Rabbi Ken Spiro - Why The Jews? What's Really Behind Anti-Semitism

hi and welcome to uh project inspired uh miniseries which is uh mind flex and we're doing part two uh the theme that we're covering in these three classes is the jewish is god's plan for human history and the jewish people's role in the story so if you saw the first class we did world perfect which is basically about the impact of monotheism the idea of one god on morality and values and now we're going to do the flip side of this it's actually very much connected if you saw the first class great because it flows right into this one and if not still it's a great stand on its own class which is called the why the jews again it's a powerpoint presentation so i'm going to share my screen here we go so today we're going to be looking at the the why of anti-semitism what's behind this phenomenon this isn't just a nice historical theological philosophical overview anti-semitism is alive and well and exploding exponentially in ways we have not seen since the holocaust in the united states for sure you know what all the civil unrest that's happened recently in america after the you know the the killing of george floyd george floyd we we see you know in fairfax and california jewish stores targeted and not just targeted for looting as many stores were targeted but with anti-semitic and anti-israel graffiti on them attacks on jews everywhere um one thing we appreciate about anti-semitism is that it's a universal phenomenon there was a harvard math professor in the 1960s his name was tom lear i think he's still alive today he started out in new york now he's uh out in california i believe in his 90s he wrote he used to write very funny satirical songs about the situation in the world he he wrote a song called national brotherhood week which i guess was a week that used to exist in america and and one of the verses of the song went like this all the protestants hate the catholics and the catholics hate the protestants and the hindus hate the muslims and everybody hates the jews and the crowd laughs and a lot of the audience is jewish but the question is why and again the why is not just an interesting philosophical question it's extremely relevant as i said the anti-semitism is everywhere now rising to levels unseen since the holocaust so we need to get to the bottom of this phenomenon so we can ensure that what happened to the jewish people between 1939 and 1945 in europe never happens to us our children or our children's children this is why this presentation is so important because we're going to be looking at the jewish understanding of what really drives anti-semitism and also what therefore is really the solution to anti-semitism now if you ask the experts the historians the sociologists why there's anti-semitism in the world they'll generally give one of the following seven explanations one is economics jews have too much money power control this is a very common one today number two is chosen people we think we're better we're special no one likes an elitist number three is scapegoat we're always in the right place at the wrong time blame the jews for your problems number four is zionism this one is of course the number one source of anti-semitism today israel's treatment of the palestinians the occupation the apartheid walls israel's illegitimacy it's genocidal policies number five is outsiders we're different we're a fifth column a minority you can never trust jews are never really loyal number six is the christian accusation of deicide christ killer and number seven is the one used by hitler itself which is the notion of we're a different and therefore inferior race so pretty much any so-called explanation for anti-semitism will almost certainly fall into one of these seven categories but we need to look at these through the lens of objective truth and fact and eliminate the excuses so we only can focus on what the cause is let's define our terms what's a cause versus an excuse maybe some of you remember that cartoon calvin and hobbes why didn't calvin do his homework now calvin is a seven-year-old with a hyperactive imagination um and he was trying to explain to the principal all these ridiculous stories of aliens and dinosaurs you can see the principles they'll dealt with calvin before and doesn't seem too convinced so these things have nothing to do with why calvin's homework wasn't done when we deal with the reality of anti-semitism we have to keep the same thing in mind that there are millions even tens of millions of people who believe any number of things about us that have no basis in reality but we can't stop doing or change things we're never doing in the first place what we need to do is like what the principles trying to do is get to the cause what's the real reason in this case it's calvin watching tv look at how old this cartoon is it's like ppp pre-plasma period look at that television in the cartoon but we need to find the thing that is truly causing the anti-semitism so we could change it or stop it so we can get rid of this phenomenon once and for all so now we're going to look through the microscope of facts and reality go through each of these seven supposed explanations for anti-semitism we're going to get rid of all of the ones that are excuses and be left with at the end of this presentation a mere 45 minutes or so from now what is truly driving anti-semitism and just like a good doctor if a patient is sick you can't get distracted by the symptoms you got to go for the cause and what we need to do individually and collectively as the jewish people to once and for all end this phenomenon very important presentation let's begin at the beginning the association of jews and money economic theory money and power go together where does this first begin it goes all the way back to medieval europe by the way these are renaissance period wood carvings you should see by the way that the traditional sign for the jew in medieval europe we're all used to hitler's yellow star but it was actually this circle which is a uh a coin sign association of jews and money notice this guy over here on the left with the ridiculous nose and the feet of a bird that's the devil the devil and the jew is always going to be the same thing the association of the jews and money first really begins in the 13th century when the catholic church in 1215 in the fourth lantern council forbade usury lending money and interest um this by the way is taken from judaism the specific prohibition now by the way to let if you don't lend money to interest there's no banking there's no banking there's no economic development so someone's got to be forced to do it since the jew in the mind of the church was already going to hell for killing jesus we'll get to that in a few minutes we'll force him to lend money but how do we know it's not the cause of anti-semitism first jews are forced into doing most you didn't do it even jews who didn't lend money are still hated even when the italian lombard bankers later in the renaissance start lending money at significantly higher rates of interest in the jews in violation of the church's prohibition they're not hated so clearly this is not the cause of the anti-semitism but the real explosion the association of jews with money and power is later in history around the turn of around the year 1900 1901 with the publication of the world's most famous forgery the protocols of the elders of zion may be familiar with that book it was originally published in russian by the secret policies of the tsar of russia called the black 100s which is like the scariest name for any police force i could think of and it's supposedly the secret minutes of a meeting that takes place once every 100 years when the rabbis get together in the heads of the jewish world to plan jewish control of the world for the next century how do you know it's a forgery besides we know it's a forgery anyone who thinks that 10 rabbis in a room could agree on anything knows nothing about the jewish people yet after the bible in the quran this is probably there are probably more versions of this book in print than any other book on the planet earth i actually have a friend who grew up in kobe japan um there's a small jewish community there and he told me it's a bestseller in japan he told me this years ago but not because the japanese are anti-semitic because asians generally aren't but rather because they believe it's true the japanese they want to know how the jews are doing it so they can copy it but how do we know it's not true couple of examples first of all may 1939 they made a movie about the story called the voyage of the damned hitler takes a boat called the st louis sticks almost a thousand jews on it and sends it off to like go to the west go to america go to south america or anywhere over there now imagine it's a boat full of rothschilds and reichmans and billionaire powerful wealthy connected people how hard would it be for that such people to find a port of refuge i work with a lot of wealthy people when i'm guiding and stuff they snap their fingers the doors open what happened to the [ __ ] it sails around goes from port to port and sales around the atlantic for weeks and weeks and weeks and no one takes any of these people in and eventually it goes back to europe and many of them die in the holocaust but more than that today jews in america are like the highest income earning bracket in the united states but that's a relatively modern phenomenon most of us have grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents who came to america with a shirt on their back the vast majority of jews living in eastern europe and the places where hitler decimated with the holocaust were at best middle class and many of them were quite actually poor but more than that i mean we see poor jews are hated just as much as rich jews in history in 1935 hitler gets to power in 1933 and 35 he issues what's called the nuremberg laws which robbed jews of all the civil and economic progress they had made in the last century you know any public office they held bank accounts they're thrown out of schools they can't vote they lose their citizenship so the threat the jew poses is economic or or political and it's neutralized through legislation why does he have to go and then actually kill the jews because clearly in hitler's mind the threat the jews the jew poses is something much greater than that so we'll put that one on the side it people may believe it a lot of people believe it it's circulated around the world everywhere but clearly it is no basis in reality number two is chosen people now it's natural that people don't like people who think they're superior to others by the way as we'll see chosen people isn't about superiority but it is true that we jews have always viewed ourselves to be a unique nation with a very special responsibility and maybe that could engender a certain level of hostility and we generally tr chose to look dress and live differently than other people but along comes the enlightenment the napoleonic wars and the walls of the ghettos are broken down primarily by napoleon himself as we'll get to jews are led out of the ghettos and they run to embrace western civilization often at the expense of their jewish identity we'll leave that behind or minimize it and you know the reform woman is founded in the early 19th century to create a version of judaism that allow jews to comfortably integrate into western society specifically and german society which was the ultimate high culture more than anywhere else and the first thing that these jews do the reform movement drops is the notion of jews being a separate nation a separate people with a separate mission or a separate destiny or a different homeland they said we're not going back to israel germany is our israel berlin hamburg frankfurt that's our jerusalem today you read these quotes and it makes you feel kind of sick in the pit of your stomach but again we're looking in hindsight so here a bunch of jews says we're not special we're not different we have no unique mission we're going to merge with germany does the anti-semitism go away i would say it goes it goes it goes quiet like a fault line goes dormant for a while but then it explodes more than 100 years later and the greatest explosion of you know the holocaust in the mid 20th century already but more than that everyone thinks their chosen are special the red sun is in the center of the flag of japan because the word for japan means the land of the rising sun they're closest to the pacific to the gods the word for china and chinese is traditional it means center of the universe and traditionally the word for non-chinese is monkey arabah or barbarian not to pc by the way um christianity and islam both believe theologically in what's called supersessionism yet god may have chosen the jews but the jews blew it and god chose us instead so every nation every faith thinks they're chosen or special but only we're hated for it and even when we drop the notion of being chosen or special the hatred doesn't go away it's like you got a patient the doctor's treating him he's got the sores on his skin he gives him a cream and you know it's not getting better he isn't diagnosing the disease correctly it's another excuse let's keep going scapegoat theory by the way the term scapegoat comes from judaism originally it's the goat when the during the temple period during yom kippur the high priest would symbolically confess the sins of the jewish people onto a goat which would be sent out to the judean desert malayan thrown off a cliff it's a symbolic act so but the idea of scapegoating is we know taking someone who is innocent and blaming them for something they didn't do why to distract attention from who's really guilty often that state sponsored we're not responsible these jews are by the way this one is true jews are absolutely always scapegoated but scapegoating is by definition as we just saw an excuse but there's something we have to focus on when we look at the concept of scapegoating let me illustrate here's hitler speaking at a rally in 1935. by the way the motto at the top over here is in german the jews are misfortune which is the byline of the nazi newspaper disturber imagine every issue in the newspaper says you know destroyer the jews are misfortuned and you see hitler ranting and raving about how bad the jews are for germany specifically and the world in general what's the crowd's reaction they think it's great fantastic imagine he stands up and says we gotta fight against the ultimate enemy of the fatherland of germany the midgets the midgets are our misfortune now what's the crowd's reaction now adolf is barking mad he needs a uniform and sleeves to tie around the back and an office with padded walls and no door handle on the inside why would they hear about jews does it make sense and hear about midges they think he's totally crazy why jews are such a big proportion of german population what percentage of germany is jewish before the holocaust six tenths of one percent ah the point i'm trying to illustrate is when you get a scapegoat someone ideally you want to pick someone that people already love to hate and that's exactly what hitler's doing he didn't just pull jews out of a bag he's focusing on what was exists for centuries before which is christian anti-semitism deicide christ killer this is my personal favorite i'm being sarcastic now i have to take a little anecdote personally when my great-grandmother bought some buildings in brooklyn well over 100 years ago that my grandmother got and then she passed on to my mother today but when we were little kids we lived in my grandmother's building near prospect park in brooklyn on fourth street in a neighborhood that now is very gentrified and very nice it wasn't a bad neighbor it was very working-class middle-class neighborhood when we were living there um it was all irish and italian catholic we're the only jews on the street and i remember by the way we used to my brother who's only 16 months older than i am we used to always play down the street at this kid the joseph viglia all these kids went to saint savior's parochial school and he was an you know italian catholic kid i remember it was we'd be playing at his house it was dinner time his mother would say joseph send the christ killers home it's time for dinner i'm like five six years old at the time i also remember when he was i think he was seven years old and he had his birthday party invites all the kids on the block except for us and my brother is like let's go see why we're not invited and i'm like i don't want to see where we're not invited and he drags me down the street they live one floor up we go up the stairs my brother goes to the door i'm so scared i'm like standing on the stairway halfway down with my eyes at floor level looking at the door my brother knocks on the door suddenly it goes all quiet inside they opened a door up a crack and you see joseph is there and everyone's behind him and my brother's like uh why didn't we get invited to the uh party and joseph's like oh we ran out of invitations my brother's a smart guy he's a doctor today you know he didn't buy that one so the he swings the door open what's in back of him on the wall this and he yells and everyone's there the kids the parents they're all looking you killed our god he slams the door in my brother's face and i go running home and hide i'm so scared i was like freaked out like oh my god what's going to happen it also didn't make sense i'm like five six years old i'm thinking like god superman it took kryptonite to kill superman how did you kill god with two boards and three nails and but there's so many ridiculous irrational aspects of the christ killer accusation first of all like when was jesus born and when did he die well we're not sure any of this stuff historically but from one to the year one to year 32 ce like when should christianity be most angry if jews are responsible like right after his death okay christianity isn't a major world religion in the first century but when it becomes the official state religion of the roman empire in the fourth century under constantine the great okay let's first item of business let's pay those jews back like give you another example like american civil war 18 61 1865 who wins north when's the south most upset 1866. imagine you land in florida this winter and this is what you see well you can't show the confederate flag anywhere anymore now forget that one but the point is time dolls all pain when should the christian world be most angry as soon after the event as possible yet when does the accusation of christ's killer first appear and when is it unleashed used to unleash massive violence against jews a thousand years after the event in the you know during the middle ages that's crazy stuff but more than that by the way theologically why was jesus born and why did he die uh christianity unlike judaism doesn't believe in shiva repentance you're born in sin you die in sin the only thing that saves you is believing that jesus died for your sins he is the sacrifice the suffering lamb so if he hadn't died we'd all be getting that big barbecue because there'd be no salvation okay that's interesting point number one but who killed them you know if you look in the gospel which is hardly a pro-jewish document especially matthew you know you see it's the romans the romans the romans the romans arrest him the romans try him the romans flogged him the romans crucify him okay there was some jews involved in the plot if you read the gospel in matthew but let's split the blame 50 50 with the romans ah we get all the blame they get the church named after them the roman catholic church that's really weird by the way in 1965 pope pope paul the 23rd i believe and vatican ii the most significant statement made about jews in history of 2000 years he says first of all um only a few jews were responsible for the plot against jesus to get him crucified and no jew alive today in almost 2 000 years later can be held responsible now the pope is infallible he's perfect you know when the pope forgives us for something that we didn't do in the first place which had to be done theologically and from their perspective anyway does anything change no nothing it's all crazy excuses but we look deeper into christian anti-semitism it gets even wilder for instance what's unique about kosher meat besides what what kind of animal you can eat like no pork and you gotta chef the animal you can't consume any blood so what are jews accused of starting in 1144 in norwich england you can see here's a picture of it here you see the jews with their little circles their coin signs with their ridiculous hats and their stupid jewish names kidnapping a christian baby here's the poor child he's being making incisions in his body and draining his blood into a bowl blood libels why do jews need blood this is a multiple choice question so don't answer yet by the way uh in hebrew that's called an american test why do jews need blood a is the chief ingredient in matzah b all jewish men menstruate and eat a monthly monthly blood transfusion c all jews is a punishment for killing jesus suffer from hemorrhoids and the only known cure for hemorrhoids in medieval europe is christian babies blood d jewish boys when they're circumcised lose so much blood they have to drink christian babies blood to replenish the loss what's the correct answer e all of the above and none of this has anything to do with reality and it's also known as transference because what's the central ritual in a catholic mass i'm sure most of you don't go to church and don't know this but it's transubstantiation the priest changes the wine and the wafer into the body and the blood of jesus in the fourth latin council in 1215 in the 13th century the church says this is not a symbolic act when you drink that blood when you eat that wafer we're frozen here you're drinking christ's blood and let's see if we can get this to move there we go and eating his body so what are jews immediately accused of starting in the 13th century in baylets and switzerland here you can see the svizza deutsch the swiss german graphic novel version of it um jews are accused of breaking into the church here you can see these are the communion wafers that are used in the church service that symbolize his body taking it to the synagogue notice the fake hebrew on the tablets the wafers are being stabbed and they're screaming and blood is pouring out of there dividing them up to further torture and burn them thus reenacting his death but thank god the christians come the jews are arrested they are beheaded they are tortured with hot tongues in the end the remaining jews are burned alive in the end you can see jewish body parts hanging off the church the jews are dead the crackers are returned to the church the angels are singing and everyone's happy we hate the jews because they torture crackers you could almost laugh at that but thousands of jews in balets in switzerland were all uh sentenced to death based on evidence ex extracted through torture from a few people and then put in a giant house especially created for that purpose and burned alive as were many jews after that this is all insane it gets crazier and crazier what is the most non-kosher animal that you could think of the pig so what's the animal always associated with jews the pig and here you see all kinds of mostly renaissance period wood carvings that are called juden sao which is like basically female jewish pig this particular one you see in close up is an engraving on the bridge outside the yudungasa outside the ghetto in frankfurt germany that thousands of german gentiles are crossing and seeing this image outside the ghetto every day is the classic image here you can see a big ugly female pig here's the devil as a jew you can see the jewish signs these guys are usually called rabbis here you can see that one is suckling from the pig and here the pig is defecating into the jew's mouth and he's eating it oh my god when hitler stands up centuries later and says the jew is subhuman evil enemy of humanity and he's building on these incredible lies and excuses there's no wonder he's able to do what he's able to do in the holocaust but none of this has anything to do with reality let's keep moving okay the jews are outsiders by the way the the number one reason we hate most people in this world is because they're different dislike of the different and it's true that throughout our history we generally chose to look dress eat live differently separately from the non-jews and those differences could engender a certain level of hostility and suspicion like they often do it's just unfortunately human nature but then along comes napoleon bonafar bonaparte who is the great emancipator of the jewish people and he breaks down the walls of the ghettos and and offers the jew civil rights in western europe he sends his emissary stanislav declare montonare to the jews of europe and he says to the jews as individuals everything but to the jews of people nothing if you want to stay as a separate community with your own laws don't expect anything but if you want to be loyal frenchmen or loyal citizens of any country you get the rights and privileges even convenes in 1806 and 1807 an assembly of jewish notables and a great sanhedrin puts 100 rabbis in this room mostly from france and italy these are all by the way orthodox rabbis this is before the reform movement and he asks him a series of questions about jewish identity and jewish loyalty the rabbis do a great a great dance around the questions but it works because by the time you get to the end of the 19th century jews get civil rights everywhere in europe some places like switzerland you know much later than others in spain but but much later but jews are finally emancipated what did jews run to do they run to often leave their judaism behind and to embrace western culture and by the way from this period of time onward in the 19th century in western europe open violent anti-semitism seems to go on a big decline if you ask a sociologist in 1850 what's going to be with anti-semitism in 1950 he probably would have said there's not going to be any anti-semitism in 1950 because it's not going to be any juice that seemed to be what was happening but anti-semitism wasn't going away it was just going to sleep the one little glitch on the radar screen which really shows that being like the non-jew doesn't help at all the anti-semitism doesn't go away it just changes its tactic and comes back from a different side is going to be the dreifus affair the most famous trial of the 19th century here you got the hero of the story so to speak 34 year old french jewish officer um alfred dreyfus highest ranking jew in the french army member jews were emancipated in the late 18th century and then during napoleon's time they could join the french army they could even be officers in germany that will take much longer they will be they'll be able to join the army but they can't be officers until world war one in the german army by the way adolf hitler who got two iron crosses i believe got his first one highest german military award from his jewish german jewish commanding officer drivers is a totally assimilated jew and a totally loyal frenchman france was arch enemy of the germans and the french army and the french government although seemingly open intolerant and on the books you know giving jews equal rights were still deeply anti-semitic dreyfus is found guilty of being a german spy using forged evidence his defense attorney was not even allowed to see he is publicly court-martialed in paris so you can see the scene of the court martial that breaking his sword uh he sent off to devil's island off the coast of french guiana near brazil by the way he was brought back two more times found guilty all three times he stayed in the french eventually was pardoned and stayed in the french army but why am i telling you the story because at this trial which was a huge media event at the time um watching the trial is a 34 year old hungarian jewish playwright and journalist also very assimilated living in vienna austria the most cultured city in europe was probably vienna his name is theodore herzl and he's watching the trial in horror because the crowd is screaming as drafus is being court-martialed the crowd is screaming not death said dreyfuss the traitor but the motors we've killed the jews and he writes in his diary rehearsal where is this happening in france 100 years after jews get civil rights and for him it's this like whoa big moment that the jew can twist himself into any shape he likes to to you know try and answer the accusation of the non-jew you hate me because i'm different i'll become just like you does the anti-semitism go away no it just changes its excuse and comes back from a different angle but dreyfus will therefore join a very eastern european movement called zionism believing as all early zionists did that the solution to the jewish question the answer to anti-semitism is going to be a jewish state we can't live amongst them but we have our own country with our own army and our own passport and our own embassy and our own capital then they'll finally leave us alone now herzl died in 1904 and sadly we see fast forward to 2020 not only has zionism not proven don't get me wrong it's a great thing the jewish state but not only is zionism not proven to be the solution to anti-semitism it's the number one excuse in the world for hating jews and you can see all these images here these are not arab states always like jews and nazis the sickest we'll get back to that one later the six lines of a jewish star turning into the six lines of the swastika but that brings us to this whole notion that if only you know israel were to be you know nicer to the palestinians or disappear then there'd be no anti-semitism by the way the big question we have to ask is what does israel have to do with do you hate in france or america i mean what a christian does something to someone somewhere in one part of the world and he said and christians are attacked somewhere else there's something weird about that but the notion that it's israel's treatment of the palestinians the occupation the apartheid walls israel's rejection of peace is all nonsense we see that from the very beginning this is not a class on middle east history and the history of the israeli conflict but the arab world has rejected the jewish state from its very beginning even before jewish dating even comes into existence it's under attack and as soon as it comes enter into existence it's under constant attacks and terrorism we know that in uh 1947 the u.n votes november 29th 1947 to partition palestine into jewish and arab states had the arabs accepted it along with the birth of a jewish state it would have been born an arab state called palestine i don't know but it would have been born along with the jewish state they reject it and try and destroy israel jordan will move in and illegally occupy that west bank judea samaria you know that whole area and jerusalem the old city and egypt will illegally occupy the gaza strip there's no u.n resolutions back then condemning them so the occupation is the root of the problem why they're attacking us before occupying that territory they try and destroy us again in 1967 and israel wins an amazing six-day war victory gets the territory from these people who are trying to destroy us immediately offers to give it back to the arabs and the arab world rejects it the arab league in august 1967 no peace no negotiation and no recognition of israel and we see that this has been the case over and over again let's just go back to that for a second get ahead of myself there i'm not doing a class on this now but the simple thing is it's never been about creation of a palestinian state it's always been about the arab world you know inability to accept the jewish state of any size but we see that there what is the connection between what's going on in israel and anti-semitism and by the way if you watch the statistics from the anti-defamation league you'll notice the biggest spikes in anti-semitism around the world will always take place when um there's a conflict in israel like a war in gaza or something like that but it's all an excuse last but not least we have the one used by adolf hitler which is the racial theory of anti-semitism the jews are a different and therefore inferior race and hitler and the nazi propaganda machine will create this whole image these these images of jews these stereotypes incredibly ugly looking people here and and this pseudo-scientific equipment to measure jews and show their inferiority the jews have a smaller cranium a smaller skull and they're mentally and physically inferior and this is all nonsense not only that there's no such thing as a jewish race jews come in all size shapes and colors so guys we can cross all of this stuff out we ran through that but if you look at it seriously none of it has any basis in reality and certainly none of it can begin to explain the level of hostility being directed at the jews people may believe these things but they have no basis in reality let's and not only that if you're looking at this you got to ask yourself a question that's really interesting none of this has also has any relationship to judaism there's nothing jewish about hating jews what's the most famous diary from the holocaust everyone knows it's anne frank so anne frank we know is a german girl his father was a businessman um when hitler gets to power the family moves to holland because because otto the father had business interests there they end up hiding in an attic as she's a young girl eventually someone rats on them the dutch did a lot of turning jews in until today no one's exactly sure there's much speculation and she will die of typhus in bergen-belsen a month before liberation the only family member to survive is the father who finds the diary publishes it it's published in like over 100 languages it's the the best-known book about the holocaust and frank is not a religious girl she has minimum jewish education look what she writes while hiding in that attic about what is the real cause of anti-semitism who knows it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good and for that reason and that reason only do we now suffer we can never become just netherlanders or just english or representatives of any country for that matter we will always remain jews interesting now the diary of anne frank has turned into a broadway show you have to change the diary into dialogue there is no way that the guy it's probably some you know jewish playwright who's not so connected jewishly there's no way that guy is going to put this heavy very jewish specific line into the play so how does it appear in the broadway show well one day it's one group and the next day another really like hitler's sitting there going eeny meeny miny moe and now it's time for the uden to go that's it six million jews a million and a half children are slaughtered in factories of mass murder because it's just some random thing come on there's something weird going on here and the time we have left we now want to pull back and begin by looking first what is unique about anti-semitism jews do not have a monopoly on hatred in this world but there are aspects of anti-semitism that stand out like a flashing red light that we only see in jew hate and then we're going to get to what judaism says all excuses aside are the is the real cause so first of all we've got to appreciate anti-semitism is different look at dr bernard lewis who just passed away about a year ago at the age of 102. um he wrote a book called semi-anti-semite and in it he writes hatred of jews has many parallels and yet is unique and its persistence in its extent its potency in its virulence its terrible final solution conventional prejudice and persecution can be very terrible but they differ from anti-semitism as does conventional from nuclear war meaning the world is full of racist bigots and intolerant people but you hate is different and it's far more intense what sets it apart begin by looking at the word which by the way shouldn't really be hyphenated even though your spell check will try and stick i even between anti and semitism who created the word what does it mean a lot of people confused about it anti-semitism like i've had you know muslim students on campuses tell me that i'm the anti-semite like i am eastern european i'm jewish i'm a religion i'm slavic i hate arabs they're middle eastern semitic people i'm the anti-semite smokescreen not true the word was created by a german racial thinker in the late 19th century in 1879 his name was wilhelm maher mar this is after darwinian evolutionary theory came out in 1858 this is when eugenics and racial theory started to appear he wanted to make hatred of jew sound more racial and scientific and less religious so he coins this phrase in a book he writes in 1879 called the victory of germandem over judaism but in every dictionary in the world that means one thing and one thing along what you see on your screen prejudice or hostility towards jews and jews alone if you hate an arab you are not an anti-semite and for more than a hundred years it remains the only form of racial or religious intolerance that has its own word to describe it think about it you hate a black person what are you a racist you hate an asian what are you a racist data christian what are you there's no word only jew hate has to have its own word that should get us thinking there's something unique about this hatred and it's not just the word look at what edward flannery catholic priest says in his book the anguish of the jews he says that his history of anti-semitism looks back over the millennium horrors he's recorded an escapable conclusion emerges anti-semitism is different because of its longevity and consistency it is the longest continuous hatred on the planet earth it goes all the way back to the beginning of the bible genesis number two that sets it apart universality and unlike hatred of other people's hatred of us is not linked to our relationship with one race one people one religion one nation one tribe one geographic area wherever we have gone in significant numbers anti-semitism has followed the most universal hatred like tom lear said in that song we saw at the beginning this group hates that group and that group hates this group but everyone hates the jews don't get me wrong i'm not saying all people are anti-semites but we see it's a universal hatred number three that sets it apart is the intensity the dictionary definition might be prejudice or hostility but it's a lot worse than that if the worst thing that happened to us is they made jokes about us we couldn't get into a couple of country clubs and universities that used to be in america you know early mid 20th century kind of stuff but it's much worse than that it's one unendingly long list of vicious violent hatred of persecution expulsion economic and physical marginalization ghettoization rape pillage beating up to what's the worst thing you could do to people you hate kill them what do you call killing an entire people genocide who invented that word a polish jewish refugee dr rafael limpkin who's the father of the concept of crimes against humanity and international law fleeing from poland to england during world war ii he writes as a crime happening in europe there's no word to describe and he creates that word genocide even that would have to be created to describe the unique intensity of anti-semitism and last but not least what sets it apart is everything we've been looking at until now the confusion surrounding it i mean think about it you ask a white supremacist to put on a whiteboard why doesn't like black people he'll write five or six horrible things that they supposedly do but she asked you haters to put on a whiteboard why they hate jews they'll fill up 15 whiteboards i hate them because they're capitalist communists warlike passive different the same strong greek wit strong weak rich poor dominant lazy servile aggressive what's weird about the list guys a it doesn't end and be it contradicts itself professor michael curtis at rutgers university said it unbelievably well anything and everything is a reason to hate the jew whatever you hate to choose that what guys this is crazy you know at this point some of the biggest experts and i've heard him speak will say you know there's just no explanation for it it's a disease it's a sickness it's an irrational thought process and back of the image here you see where it says why the jews is like an endlessly long list of excuses for hating jews because it would indicate that too many excuses that means there's no real cause and if we had to stop here that would be really depressing we could try and we've been trying to educate the world for forever we just don't do this stuff but that don't seem to work they always come up with another excuse so let's switch gears now and let's focus on what judaism says all excuses aside is the real cause and we're not going to do this through so many jewish sources as we're going to do it through the words and the mind of the greatest modern and worst anti-semitism anti-semite in modern history adolf hitler by the way you know this man because a lot of things you could say about him but he knew how to get a crowd going that he was able to shape what was cultural culturally technologically in scientifically the most advanced country into the world into this psychophantic mass hysteria and directed towards total war and total annihilation this guy we have to appreciate about hitler number one he is a man of greatness now i'm going to qualify that i'm a historian a student of history to do great good or great evil in this world you got to have great potential to be a roosevelt or an abraham lincoln you're a churchill on one hand or a mountain tongue or a stalin or a hitler on the other you've got to have great potential that's number one number two mistake we make is we call people like this guy crazy i'll tell you to do to do great things you can't be insane hitler was clearly more neurotic than most people but he's not crazy he's a man very clear thinking which is the third mistake we often make with people like hitler is we don't take them seriously and i'll tell you the opposite is true totalitarian leaders are people we should take more seriously leaders in democratic countries like presidents in america will say any number of things to get elected and then change their tune later totalitarians don't care what their electorate thinks because they're not elected by them if the people disagree they have them killed a guy like hitler is ideologically incredibly consistent what he says about jews is remarkably similar in 1933 to the last thing he says about jews before he puts a bullet through his head in his bunker in berlin in april of 1945. we're going to look at a series of quotes from adolf hitler these are not taken from that propaganda book you all know that he wrote in prison in germany in the 1920s mind conf these are taken from a series of books hitler speaks hitler's table talk hitler's apocalypse many of them are conversations recorded by people like martin gorman hitler's personal private secretary and conversations between hitler and his close confidants and allies he doesn't have to talk about the propagandizing big stuff the big lies and stuff he can focus on what's really going on in his brain and drives his incredibly evil world view let's begin by looking at some of these quotes the struggle for world domination before entirely between us between germans and jews all else's facade and illusion behind england stands israel behind france and behind the united states even when we have driven the jew out of germany he remains our world enemy now hitler doesn't look at the jews as a physical enemy he looks at him as an ideological enemy hitler realizes for the whole first part of world war ii from you know through 39 through 40 that whole period of time he's fighting a war against western liberal democracies and he recognizes that especially if you watch the world perfect stuff we did in the previous class and we'll talk about it later that the ideology the foundational ideology of western liberal democracy overwhelmingly comes from jewish thought and hitler being a true intellectual who is consistent what he says is what he does will act accordingly think about it 1944 uh fall of 44 you know hitler has a choice sen trains remember he's lost stalingrad his his first major defeat now the soviet armies on the move pushing him back ultimately to defeat he can take trains and send german soldiers to stop the advancing soviet army or he can forget that and take trains and send five hundred thousand half a million hungarian jews the last great jewish community of europe of western europe to to their death in auschwitz what does he choose to do kill the jews in auschwitz kill hungarian jews militarily what would we call that stupidity and suicide but ideologically he's being totally consistent he goes on to say do you now appreciate the depth of our national socialist movement can there be anything greater and more all comprehending those who see in national socialism nothing more than political movement no scarcely anything of it it is more even than a religion it is the will to create mankind anew whoa he's saying this is more than nazi is a national socialism is not is not just a political thing it is a hashtag it's a world view so to speak he goes on to say they refer to me as an uneducated barbarian yes we are barbarians we want to be barbarians it is an honorable title to us we shall rejuvenate this world this world is near its end hitler idolized two things in the nazis the roman empire pre-christianity and the teutonic nordic viking kind of stuff like wagner the ring of the nebula the right of the valkyries that kind of stuff that brutal stuff that we'll talk about in just a few minutes he goes on to say providence is ordained notice as he said in the previous quote i'm saving the world providence is ordained that i should be the greatest liberator of humanity i'm freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge from a dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a false vision called conscience and morality and from the demands of a freedom and a personal independence which only a very few can bear notice how first of all we gotta shatter an illusion often created by hollywood that evil thinks it's doing evil and is happy it's doing evil evil by the way always thinks it's doing good hitler is sure he is saving the world but what's he saving the world from look at that what i've highlighted a false vision called conscience and morality look what he says now the ten commandments have lost their validity conscience is a jewish invention it is a blemish like circumcision it's a scar by the way who first goes after circumcision in human history the greeks the pagan greeks and the hanukkah narrative which is not by the way the greeks declaring war against jews it's paganism's war against the only monotheistic faith in the world and the outlaw circumcision as a sign of this jewish monotheistic faith this is unbelievable okay this is the greatest backhanded compliment ever given to the jewish people but the next quote is the most important it's not a quote from hitler it's the words of the hitler youth song this is what every german kid is singing from 1933 to 1945. the last seven lines of this seven words of this song i think are the seven most important words to understand not only nazi germany hitler's ideology but really what's ultimately behind all of anti-semitism excuse me we are the joyous hitler youth we don't need any christian virtue our leader is our savior the pope and rabbi shall be gone we want to be pagans once again boom hiding right out there in plain sight we want to be pagans once again now in this quote which you can read along as i'm speaking hitler is basically saying that nature is brutal but nature is balanced if you ever watch one of these nature shows i mentioned in the last class you know when a lion attacks the herd it goes for the weak of the sick animals lions not being psychotic or psychopathic or evil the lions being natural and smart but nature's brutal but nature's balance the wick the seed the weak and the sick animals are are are culled out of the herd you know that's a the herd stays strong the lions stay strong this is how it used to be in the ancient world you know babies what we saw in the previous presentation world perfect with a minor birth defect left on a rock to be exposed to the elements or beat by a wild animal weak nations were destroyed by the strong but now he said the world is like a safari park you ever want seen an animal raised in a safari park um you know a lion raised in a safari park it looks like natural environment because it's got a big fence and maybe grass but the lion gets thrown a steak every day by the safari park keeper take that lion that never lived in out in the wild and stick it in the wild what happens to it boom it becomes lunch so too today we see in the world that's weak nations are allowed to survive handicapped people are allowed to live this isn't fair the human species is being weakened it's not natural we need to return the world to its natural state it's tough but it's the healthy state to be and who's responsible for doing that what's called the human concept of destroying the world who's the greatest enemy of humanity the jews and look what he said if only one country for whatever reason tolerates a jewish family in it that family become the germ center hitler calls jews a virus or bacteria for fresh sedition if one little jewish boy survives that any jewish education with no synagogue and no hebrew school it's in his soul even if there had never been a synagogue or a jewish school of the old testament the jewish spirit the jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence it has been there from the very beginning and there is no jew not a single one who does not personify it whoa he said this unnatural state the human concept which is destroyed the natural concept is a byproduct of the jews and it's not a byproduct of rabbis and jewish education and synagogues in day schools every jew even a totally disconnected jew has a unique soul that will always push some jewish based agenda which is fatal to humanity onto the world if they're given an opportunity to do so and therefore he comes to a very logical consistent but evil conclusion that if every jew's goddess no matter how and you can spot the famous ones in here then every single jew has to die wow what's interesting is he goes on to say the heaviest blow which ever struck humanity is christianity bolshevism which is communism is christianity's illegitimate child both are inventions of the jew and by the way it's true historically and ideologically that christianity is an offshoot theologically and historically from judaism and communism and all marks and you name it that all these ideologies are all created originally by jews and foisted largely on the world by jews but hitler says to get rid of these what he calls the bastard children christianity and bolshevism communism he just killed kill the you know the hitler was rabidly anti-christian he just didn't survive long enough to get rid of christianity get rid of the priests get rid of the pope get rid of the commissars get rid of stalin and those offshoot bastard children will be will disappear we can turn those people back into pagans but to get rid of the mother of the bastard children which is judaism you can't just kill the rabbis burn down the synagogues in day schools every jew is bacteria every jew has to die wow what's interesting is what the rabbis in the talmud say in the talmud now we jews become a nation in a very unusual set of circumstances everyone else in the world becomes a nation by living for a long period of time in a specific piece of real estate developing a shared historical experience common borders and a common culture and emerges as a nation we become a nation outside our national homeland in the desert at mount sinai when we pledge allegiance not to a flag but to a certain national historic mission which we talked about in the previous class that we'll get back to the rabbis in the talmud say don't read it as sinai which in hebrew is sinai mount sinai where that happened where we accept our mission nationally read it as sin ah hatred at mount sinai anti-semitism was born it is hatred of the messenger us the jewish people because of the message we carry in our soul and even if the messenger forgets the message like a totally assimilated educated jew you notice the hater of the message hitler didn't say okay jews who are assimilated even if they're married you're fine it's just the religious ones uh-uh he comes after everyone wow interesting stuff herman rauschening who was a close associate of hitler who became an anti-nazi and fled to america he says it beautifully in this quote you can read along as i'm talking now but the last part he talks about is he talks about how judaism is an intrinsic part of western worldview christian worldview and it's the call to sinai against against which humanity again and again rebels boom he nails it it's a rebellion against the call to sinai what's the call to sinai what what have we been calling for and again we spoke about this in the first class but we're going to go over it again now our job as a people is it's by the way torah and mitzvot i can't say this enough super important but there are means to an ends our job is to be a light to nations to do what's called kids hashem to live and act in a way that inspires other people to take the system the values we get from a relationship with god and live individually and collectively as a society that is a role model for the rest of the world that has always been our mission and even though as i always say it's interesting it's a famous expression uh they won the battles but lost the war like uh we lost the battles but won the war okay the greeks we fought to a standstill hanukkah story but with the romans they trashed us we lost our country we went into exile multiple times we were battered around the world but we basically as tr glover the historian is saying here thousands of years directly or indirectly we transformed a world which largely hated us into following our world view whether it's to christianity islam modern liberal democracy was here specifically we're talking about how large parts of the world dropped that ancient polytheistic worldview that was so prevalent we were the only monotheists and now i've accepted a worldview and a value system that basically is coming from the jewish people uh look what john adams second president of the united states says about the jews in spite of bowling brook and voltaire one says the hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation they are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth the romans and their empire but a bubble in comparison to the jews they have given religion to three quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation ancient or modern or look what british historian paul johnson says about the jews certainly the world without the jews would have been a radically different place to them we owe the idea of equality before the law both divine and human of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person of individual conscience and soul personal redemption of collective conscience and social responsibility a piece has an abstract ideal and love is the foundation of justice and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind without the jews it might have been a much emptier place think about it hitler reading these quotes from adams and johnson would he agree or disagree he would agree with them more or less but what's the difference between hitler on one hand and paul johnson and john adams on the other they all see the historically proven fact that the jewish people have directly or indirectly completely transformed the world's vision and values their differences their reaction to it paul johnson and john adams think it's great they say the positive stuff hitler sees its evil or sees that it is evil in his mind adolf hitler is not evil because of his understanding of the jew hitler understands what the jew is in the jewish mission better than most jews he's evil because of his reaction to it i see the power of the jewish people and jewish ideas to transform the world and i'm profoundly threatened by it and we gotta get rid of it this is this what you want to take away from this whole class is this quote from an excellent book this quote came out of the book the book came out at the same time this presentation um same title even really interesting no accidents prager fragrant solution i think this is the best book written explaining the why of anti-semitism they say from its earliest days the rezan d'etre of judaism has been to change the world for the better this attempt to change the world to challenge the gods religious or secular of societies around them and to make moral demands upon others has constantly been a source of tension between jews and non-jews we now understand why so many non-jews have regarded the mere existence of jews no matter how few is terribly threatening the mere existence of jews with their different values and allegiances constitute a threat to the prevailing order simply put we have been dragging the world kicking and screaming towards a vision of values based on one god and one absolute standard of morality and anti-semitism regardless of what excuse it will hide behind ultimately this is the cause and to this cause we have to direct our efforts if we want to cure that disease frederic nietzsche the german philosopher has a great quote he said a human being can survive anyhow as long as he has the proper why meaning people go through tremendous pain and even give their lives if they appreciate what they're suffering or dying for is meaningful and that is the story of the jewish people if you are watching this today as a jew it's only because for generations we had ancestors who were beaten oppressed taxed expelled burned at the stake mass murdered and but the the last thing out of their mouth was shema the israel our god the lord is one we appreciate that on a uh excuse me a second on a macro level we don't have to worry this is a t-shirt i created to illustrate this point as the civilizations nations and empires have tried to destroy the jewish people and their status today and we go through all of them and they're all gone like what i wrote at the bottom is the real message for the non-jewish world the jewish people the smallest of nations but with a friend in the highest of places so be nice if you want one of the t-shirts you can go to my website but um on a macro level we're gonna outlast them all doesn't mean we're not under threat here but but we've outlasted we saw them all we beat them all as as the famous writer mark twain said what we got to worry about is on a micro level because a potentially very dangerous immediate consequence of anti-semitism besides god for being being attacked physically for being a jew is taking the jew who is ignorant and exposing that jew who has no jewish pride who doesn't know what our mission is to anti-semitism because that jew might decide to make the worst possible decision which would be what assimilation and why is that so bad let me end with one final analogy imagine you haven't i mean many of you i'm sure parents you have a cute little redheaded girl who goes off to preschool the first day and she comes home crying mommy daddy they made fun of me they call me carrot top and rudolph the red-headed reindeer what are you going to say to your daughter this is p-e-t parent-effectiveness training you're going to grab your daughter give her a big hug a big kiss you're going to tell her they're jealous you're beautiful you have a great future as a stop sign anything positive what would be the one thing you're not going to want to tell your kids tell your daughter dye your hair there's something wrong with you the biggest mistake we could make is jews to think that there's something wrong with us and we need to dye our hair what does dying our hair mean practically opting out of judaism first of all if you do that you break the chain and everything our ancestor did to get us where we are today was for nothing second of all it doesn't work one of the scariest supernatural aspects of anti-semitism is since the hatred of most groups is because they're different so the more we become like the non-jews the less the hatred should be we see the opposite is true that the greatest explosions of anti-semitism have taken place in places where jews are not most different but most alike non-jews we see it in egypt 3 300 years ago we see it in spain before the expulsion in 1492 in poland before the kumamitsuki massacres in the 17th century and in germany before the holocaust and i think the not subtle message is there that our role in history is way too critical and when a critical number of us start to opt out i don't know the algorithm but maybe we should figure it out that's when we least expected boom the greatest explosions of anti-semitism i ain't gonna make predictions about america although someone once told me this kind of scary joke about america he said jews in america is like the guy jumping off the freedom tower 50 stories down he looks on a window and says so far so good not making predictions but we can never ever think we are safe living especially anywhere in the diaspora or turn our back and what our mission is the person who said this the best and sometimes the clearest and most profound statements are the short ones would be heim of the legend early 19th century put this on your refrigerator because this is a piece of wisdom you should look at daily when jews don't make kiddish gentiles make abdullah now condition of dull are the ceremonies we make at the beginning and the end of the sabbath over the wine kiddish is when we come from the lower six days of the week the lower spiritual level and during that higher day of shabbat that higher spiritual reality the ideal state the world's supposed to be in at the end we go down to the lower day with abdullah that's not what he means he says when we do not fulfill our mission that i mentioned before the purpose of being jewish is not to serve god you can't do anything for infinity it's only a figure of speech okay uh you know all the stuff that we talk about prayer mitzvah it's very important but the job of being jewish is ken to live and act in a way that inspires other people to fill the world with values to lead by example that values that come from god in physics we know that nature abhors a vacuum vacuums will be filled by one thing or another either we as the jewish people directly or indirectly will fill the world where regardless of our living but certainly in the jewish state of the collective fill the world with the values that come from god that we saw in world perfect and give the world a working model of how to actualize those values are the values or the world that we fill the opposite values when the opposite values come into the world those opposite values are evil and evil will always target us first which is why you can literally tell how countries are doing in terms of their morality and their values by how they treat their jews anti-semitism will start with us when a country is moving towards totalitarianism or violence it'll start with the jews then spread to everyone else when a country is where jews are being treated fairly and equally is almost always a country that has a stable liberal democratic country and george gilder who wrote the book the israel test which is a fantastic book he's not jewish he said the same thing he said just as jews within a country are the measure of that country's values and morality israel the jewish state is the jew amongst the nations show me what a country thinks of israel you know north korea iran venezuela i'll tell you all about their human rights and democracy evil targets us first and therefore the only solution to anti-semitism is for us to put our differences aside you notice that the people who hate us do not distinguish between our political affiliation our religious affiliation there's only one line in one of these death camps for all jews put our differences aside focus on what we have in common and become as individuals and collective this model god knows the world needs values and role models today and to create a jewish people and a jewish state that's a nation that's a light to nations and that finishes the job that abraham started three thousand seven hundred years ago and i know it sounds like the impossible dream but look at how much we've changed the world like as we saw david ben-gurion the first prime minister saying a jew doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist and when we focus the incredible energy and drive together on what is our national historic mission then we'll get an end to israel bashing and end anti-semitism and peace not just for ourselves but for the entire human race and we should merit to see that soon and in our days and thank you very much and as i said before um let me get out of the stop to sharing we get we even went over time i apologize for so much information thanks for joining us on our project inspire um mineflex mini series you're welcome to visit my website which is kenspiro.com you can access all my material and on online for free and if you want to read the book that really encapsulates this whole series that's my newest book which is called destiny why a tiny nation play such a huge role in human history we're going to be back with one more class israel and ishmael going into the real roots of the middle east conflict enjoy the rest of the series and have a great day