Blaming those harmed

Editorial

It is common enough to encounter all manner of anti-Jewish stereotypes and condemnations in the largely anonymous parts of the Internet. It still can shock, though, to find these theories and allegations in ostensibly legitimate media.

The Harvard Ichthus bills itself as a “journal of Christian thought” for “an age of skepticism” in which “many come to the college with misconceptions about Christianity and whether a vigorous intellectual life is compatible with a Christian one.”

The editors certainly conquered skepticism when they agreed recently to run an opinion piece penned under the nom de plume “aJew.” Its thesis is that “the Jews were marked out for destruction when they killed Jesus” and that all the Jewish suffering since the destruction of the Second Temple was “just.”

“We, the Jews, rejected God and hung Him up on a cross to die, and thus we richly deserved all of the punishments that were heaped on our heads over the last 2,000 years,” the writer claims. “Although such is the severity of God, the kindness of God is wonderful (Rom 11:22): in that me, a Jew, a children of Jews, and an utter sinner, can repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and the curse on me is forgotten.… Rather than being at war with God (having killed Him), I have peace with God through Jesus Christ.”

Christian baptism is the Jewish people’s solution to continued suffering, the author argues in the essay that is now unavailable. The editors, while saying they are considering re-posting a revised version on the journal’s blog, where it originally appeared, nevertheless apologized, in a way, for what they say was a threefold offence. They apologized for inadequate editing, for allowing the author to post anonymously, and for being a conduit for offensive content. While the apology seemed to reserve the possibility that the author may have been correct, but misunderstood, a response to aJew’s thesis was included in the editor’s apology.

“Christianity has long taught that everyone is responsible for the death of Jesus Christ insofar as we have all sinned – all people at all times everywhere; Jew and Gentile alike – and that we all must repent and accept him as our Lord and Savior,” wrote the editor.

Now, as Jews, we don’t have to accept this idea; but Christians do. Rarely in these pages do we make it our place to tell Christians (or anyone else) how to interpret their religion. But Christians who blame Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus are ignorant of the central tenet of their faith: Jesus, in any interpretation of Christian theology, died in order to expiate the sins of those who believe in him.

If the author is in fact a Jewish convert to Christianity, they may be suffering from some form of theological dysphoria or misplaced animosity. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this sort of ancient aspersion still holds water for some, including at least one student at the Ivy League university.

Perhaps the most illuminating take on this incident came before the fact, in a speech several weeks earlier by the Man Booker Prize-winning author Howard Jacobson. The subject of Jewish culpability in historical wrongs – even wrongs against Jewish people – is applied in ways that demonstrate a sort of mass social psychopathy.

“When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?” Jacobson asks. “Never,” he answers.

“The shocking psychological truth is that man rejects the burden of guilt by turning the tables on those we have wronged and portraying ourselves as the victims of their suffering.… Those we harm, we blame – mobilizing dislike and even hatred in order to justify, after the event, the harm we did. From which it must follow that those who are harmed the most, as in the case of the Shoah – are blamed the most.”

In Jacobson’s speech, which was delivered at the B’nai B’rith World Centre in Jerusalem and published in the Forward last month, he contends that blaming Jews for everything that has befallen (or will befall) our people has assured segments of erstwhile thoughtful people that there is, in fact, no such thing as antisemitism (with the corollary that anyone who says there is antisemitism is a manipulator bent on inventing false persecution).

“Thus has the shame of thinking antisemitic thoughts been lifted from the shoulders of liberals,” he said. “Since there can be no such thing as antisemitism – Jews having stepped outside the circle of offence in which minorities can be considered to have been offended against – there is no charge of antisemitism to answer. The door is now wide open for those who truly believe they have nothing in their hearts but love to stroll guilelessly through to hate.”

This theory applies nicely to the Harvard case. The anonymous author lovingly maintains that the solution to millennia of anti-Jewish persecution at the hands of Christians is, as it has been for centuries, baptism in the redemptive love of Jesus. That idea, it appears, legitimizes not just the repetition of the oldest and most lethal charge of antisemites, it also makes right everything that has happened to the Jewish people for 2,000-plus years. See how that works?

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