Seeking Better Questions About Jew Hate and Ourselves
13 October 2025
Welcome!
An opening insight into your blogger... I like to write to try to define and figure out questions that are on my mind. This was true even in college when my patient, understanding, and supportive roommate (and life-long friend) would tolerate the hammering of my old (new then) Smith-Corona typewriter in our small room at Norwich University. When I began my professional career as a Holocaust and genocide educator, my questions were formed by my then Catholic identity. My first two directors and the people I met along the way (whom I will write about in this blog) during my tenure as the Coordinator of Educational Outreach for the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies encouraged me and expanded my thoughts, walked with me, and opened new paths. I engaged in interfaith dialogue, attended the Scholars’ Conference on the Churches and the Holocaust, served on the NH Diocesan Interfaith and Ecumenical Commission, engaged in interfaith dialogue and midrash, studied in Israel and proceeded to write down a history of Christian anti-Judaism and antisemitism (found on my website). I was on a journey of self-discovery and accountability as I tried to quantify and clarify. It was an important step in looking outward by looking inward. I identified problematic and destructive ideas, tropes, and constructs within my tradition and tried to take responsibility for them. The more I wrote and tried to detail, the less effective I felt. I had become more aware and self-aware, but it was not changing the viewpoints of others. I realized it was not about just getting it right but realizing that others were not on the same path. Giving them facts did not change their perceptions, or more importantly, their needs.
Better Questions? The repeated query of “Why the Jews” was an honest question, but the wrong one. More revealing was the question that they did not want an answer to, “How is this antisemitic”? The implication is that there is something about “them” that we need to figure out and not “us”. And yet (thank you Professor Wiesel) hatred does not begin with the target group, but from the needs of those who would target. Often justified as self-defense or self-preservation, people can always justify hate in moral terms. Violence is not only possible, it becomes permissible and even necessary. What if the questions were about us and not them? What if we realized that accepting hate, limits our freedom as well?
Limits of Labels: To approach complexity, we use labels and definitions to reduce complex information into smaller, more examinable chunks. As a tool, they are good starting points for inquiry. Used differently, they can reduce things to simple conclusions that need to be defended. By their very nature, definitions reduce complexity and we rely on our implicit (and explicit) biases to fill in the rest. We assign additional meaning and adjectives based on our own experiences or prejudices. unconscious assumptions, associations, attitudes, and stereotypes. Implicit bias desensitizes, simplifies, and reduces identity – the actual process and building blocks for atrocity.
Therefore, we must use definitions and labels (perpetrators, bystanders, victims…) as starting points. That is why I hesitate to try to define antisemitism. It is difficult to narrow down because the motives, needs, and perceptions of those who accept it are complex and varied. To me, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition on antisemitism, attempts to do this. https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/eu-handbook-ihra-working-definition-antisemitism
The "working definition" recognizes that the goal of any definition is to begin exploration and understanding and, in this case, help people to identify potential ideas, code words, symbols and actions that might be antisemitic and destructive. “Is this antisemitic?” is more helpful than labeling someone an antisemite.
Empathy Towards Anger: Survivors have taught me that anger is the first step towards healing m- if we do not let it consume us. When one expresses fear of, hate for, disgust with an other “group” my response is now shaped by empathy. What has happened, is happening, or do you perceive is happening to you that you need to look for “answers” that dehumanize and target rather than reflect? I prefer to listen and engage in conversation than condemn and reduce. This is what I learned in the sacred space of my classroom. Education (self-awareness) is needed when someone says something out of naivete or ignorance. Education can empower us by helping us to become aware of hate and to take responsibility for others in our Republic. However, if someone has expressed antisemitism as a provocation, it is difficult to educate. Instead, it is important to deprive them of oxygen. If there is a threat, it requires a legal response.
I remember a school where a student posted a Hitler-inspired image on his social media and the school, rightly concerned for those who felt targeted, asked me to talk to the staff and students. In a moment of responsibility and realization, the student apologized just before I was to speak. I explained that everyone does stupid things and that although his actions were hurtful, he took responsibility and therefore should not be labeled as a Nazi or an antisemite. It did not mean that his actions were not hurtful and harmful. My questions to them were, Why did you repost it? Who felt targeted? Is it easier to condemn one person than to take responsibility for what comes next?
My Turn It is my turn to offer questions. How does the query, “Why the Jews”? expose and reinforce the biased assumption that where there are Jews, there must be antisemitism. There are numerous examples throughout history of neighbors living and working together regardless of their religious or cultural identities. Even in 1920s mandate Palestine, Jewish settlers and Palestinian neighbors tended to get along and work together. How did that change? becomes an important contemporary question. Is antisemitism the norm or a destructive aberration? What are the motives of those who accept it? Why would someone want you to believe that? Why do people hate and what is in it for the hater? These are better questions to ponder. Antisemitism may always exist, but it is not always the norm.
Contextually, it is important to note that when one hate rises (and Jew hate has proven timeless and flexible), they all do. Note how fear of (start naming “groups”) begins to rise when Jew hate rises. Jew hate is a proven and effective construct that undermines human dignity and freedom from a variety of historical motives and contexts and is especially potentially lethal when linked to a conspiracy lie. Often, this follows a traumatic event which pushes people to rely on biases in an urgent attempt to explain the irrational. Once people, nationally or locally, embrace Jew hate and are rewarded (with temporary power, deflection from crises or relieving of psychological and identity needs) the need to focus on an “other” and expand the list of targets is difficult to resist.
Hate is a reactionary, self-reinforcing, destructive, and self-destructive force. Antisemitism is toxic for democracies, justice, and human freedom. Those who push you to reduce complexity, offer targets and justifications, promote conspiracy theories, and make hate permissible will gain short term power and limit your options. Raising better questions reduces fear, engages those who are frightened, and helps us to build a more just democracy.