Hatred of The Jew, Love of the Jew

Who is The Jew?

Jewish identity is complex, fascinating, contradictory. It is ethnic, received with the mother's blood; religious, practiced in diverse manners; sometimes political; richly cultural and historic. As there are contrasting Jewish identities, so also we see distinct hatreds for the Jew. Ordinarily one is born Jewish, but it is a religion into which a gentile can convert. Conversion of a Jew to Christianity obviates the Jewish identity; but atheistic hatred (Freud, Marx) of religion and Judaism does not. In such things of the spirit, there is no simple logic at work. 

This essay will contrast three distinct forms:  antisemitism, anti-Judaism, anti-Zionism and their varieties; and our relation to this as Catholics. We will see that the first intends genocide (elimination of the people), the second ethnocide (destruction of the culture/religion), and the last politicide (crushing of a state or political body.) They are entirely distinct forms, as they  often merge with and feed into each other.

For us Catholics, "The Jew" is the Beloved of God, the Chosen, the Elect. "The Jew" is Jesus himself. He is the chosen from among the chosen. He is the epitome of the Hebrew, the Jew, the Israelite. Close to him: Mary, Joseph, his apostles and disciples, Paul and others. We are ourselves "second level" or "adopted" Jews,  "Messianic Jews," eschatological Jews, or even  "Uber Jews," in contrast to classical or first order Jews, those today blood descended from the patriarchs and prophets (even the non-believing) as well as those who observe the first Covenant. If we are adopted or "grafted into" (St. Paul) the tree and tribe of Israel, than every Jew, whether by blood or practice, is our spiritual cousin. We are distinct branches, but of the same vine. We belong to each other. 

Hatred of the Jew, then, is essentially hatred of Jesus, and secondarily of all of us baptized into Him. Monsignor John Osterreicher, renowned convert from Judaism into Catholicism, and in large part author of the transformative Vatican II declaration on the Jews, saw that the purest, deepest antisemitism, that of Hitler, goes beyond politics, culture and blood and is unconsciously a contempt for what this people represents: the Word given by God, to Israel, through Moses, on Mount Sinai. So hatred of the Jew is profoundly hatred of God, of the moral order, of those chosen, and of the "least."

Antisemitism.

In its pure form, as in Nazism, this is a racism that despises the Jew by virtue of his blood. So, one could be a cloistered Carmelite nun (Edith Stein) or a scientific genius (Einstein) but a mere fraction of  Jewish blood absolutely contaminates and condemns. Stated so clearly, it is to our ears ridiculous and nauseating. But it easily takes a vague, populist, crude form in language, humor, and practice that disparages Jewishness. 

Throughout the centuries, hatred of the Jew has been the single most shameful, horrific sin of us, Catholics and Christians. If I were Pope and allowed one apology I would ask forgiveness of the Jews, as our recent popes have done. 

To be clear, however, antisemitism, in contrast to anti-Judaism,  has never been Catholic teaching. The intention of the Church has never been to destroy the Jews, but to convert them (along with all peoples) to salvation in Christ. Viral, violent antisemitism has often been fiercely resisted by the official Church, notably popes and bishops.  Too frequently local clergy were drawn into the vicious, populist scapegoating. Catholicism has harbored a form of anti-Judaism.

Muslim/Arab Antisemitism

This global sympathy for the Palestinians and antipathy to the state of Israel is in part an anti-Zionism, a political view that is not irrational. But the intensity of hatred indicates that it is far more than that, that it has become a Hitleresque hatred of the Jew as Jew. 

Recall that the Arabs, just prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948, in WWII, worked closely with the Nazi empire and seem to have imbibed this hatred.

Prior to the modern period, the relationship of Islam to Judaism is complex and scholars dispute the degree of hatred of Jews and their religion. But in general it appears that Jews were treated similarly to Christians and other "lessor" peoples. Islam lacked the Christian narrative of "deicide" and betrayal and therefore persecuted them less than did medieval Christendom. For example, Jews did much better in Islamic than in Catholic Spain. This is cause of regret for us Catholics!

My view is that the visceral hatred, not just of the state but of the people, not merely politicide, but also ethnocide and even genocide....is a perfect storm of diabolical forces.  The word diabolical here intends two meanings: the theological, as literally coming from Lucifer and his hell; and the etymological as a "tearing apart." There is, first of all, the Jihadist violence and irrationality (of a voluntarist, mon-God) that is intrinsic to Islam, as brilliantly highlighted by Pope Benedict in his Regensburg address. This violence/irrationality warmly welcomed the Nazi contempt for the Jew, even before the state of Israel. The displacement of the Palestinians then inflamed this hatred with the spirit of victimhood across the Muslim world which suffered many weaknesses culturally, politically, morally. Add to that a scapegoating dynamic that funneled all the frustrations and sufferings of this world against the Jew, the quintessential "goat." The result: a global hatred that mimics that of Hitler!

Anti-Judaism.

This is probably more pervasive than pure antisemitism, with which it is confused. The confusion is understandable as they (along with anti-Zionism) feed into each other. From the viewpoint of the victim, the Jew, they are all hatred and hostility so the distinctions may lack meaning. We will consider the Catholic and the secular, often Jewish, versions.

Jewish Anti-Judaism

By definition, the non-observant, secular Jew has rejected Judaism as a way of life. We can take from E. Michael Jones (who advocates an extreme Catholic anti-Judaism) the distinction between the Talmud (Orthodox, Hasidic) and the Woody Allen (secular, liberal) Jew. Sigmund Freud was firm and fierce in his Jewish identity, but despised Judaism as a religion. He forbade his wife to practice her faith. Karl Marx not only rejected Judaism in his atheism but in his economic theory identified capitalism as "Judaic" and thus identified the Jew with the Capitalist. In this he agreed with the virile antisemitism of the Right, Hitler, in stereotyping the Jew as greedy, wealthy, unjust, and powerful. This hateful stereotype pervades our culture, on the right and on the left. So we find among secular, Woody Allen Jews, a fierce anti-Judaism, in favor of  secular, atheistic Jewishness. Jews excel in culture, literature, media, philosophy, law and politics. This is no doubt due to their rich history of immersion in study of the Torah and Talmud. As such, in modernity, they are inordinately influential in the progressive movements of Marxist politics and the cultural liberalism indebted to Freud. They have been a powerful presence in labor, socialism, the Democratic party, psychoanalysis, pornography industry, Hollywood, the New Left of the 60s, liberation of sex from the moral order, and the identity politics which assumes always the oppressor/oppressed paradigm.

A fascinating dynamic of the current progressive protests against Israel is that it brings immense dissonance to the liberal Jew who now finds himself and his state as the oppressor in this paradigm. We may now be witnessing a second flow of liberal Jews from the Left to the Right as occurred in the 1970s when influential figures moved right as "Neo-Conservatives" in reaction to liberal softness on crime, the cold war, and the moral order of the family. 

Traditional Catholic Anti-Judaism.  Since we accept the Jewish scriptures as divinely revealed; we recognize the ancient, sacred, privileged closeness of God to the people of Israel; we find the origins of our religion in the Judaism of Jesus and his apostles...Catholic anti-Judaism can never be absolute, as in the heresy of Marcion who set the "harsh" God of Israel against the merciful one of St. Paul. The mainstream, moderate form was that of "supersession" which held that the covenant with Israel  has been replaced, superseeded, and displaced. This view saw little of value in the religion of Rabbinic or Pharisaic Judaism. In this view, the loving action toward the Jews was to proselytize, convert them to the full salvation in Christ. This view is quite different from the vigorous Judaism of Jesus and even Paul.

From the Jewish point of view, such Christian anti-Judaism is not genocide, the killing of all Jews, but ethnocide, the destruction of their culture and religion. They are accurate: the Catholic intention to convert all Jews would eliminate traditional Rabbinic or Pharisaic Judaism. So we see the deep wound that anti-Judaism has left. We begin to understand why conversion to Christianity destroys one's Jewish identity in a way atheism does not, because it threatens the very existence of Judaism as a religion, a culture, a people. And we see how our Church since the Holocaust, and particularly since Vatican II, takes a gentle approach to the dialogue with Judaism, avoiding explicit or aggressive proselytism. 

The famous Edgardo Mortara case is fascinating. In 1857 the Vatican heard that this six-year old Jewish boy, as an infant in danger of death,  had been secretly baptized by a Catholic servant. He was kidnapped and held to be raised Catholic for the salvation of his soul. The family sued but Pope Pius IX did not relent. The young boy went on to become a priest and died at the age of 88 in 1940. He cherished his vocation and Catholicism. We see here at work a philo-Semetic anti-Judaism.

Contrast that with a drama 90 years later in Poland after WWII. A Catholic family had accepted a Jewish baby as the Nazis invaded, promising to return the child to whatever family survived the war. The parents died but there were relatives in Canada. The Poles loved the child and wanted to raise it as their own Catholic child. They consulted their parish priest: Father Karol Wojytyla, St. John Paul II. He directed them to perform the promise, give the child to his Jewish family.  We see here that Fr. Karol was positive in his view of Judaism and demonstrated this throughout his life. The Catholic Church has accepted this viewpoint. (Sidebar: When I told this story to an Orthodox Jewish friend he was delighted. He told me it was well known among the Jews that many of their orphans were left after the war in orphanages to be raised Catholic but a famous Rabbi would visit such and, while the children were at meal, join them and sing Jewish songs. If any children joined in the singing from memory, he would know they were Jewish and would rescue/kidnap them and return them to the Jewish community.) 

The change to a philo-Judaism within the Catholic Church, shown in Fr. Karol and Monsignor John Osterreicher after WWII, was arguably the most drastic change in Catholic theology in twentieth century. For example, the idea of  Jewish "deicide." that as a people they were guilty of the death of Christ, an extreme anti-Judaic idea that moves easily into real antisemitism, was definitively renounced at the Council. New clarity was given to the dogma that it was the sins of all of us, not of some group, that crucified Christ. "The ground is level at the foot of the cross." This was a clear reversal of  the "succession" model that Judaism was antiquated and useless. It was at the same time, however, a return to the factual Judaism of Jesus, Peter and Paul. It retrieved the Jewish identity intrinsic, from the beginning, to Christianity. It was a grace-filled move to reconciliation and an immense enhancement of our own identity in the Jewish Christ.

Conservative Resentment of the Woody Allen Jew

The ferocity of the secular Jew, Marxist and sexually liberational, has provoked, understandably, a degree of resentment from the Catholic/Evangelical moral Right. This is straight Culture War stuff, neither anti-Zionist nor antisemitic. In this battle the Christians find allies in the Orthodox and more Conservative Jewish communities. It remains mild as Evangelicals and Catholics both have strong sympathies for Israel and Judaism and an aversion to clear antisemitism. Nevertheless it is an aspect of the ongoing Culture War between progressive and conservative.

Liberal, Black Resentment of the Talmud Jew

The more Orthodox, especially Hasidic, communities (very present in my NY/NJ area) elicit an entirely different resentment, from mainstream, liberal middle class as well as the black community. This strict Judaism is "thick": blatantly counterculture in distinguishing itself from the broader society. They are systemically distant and detached; aggressive in pursuing their own interests. They disengage from the wider society and fiercely advance their interests without concern for disadvantaged minorities. They have very large families. They cleverly work politics and bureaucracy to their advantage in ways that are legal but obnoxious to outsiders. In the largely black/mixed Jersey City area in which I have lived and worked for half a century there is a mild resentment. Such is stronger in the bourgeois liberalism of the suburbs. These Jews are, as they have been throughout the history of Christendom, different,   in dress, diet, belief, and overall lifestyle. In their indifference to gentiles, outsiders, they offend the unwritten bourgeois rule to be "nice" to everyone. They labor under no Christian imperative to serve the poor, except among their own. Theirs is a more primal, tribal loyalty to precisely their own. And so they are obnoxious to the Christian conscious in its inclusion of everyone and the liberal who exults in DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) but despises something so different. They practice hardball politics. 

The resentment of other ethnic groups, poor and affluent, is understandable. But I do not find their praxis to be unethical. It lacks the Gospel inclusivity that I personally cherish. But I do not judge them by the standard of a Gospel they have renounced. As a Catholic, I myself favor a thicker religiosity, be that the Latin mass or the Catholic Worker, and am allergic to the mediocre, dull homogeneity of bourgeois, "nice" liberalism. I respect the integrity, ferocity, and persistence of their way of life (surely flawed) in a world, largely Christian, that has been hostile for millennia.

Jesus' Fights with the Pharisees

Jesus says more bad things about the Pharisees, the fathers of today's non-temple, Rabbinic Judaism, than anyone else. In the gospels, they are legalistic, arrogant, superior, and lacking in compassion. It is small wonder that our religion took a turn against the Jewish religion. 

One piece of this puzzle is the historic context in which the gospels were being shaped and written: at the time Synagogue and Church were fighting and mutually expelling each other. This was a different situation than that of Jesus himself who participated in synagogue and temple worship and even of Peter and Paul who did the same. Surely this influenced the gospels.

But there is no doubt that Jesus himself was in a Culture War with these adversaries. He seems to have nothing bad to say about the Romans who oppressed his people and actually executed him; or the Zealots who wanted to overcome them militarily; or the Essenes who lived monastically in the dessert; or even the Sadducees who themselves fought the Pharisees and conducted temple worship. Does he pick on them because they were SO bad? It would seem that way! The word "Pharisee" has come down to us as the epitome of pride, superiority, and self-righteousness. Were they that bad?

No. They were the equivalent of our lay renewal movements: zealous about worship of God and purity of life. They were that day's "holy rollers" or evangelicals or "daily mass and rosary types." (Sidebar: my best friend John and my son John have referred to me as "Laracy the Pharisee." Not intended as a compliment. Maybe this has something to do with the contrarian, revisionist understanding of them I am presenting here! 😀) Recall that some of Jesus closest disciples were Pharisees: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethia. Jesus was very close to them in dogmatic belief: especially about the afterlife, angels, and revelation. In other words, they were the closest of the groups to Jesus in theology and piety. Because of this intimacy, Jesus gets so mad at them. 

We get mad at our own brothers and sisters and good friends, not so much at those distant from us. For example, there are fierce battles among us Conservative Catholic who agree with each other on 95% of our faith: charismatics, Neo-Cats, Thomists, Latin Mass, Communio theologians, Republican Neo-Conservatives, Paleocons, the New Catholic Right and others can get heated with each other because they are so close that disagreement matters much. So Jesus did not react much to gentiles, Romans or zealots, but he did to the Pharisees, because he was close to them and loved them. 

And so the renewed love we have for the Jews is a return to our roots, our sources. At the same time, there remains an immense difference between us about the identity of Jesus. As our dialogue develops, my hope is that our side become more candid and honest as I have noticed an imbalance: Catholics, remorseful about our history and the fact of the Holocaust, tend to be deferential and unassertive. 

Anti-Zionism

This is political opposition to the Jewish state of Israel. It is not hatred of the Jew as Jew. Earlier, prior to the establishment of the state (1948) the Zionist aspiration  it was opposed by many Orthodox Jews. With time however, it seems that the state has come to be accepted by almost all Jews as a protection of their people, even as many are critical of particular policies of the state and actions by aggressive settlers and others.

The displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs into congested areas was an injustice. So the fierce anti-Zionism of Palestinian and other Moslems and Arabs is understandable. One could be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic. The two are quite distinct in form or inner essence. 

In fact however, the visceral resentment, the feeling of victimhood, and the rage across the Muslim world moves this political position into hatred of the Jew as such. And so, we have the depraved event of October 7 and the celebration across the globe of the cruelty. 

In the USA and Europe, we have been shocked by the protests against Israel and in favor of Palestine. This, in my view, is not pure antisemitism, but a crude anti-Zionism inflated by the progressive-Marxist lens of oppressor/oppressed. The hard left sees in Israel what they saw in the George Floyd death, what they see everywhere: white oppression of the victim. It is male/female, straight/gay, cis/transgendered, and so forth. In this case, we have two Semites, Arab and Jew, in conflict: neither of them European white not African black. But the "oppressor paradigm" only sees the Jew as oppressor, the Palestinian as victim. Therefore there is an immense rage at Israel as the quintessential villain, the Palestinian as innocent victim. Systemically the innocence and violation of the Jews is denied; and Israel, imagined as pure evil, is condemned. This Marx-based anti-Zionism, if not formally hatred of the Jew as such, moves easily into the cruder form of hate and feeds it. It is surely received by the Jew as hatred. Given the history, the Jew is not safe anywhere, except within their own state of Israel.

I can imagine, however, the Left turning to a protectiveness of the Jew in the following thought experiment. Historically the Right is prone to antisemitism. Trump is himself strongly supportive of Israel as his own daughter has converted and raising her children with her husband as Jews. Additionally a strong current within Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism is theological supportive of Israel as a preparation for the coming of Christ. But we can imagine a populist, demagogic, "Christian Nationalist" resentment of the Jew in various aspects: the secular, liberal "Woody Allen" Jew as hostile to Christian values; the detachment, aggressiveness and legalism of the "Talmudic" Jew as unchristian and anti-American. Were there to be such a "white" hostility to the Jews, we can easily imagine the Left embracing the later as victims. 

Catholic Love of the Jew

Even prior to theological and historical considerations, my personal experience of Jews is very striking and clear. Living in the NY area, I have engaged them frequently, including in friendship, over the years: religious and secular, rich and poor, educated and unschooled, liberal and conservative, assimilated and countercultural. I am unfailingly struck by a mysterious charism: an openness, a warmth of affection, a striking intelligence that can be bookish or practical, a charming energy, a spiritual radiance. My explanation is simple: they are God's beloved. Even with their sins and failings, they have basked in the faithful, divine love for many centuries. Over all this time, they have thrived. This is true even of the secular Jew, the atheist who hates religion and denies God. Even this one, Freud or Marx, is the recipient of a legacy of graces that cannot be repressed. 

And so this Catholic is in awe of the Jew. Of the gifts, even now flourishing. Of the history of persecution and perserverence. Of the holiness, the patriarchs and prophets, the Holy Family and the apostles. The erudition and Wisdom. 

This love, as that one has for a brother or spouse, does not preclude criticism and disagreement. Upholding the state of Israel does not mean endorsement of every decision and action taken or permitted, such as the displacement of Palestinians by aggressive settlers. Our reverence for Judaism does not deny our profound difference in belief, especially about Jesus and the Trinity. Jews are, like all of us gentiles, sinners in need of God's mercy; their culture is prone to systemic evils, whether that be the observant Talmud-Jew community or the secular, Woody-Allen Jew community. So we do well to confront and scrutinize them candidly in a dialogue of mutual contrition and pardon.

And we pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!