust education has not worked. And I’m saying that as someone who was involved in it for 40 years. Because 300 Holocaust museums throughout the world have not dented antisemitism or any kind of prejudice and building anymore aren’t going to do it. We have to rethink. It’s about empathy. We’ve got to rethink. Jews aren’t perfect either. And there are things in our past that we also have to think about. So consequently, I’m not completely hopeless, but what I do believe is we have to look at it straight and square in the face. So what other questions have we got, darling?
Q - [Lauren] “Although antisemitism has a religious inspiration, it was from the publication of the New Testament racist.”
I didn’t hear that, sorry, darling. I’ll put it to my ear, go on.
[Lauren] Mitzi says, “Although antisemitism has a religious inspiration, it was from the publication of the New Testament racist.”
It was from the pub, that it begins, is she saying it begins with the publication of the New Testament?
[Lauren] I can’t quite tell.
A - I’m not quite sure. I don’t quite know how to answer that one, Mitzi. You see, antisemitism is a modern racial term, which I will be talking about later on. It’s not this. This isn’t what I’m talking about. What I did say is that certain of the religious hatreds transfer into modern antisemitism. But remember, antisemitism is racial. A Jew is a Jew by blood. Look, it’s a totally spurious notion as you know. But then you cannot apply reason when you’re talking about prejudice. Thank you, Lauren.
Q - [Lauren] Elliot is asking, “How many of the gospel writers lived at the time of Jesus and knew him on a personal level? I’ve heard conflicting answers.”
A - No, the first Gospel was written 40 years after his death.
[Lauren] Someone says, “There’s an interesting counternarrative about Jesus actually being a heresy rabbi and that thing called hijacked Jesus and it’s crucifixion. It’s in rabbi culture Jesus, which is based on another work, "Revolution in Judea” by Hyam Maccoby.
Yes, Hyam Maccoby. Hyam Maccoby was a wonderful man. He was a great friend of mine. Now his book “Revolution in Judea,” if you can get hold of it or “Paul: The Myth Maker,” he’s quite extreme. Look, we don’t know about that period. We have no evidence. He believes that Paul, some writers believe Paul, that Jesus was a zealot. Others believe he was a Pharisee. He was a rabbi. Look, the Pharisees get such a bad press in the Christian Bible, but in fact they were the people who tended to the poor. So the problem is we don’t know, but you can speculate. And yes, I would abate any reading of Hyam Maccoby. He’s quite difficult to get hold of these days and he’s also very expensive, he passed away a while ago, his books are very expensive. He of course wrote the disputation, that extraordinary disputation between Judaism and Christianity with Nachmanides in 1240 in Aragon. There’s a play about it that was on British television. If you can get it, I dunno if you can get it on YouTube. If you can, I advise you to look at it.
[Lauren] Mitzi says, “Racism in its oldest sense wasn’t essentialist attribution. It is there in John 8:43. ‘You are of your father, the devil, and the lust of your father you will do.’”
I didn’t hear the beginning of that, I’m sorry.
[Lauren] “Racism in its oldest sense was an essentialist attribution.”
Hmm, don’t quite understand. I apologise ‘cause I’m on my mobile, so I don’t quite hear everything. I think we have to skip that, but hopefully it’ll be well by Thursday so we can repeat it. What’s the next question, please?
Q - [Lauren] “I have heard that the concept of Messiah can be interpreted as the establishment of Israel, Not necessarily a person. Please comment here.
A - Ah, the Messianic Age, the notion that the Jews will be returned. You know, in 1648, after the Khmelnytsky Massacres, the dream was that it was . It’s part of this sort of, you have this strain in the Hebrew Bible that the Messiah, who is only, he’s a man, there is no divinity in the Messiah, he will be the great leader, the Son of man, the righteous one who will lead the Jews back to Jerusalem. But then don’t forget the other great line. And the swords will be turned into ploughshares and the lions will lie down with the land. There will be a period of universal peace. That is the dream of the Messiah. Yeah. With Zionism, there was some religious who found Zionism a problem because you do not take these events into your own hands. You can make the case. You know that after the fall of Jerusalem and the creation of the Talmud, the rabbis deliberately quieted Messianism because it led to revolt. Bar Kokhba was proclaimed Messiah, you know. And he died with a flaming sword. And I’ve mentioned to you this many times, who are the heroes of the Jews? Ben Zakkai Bar Kokhba. It’s a very interesting part of Jewish history. Now, with Israel, Bar Kokhba has risen again. Yeah, it’s a difficult one this one. Yeah, we’re in very, very dark and deep waters here, people. Anymore?
Q - [Lauren] Yes, Monty’s asking if you’re going to discuss antisemitism in Islam.
A - In Islam, we will be looking at anti-Judaism in Islam and antisemitism. It will not be me, but it will be a colleague. Yes, definitely. But it’s different. Let me be very, very clear here. It’s different. The deicide is missing. And in the main, it was a Christian import. But there is nevertheless an issue So it’s a complex story. I have a great friend, Rabbi Joseph Dweck, and he says he thinks there’s a great difference in the Sephardi Jewish history and Ashkenazi history. That Sephardi history, in the main, the Jews lived, the Jews could live through the world, where in Ashkenazi history, there was far more the blight, which he called the blight of Christian persecution.
[Lauren] Mitzi says, "Every antisemitic trope is in the New Testament. They’re lacking spirituality, materialistic, legalistic, and worst of all, they are betrayers. Judas didn’t get his name by accident.
Yes, you see, the myth of Jews, the myth of Judas is another book of Hyam Maccoby. He is the only one of the disciples who has anything like a Jewish name. Maccoby questions whether he ever existed. Yes, you see the Jew is demonised. Yes, the Jew becomes the other in Christianity because he’s killed Jesus, and Christianity, you see the problem. Christianity needs Judaism as its basis, but it’s superseded it. Christians have the new covenant, the Jews are redundant. Now, obviously, not every Christian took that on. But it’s in the theology. And obviously, not every Gentile believes it. But what I think is the problem is this negative stereotype is 2000 years old and then came, 1800 years later, comes the enlightenment. And Jews really believed the world had become enlightened and they plunged into it. And then there was that terrible rejection, the Shoah. And where are we now? There’s a trauma. And if you want to take Howard Jacobson’s line, they can never forgive us, they cannot forgive us the Holocaust. "It’s a hugely complicated line,” he uttered. I must invite him in to talk about it.
[Lauren] Michael says, “No one knows who the writers of the gospels were. None of them knew Jesus. The names Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John were invented by the church. The concept of antisemitism only arrived in China in the 18th century with Jesuit missionaries.
Mm-hmm, yes, of course. We’re not talking about other parts of the world. Anti-Judaism, antisemitism is absent in Hindu civilization. It’s totally absent in Chinese civilization. I totally agree with you. It’s the world of monotheism. Totally agree.
Q - [Lauren] Linda’s asking, "What is the alternative to Holocaust education in your view?”
A - Well, I believe it would be rather interesting if they understood Jewish history a little better. Because we’ve had such an inverted commerce abnormal role in society. We’ve been forced into artificial employment patterns. In modernity, we are at the forefront of modernity, which became a problem for anyone who felt they were grieved by it. We went into high visibility occupation patterns. So you have the notion that all Jews are rich, all Jews are powerful, which of course is absolute rubbish. But this is where it all comes from. This is where it begins anyway. How do you fight it? I think by knowledge of Jewish history. In England, it’s hardly even taught in Jewish schools. It’s quite extraordinary, actually. When I first studied, there was a tiny little bit of it. Martin Gilbert at Oxford pioneered it in England. When we started, we brought him over from the Hebrew University. Now there are many places you can study, but it’s certainly not permeating into the Jewish schools, and of course into the non-Jewish schools. And Holocaust studies in which are non-Jewish schools stops in 1945, which is a real problem actually if you don’t study 45 to 48.
Q: What’s Israel got to do with the Shoah?
Well, an incredible amount actually. It’s taken out of context. So I believe in education, but I believe that if you ask me, the world we’re living in at the moment, we need to rethink education completely. And this isn’t me being kind of cranky. Talk to people like William Tyler, talk to practically all the great educators I know, Jewish, non-Jewish, it’s nothing to do with it. The kind of education our kids are getting is not fit for purpose. If you want people to be well-rounded citizens. There’s hardly any citizenship now on the curriculum. Empathy, that’s important. Anyway, I won’t go there because I’ll bore you on. But you don’t have to give up because there are bright sparks. There are people who think for themselves. There are many people who do realise this. We have many, many friends in the world.
[Lauren] Deborrah says that, “Unfortunately, a strong Jewish state seems to be the only answer for the Jews to be protected and offer a safe place to escape to.”
A strong Jewish state? Well, certainly, yes. I think after the Shoah, look, it was the completely left-wing Bangorian who wanted Israel to be nuclear in the early fifties. The fact that when Netanyahu went to Paris after those atrocities, he said to the French Jews, “Come home.” Now, is that the answer for all Jews? For the Zionists, it was certainly the answer. You know, Zionism was a minority movement before the Shoah. We’re into very complex water now. But we will be dealing with it from lots of different angles.
Q - [Lauren] James is asking, “How come Josephus didn’t elaborate on the story of Jesus? He could have cleared the Jews of accusations against them.”
A - It could well be. I’m not a scholar of Josephus. I will find out more for you. But it could well be that it wasn’t very important. That’s the point when he was writing.
Q - [Lauren] Shelly’s asking, do you think the Jewish suicides and killing of their children during the crusades caused some of these Christians to believe Jews could then kill their children?
A - No, no, I don’t. What you mean Kiddush Hashem? No, I don’t think that. This is the crusaders and bloodless. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t think there’s any tie up with that. Can just imagine the berserk crusaders on the march.
Q - [Lauren] Rod is saying that the way the Christian religion has behaved against the people who disagree with their beliefs in the way that they murdered, slaughtered, burnt women and children in the name of their religion, can they really be considered a religion?
A - Well, I think there’s a difference between practitioners and individuals. And there’d be many, many great Christians. Be very, very careful here. And something else I’m going to say. Judaism has never been tested in the same way for 2000 years. We have to be careful. What I believe, Moses Mendelssohn said something rather beautiful when he was asked, a figure of the enlightenment, “Why are you still a Jew?” And he said, “Because I was born a Jew. There are many paths to the truth.” He said, “If I meet a so long or a Confucian, do I have to convert him? No. We have to accept there are many paths to the truth.” There is a problem for Jews with Christianity. But don’t forget the other side of Christianity. It is a religion of morality and of love. But as far as with the Jews, you’ve got this terrible story. The guilty secret is what John Grey called it.
[Lauren] Abigail is saying, misunderstanding of Judaism goes back to the written Roman sources such as Jews being lazy 'cause they don’t work on the Sabbath.
Yeah, yeah. I could have elaborated more on the Roman sources, but I did say it predates Christianity. But all historians believe that the murderous strain comes through Christianity. Yes, of course. You know, Jewish customs set them apart. The Greeks and the Romans were quite economical. Remember when the Greeks conquered, they believed in conquest through insemination. The soldiers would stay in places and marry and have children. “That’s how you spread Greek culture,” thought Alexander, who was great.
[Lauren] Riva is saying that a non-Jewish academic friend remarked on how great we are at creating bridges between the Abraham and other religions. But there is no attempt to bridge the divides between the different streams of Judaism, which has been seen as the source of losing both our temples.
I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the second part of that question.
[Lauren] She says there’s no attempt to bridge the divide between the different streams of Judaism.
Well, that’s another issue. But that’s down to the Jews themselves, isn’t it? And look, we are a stubborn and stiff neck people. You know, who knows what we could achieve if we united once in a while, politically and religiously. Who knows?
[Lauren] Shelly says, Maimonides says that the Messianic age is when there will be no hatred of Jews anymore.
That’s beautiful.
Q - [Lauren] Elliot is asking, how can Jewish students be prepared to react to antisemitism when they enter university?
A - Well, I think by having this kind of knowledge, they would be in a lot better position. I always believe knowledge is power. I’m absolutely burning at the moment because there was a programme on BBC saying that London University wasn’t too safe for Jewish kids, any boy who wears a kippah. And that really, really made me very angry. And I don’t mean a superficial knowledge. We’re going to have to actually teach them the kind of curriculum that most of you have been through in the past three years. I suppose we can’t expect that, but we can, you know. I remember one of the reasons I got to know Wendy so well is because when her son was 17, he and a group of friends, she asked me to tutor to them for a year and I did. And it gave them huge confidence. I think if you know who you are and where you come from, you can put up with a lot of things. Most Jews living in Britain are far better Britishly educated than Jewishly educated. And that’s a problem. In my view, you have to walk both worlds. And it’s possible. So you get one less GCS or GCSE. Oh, did I say that? Sorry, grandparents. Okay, more?
[Lauren] Yes, Adrian says, the Romans were tolerant of other religions, hence Jews were allowed to rest on the Sabbath.
Yes, at certain times they were. Yeah, yeah. The Romans, it depends where, in Alexandria there was a terrible time because of the Greeks. But basically, the Romans, sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t, but they were far more tolerant of the Jews than they were of the Christians actually. You know, at one time, I believe there were a million converts to Judaism in the Roman Empire, but it wasn’t such an easy sell, putting it cynically as Christianity because of the law and because of circumcision. You know, I think we’re going to have to stop there because it’s difficult for me to hear on my little mobile. Anyway, everyone, I hope that wasn’t too disjointed for you, and thank you, Lauren, so much, for stepping up. And goodnight everyone, God bless.