Were we scrupulous, we’d recognize that, on a per capita basis, no group since the Founding Fathers has contributed more to our national success—indeed, dominance—in multiple fields of endeavor than have American Jews. From science and medicine, through finance, the legal system, and higher education, to the fine arts and popular culture, our stunning achievements over the last hundred years or so are unthinkable without our Jewish fellow citizens. Unshackled from the “old world,” the long-constricted genius of Jews thrived with unmatched creativity and—not without struggles aplenty—made the United States the alternative promised land.
Therein lies the problem. Today’s anti-Semitism isn’t about religion. Perhaps it never really was—not even in the Middle Ages. It’s about jealousy, the rage of the self-wrought failure when faced with the success of those who worked harder, smarter, and longer. If we (well, most of us) no longer believe that witches and devils are to blame for our disappointments and losses, we’re still in need of scapegoats. And Jews have always been at hand to take the rap, credited with diabolical powers and plots better explained by hard work and sound values. Anti-Semitism isn’t just an idiotic form of societal self-destruction: It’s intellectually lazy, too. Can’t we at least find somebody new to blame for our shortcomings?
From Hollywood to Wall Street, from the campus to cherished Christmas songs, American Jews have—literally—enriched our lives. Can we forgive them?
Historically, anti-Semitism has certainly been disastrous for Jews, but what goes less examined is the crippling effect Jew-hatred at high tide has had on the societies that sought a “final solution”: in one form or another. Throughout history, in disparate lands and cultures, efforts to eliminate Jews have devastated the societies that turned on them. Wherever they found temporary homes and were permitted to contribute (always within restrictive parameters), societies thrived. And the expulsion of Jews led to decay and diminution.
The obvious example is contemporary German-speaking culture. By the end of the 19th century, Jews had at last succeeded in entering broader fields of endeavor, bringing fresh ideas, pent-up talent and (red flag here!) competition. From Vienna to Berlin, an explosion of creativity resulted in a golden age for the arts and sciences, for medicine and the general quality of life. When we think of fin-de-siècle Vienna, for example, we think of Mahler, Freud, Schnitzler, and—a short train trip away in Prague—Kafka. Jewish contributions raised the bar considerably for the comfortably mediocre. The disproportionate success of Jewish artists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs put die Deutschsprachige Welt on the road to the Holocaust.
And what have “the Germanies” produced since Kristallnacht? Gummi bears.
Centuries before that, with the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492, even the incalculable wealth of a looted new world proved a mere life support for Spain, its leaden society propped up by silver in an illusory golden age, during which a great world power proved hollow and sailed into morbid decline and obscurantism. Purged of Jews, Spain did manage to produce art and literature of worth for a time, but Spain’s finances collapsed (despite all those treasure fleets) and society fell into a paralytic slumber, incapable of self-renewal. Madrid missed the Enlightenment completely. The gruesome Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was a medieval conflict with modern weapons.
Still earlier, after the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, a once-prosperous province became and remained a backwater until Israel rose from ancient ashes.
Now today’s seething hatred of Israel is, if anything, even stronger on the left than the right. Israel’s stunning success—beginning with its against-the-odds survival—exposed the dishonesty and bigotry on the left embodied in its cherished conviction that have-nots once colonized or otherwise oppressed by Euro-American imperialist exploiters could not hope to build successful states or societies without the tutelage and guidance of politically correct Westerners—if at all. Refugees from once-unthinkable horrors not only made a desert bloom (the cliché is absolutely true) but built a rule-of-law democracy in one generation and a regional superpower in the next, all the while surrounded, vastly outnumbered, and starved of natural resources. Thus, the cheering on of barbarous primitives in the Middle East—and the left’s eyes shut tight in the face of calculated butchery, pre-planned gang rapes, gleeful torture, and the kidnapping and rape of children by the “freedom fighters” of Hamas.
The sole potential antidote for anti-Semitism would be comprehensive Jewish failure, the embrace of humanity’s prevailing mediocrity, and self-pity in lieu of achievement. Two thousand years of survival against impossible odds suggest that’s not going to happen.
While you’re pondering that, I’ll have a bagel mit schmear, please.
