Racism, antisemitism and Parashat Vayera

[This sermon originated as a comment to a piece whose author has blocked me long ago]

Two years ago the Council of our city voted in favour of the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Despite what you may read here and there, such a definition does not equate to hate crime the criticism of Israel, and of Israeli policies. Rather it establishes that it is antisemitic to deny to us Jewish people that right to self-determination which for all the other people in the world is taken for granted.

I regard that day a highlight of my Rabbinic career. I still remember when I sat in the public’s gallery together with all the other Rabbis of our city (except the Liberals’) and other religious leaders, Christians and especially Muslims. They all wanted to show support for our community in that critical moment.

Not everybody was happy with the result; the most notable exception was that small and not always law-abiding clique of pro-Palestinian extremists. Their spokesperson has presented an opposite motion. According to that motion antisemitism was “to hate the Jews because they are Jews”. Which is blatant nonsense. Such a formulation will make legitimate expressions such as “I hate the Jews not because they are Jews but because they are usurers, conspirators, child killers, racists etc.”.

The position is nonsensical and pathetic; it was upheld by a pathetic person and who also happens to be Jewish (antisemites are always happy to welcome sympathetic Jews in their midst). Nonetheless, it’s worth to be considered carefully; because the opposition to Jewish self-determination is not always expressed in that extreme, hard-core way. It often appears in a more diluted form, let’s call it “soft-core”, in between the lines of some editorialist or as part of the beliefs of many anti-racist militants.

It sounds like this: “antisemitism is racism. I am against every racism; therefore, I am not antisemitic”. What’s wrong with that? (you may ask). The problem with such a statement is precisely that antisemitism is not a form of racism like any other.

The average racist hates, or fears, different groups because he thinks they are inferior to him. He’s terrified by blacks, Latinos, Arabs, (or Italians) who want to raise at his social level. Hence he calls for legal measures to enforce the hierarchy, to keep these inferior people (usually darker-skinned) “at their place”.

But the antisemite does not believe that we Jews are an inferior race. Even at its peak, in Nazi Germany, we Jews were not segregated or persecuted because of supposed biological inferiority. The antisemites believe that we Jews betray and conspire. They fantasise about a secret conspiracy to which all the Jews belong, whose ultimate goal is to establish Jewish power over all the world. It’s not clear what we Jews want to do when we achieve this world power we lust for.

In the 70s the leader of an Argentinian antisemitic party covered himself with ridicule during a debate on TV with a Jewish liberal politician, He revealed to the public that Jews were about to build a secret base in Patagonia and from there to establish control over all Latin America (science fiction; and of bad quality).

Few antisemites know with certainty what the Jewish conspiracy wants to achieve. And they are usually, as you see, the most ridiculous among them. Antisemites just believe that such a conspiracy exists, and express their belief in a somehow diluted form. They may tell, or think hat Jews always help each other, that Jews never play by the rule, that Jews are too powerful… very general, not detailed beliefs, which as you see can be cultivated by the Far Left, by the Far Right, by religious fundamentalists and, in short, by every political party that needs a scapegoat, an enemy to blame, an adversary to mobilise against.

You see that antisemitism is not one racism like any other. Assuming that being anti-racist (whatever it means) “is enough” to counter antisemitism is wrong and not correct. There is an enormous difference between these two statements:

“XYZ are an inferior race” and “XYZ are a part of a conspiracy”.

Of course, racism is an abomination, and we Jews should be at the forefront of the fight for equality (actually we often have been and are, in places such as South Africa or the American South). But antisemitism deserves different treatment, different legislation and a different, more articulate, definition.

In the part of Torah that we have read today one passage points exactly in this direction. I am referring to the history of Hagar and Ishmael.

Sarah is annoyed because her son, Isaac, is bullied by Ishmael, the son of Abraham’s concubine. So Sara asks -actually she orders- Abraham to separate the family from Hagar and Ishmael, in other words, to send them away. Abraham is reluctant, but God tells him to obey Sara. Hagar and Ishmael will survive in the desert. The Torah says that Ishmael is the progenitor of the Arab nations.

This indeed is the moment of the separation between the ways of the Jewish nation and the ways of the Arab nation part. And -very important- God himself who demands such a separation despite Abrama being reluctant at the beginning. The text of the Torah puts in front of the reader a remarkable difference between the descendants of Hagar/Ishmael and of Sara/Isaac. Ishmael will rule on a large swath of territory and will have plenty of children and grandchildren. While Isaac will have only two sons,. Esau and Jakov, whose birth will be not easy.

Truly, two different calls, two different histories, two different destinies. This is not only a legend or a myth: it is an actual historical reality: we Jews are a small tribe, the Arabs are many nations. And while we both encounter racism and hostilities, they are different kind of racism and different kinds of hostilities

Racism is evil, we must counter it, and it is our duty to do what we can in order to have a more just and more equal society. But such a fight, such an important battle must be conducted without losing sight of the cultural and historical traits that the Biblical story, and the Rabbinic interpretation, explain so well.

In other words, we must fight against racism because we are Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And not in the weird and ineffective ways that a radical with a badly hidden agenda, enounced to the City Council of Brighton and Hove, two years ago.

Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue — 7 November 2020/20 Heshvan 5781