Antisemitism Is Alive and (Un)well All Over the Internet Today
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Electrical fences in Auschwitz museum. (Unsplash image by Lāsma Artmane)
(OPINION) It was the Catholic scholar Edward Flannery who pointed out that antisemitism was “the longest and deepest hatred of human history.” He asked, “What other hatred has endured some twenty-three centuries and survived a genocide of 6,000,000 of its victims in its twenty-third century of existence only to find itself still intact and rich in potential for many years of life?”
Flannery wrote these words in his 1985 book “The Anguish of the Jews.” Today, almost 40 years later, that long and deep hatred shows no signs of abating. This is especially true online, where the worst aspects of humanity get free expression, where conspiracy theories of the ugliest kind abound, and where the most uncredentialed, unqualified person can gain a following. This is fertile ground for antisemitism.
I was reminded of this when looking at comments to one of our videos on YouTube. It’s just three minutes long and was posted about three years ago, titled, “Why Have Jews Been Kicked Out of So Many Countries?” As is the norm, this video refuting common antisemitic libels drew out the antisemites just as a light draws out bugs.
Still, it was jarring to read one vicious, ridiculous, patently false comment after another. In fact, it was chilling. As much as I would love to read every comment posted to our YouTube channel, it’s obviously not feasible, especially with more than 3,000 videos on the channel. That’s why it was enlightening to read all the comments to this one video.
The clear majority of the comments that were posted violated our guidelines, which include rules against personal attacks, libeling others, posting on totally unrelated topics and using profanity. Accordingly, once I read those comments, they were deleted.
But, just as my team and I have taken screenshots of such comments before deleting them, we have mountains of similar comments already in our archives.
Why, then, were the Jewish people (in particular, unbaptized Jews) expelled from so many different countries throughout history, including England in 1290 and Spain in 1492? (The internet meme claiming that Jews have been expelled from 109 countries is greatly exaggerated.)
The answer is quite simple, as I explained in the video: For the most part, it was simply because they were Jews. They refused to convert to the dominant religion (specifically, Christianity; under Islam they were primarily subjugated), and they were different and distinct because of their religious practices and customs.
This, in turn, led to them being demonized, becoming scapegoats for the latest calamity or tragedy. Blame it on the Jews!
Last century, Jews had to flee Muslim countries with the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948. They were no longer welcome and risked their livelihoods and their very lives if they stayed.
But this is not what the antisemites believe. Instead, the reason for these expulsions is because the Jewish people are the most evil of people. Because they are parasites (or, more recently, as expressed by Louis Farrakhan, termites), guilty of the most atrocious sins imaginable, driven out because of the high morals of the Christian countries that had so graciously hosted them. Those terrible, evil Jews!
The comments I read, one after another, repeated the standard libels.
The Jews were expelled because they were pedophiles, as sanctioned by their religious literature.
The Jews were expelled because they were greedy and corrupt.
The Jews were expelled because they controlled the banks and were getting rich off high interest rates, hurting their innocent, hardworking neighbors.
The Jews were expelled because they cursed Christians in prayer three times per day.
And then, of course, this juicy, self-contradicting lie: The Jews were expelled because they were not really Jews and were exposed as being impostors.
So, they were hated as Jews because they were not really Jews. How logical! Had they been genuine Jews, they would have been loved. But of course! So, in one country, the Jews were hated because they were Jews; in another country, they were hated because they weren’t really Jews.
As for Israel today, according to the antisemites, it is not just an apartheid country but a country that is built on and that continues to practice genocide. The Israelis are the contemporary equivalent of the Nazis. Someone just posted this to another, related video as I was finishing this article.
In the video, I freely acknowledge that, as a people (and I am Jewish myself), we have fallen under divine judgment at different times in our history, having rejected Moses, the prophets and Jesus the Messiah.
In that regard, we are like everyone else: a mixed bunch with lots of good qualities and lots of bad qualities, ultimately falling short of God’s mark and needing redemption.
But, as I also point out in the video, the Lord sternly rebuked those nations that treated the Jewish people harshly, saying that they overdid the punishment.
That means that much of our suffering has been due to the hatred of our enemies and not simply due to our sins. And that hatred is manifest in vicious words that pave the way for vicious actions.
That’s why we must confront the lies of antisemitism aggressively, clearly and tirelessly, no matter how often they raise their head.
Today, there’s a surge in antisemitism from extremist cults like the Black Hebrew Israelites and largely White “Christian” circles influenced by antisemites such as E. Michael Jones (for my interview with Jones, see here). In other words, as per the norm, the lies continue to come from all sides and from every angle.
To give a sampling of the hateful rhetoric, note the joyful, affirming expression on the face of the Black Hebrew Israelite leader I was debating when I quoted his own words to him: At the second coming, Jesus “wants to step on you people’s heads until your brains come out” (the video is queued to start at 1:52:54; he reacted in a similar way moments later when I read a comment from another member who claimed that the Holocaust never happened and that Hitler was a “White Idumean [Edomite] heathen devil” like me).
As for Jones, Memri TV recently posted video highlights of an interview he did for Iranian TV in January in which he claimed “that the narrative that the Jews were gassed in the Holocaust is a “conflation” of facts. He explained that in reality, the typhus-infested Jews who emigrated from “unhygienic” shtetls in Eastern Europe to America through Germany “had no idea what a shower was” and were made to take a shower and had their clothes deloused with Zyklon-B. He elaborated that as a consequence, Zyklon-B has been conflated with showers by the Jews. He said that Auschwitz had amenities such as a swimming pool and that Hollywood is the “regime that rules America” and sustains the Holocaust “narrative.” He also said that saying the word “Jew” is taboo in America but that this taboo is now being broken and that the overturning of Roe v. Wade is the beginning of the end of Jewish “hegemony” over American culture. He also said that the “fundamental problem” with American politics is that the Jews control both political parties.
Thankfully, in the end, truth will overcome lies and light will overcome darkness. But we do well in the here and now not to underestimate the power of those dark lies. They have led to shedding of an ocean of Jewish blood over the centuries.
This column is republished with permission from Ask Dr. Brown.
Dr. Michael L. Brown, who has a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University, is founder and president of AskDrBrown Ministries and host of the nationally syndicated daily talk radio show “The Line of Fire.” He’s served as a visiting or adjunct professor at seven leading seminaries and has written more than 40 books. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is a recognized leader in Jewish apologetics. His Twitter handle is @drmichaellbrown.