Abstract
The midrash about the anti-Jewish Emperor Hadrian is basically a story of the irrationality of anti-Semitism, but it comes in a context where the dark side of the Chosen is exposed. It appears in the tractate that deals with the destruction of Jerusalem and is read on Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av—July/August), which is a day of fast and mourning marking the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples and the accompanying ravage and dispersion. The commentary relates to the verses where the Prophet Jeremiah says, “We have transgressed and rebelled—you have not forgiven. You have enveloped yourself in anger and pursued us; you have slain mercilessly. You wrapped yourself in a cloud that no prayer can pierce.”2 Here the Chosen by God becomes the refused among the nations: “You made us as filth and rejected among the nations. All our enemies jeered at us.”3 And then comes the appeal: “You always championed my cause, O Lord, you redeemed my life. You have seen, O God, the injustices I suffer; judge my cause.” The midrash ends with the saying that the Holy Spirit reiterated: “You have seen, O God, the injustices, you have seen all their vengeance, all their designs against me.”4
There is a midrash that tells a story about a Jew who walks by the Roman Emperor Hadrian and greets him. The Emperor calls out to him and asks him: “who are you?” “A Jew” comes the answer. The Emperor is angered and says to his councilors; “How dare a Jew pass the Emperor and greet him! Take him away and hang him!” A second Jew, who is following behind and sees the scene but cannot avoid passing, refrains from greeting. The Emperor calls out to him and asks him: “who are you?” “A Jew” comes the answer. The Emperor is angered again and rails at him; “you pass in the front of the Emperor and yet you do not greet him?” And he orders his counselors; “Take him away and hang him!” One of the counselors is puzzled by the scene and asks the Emperor; “I wish to understand what you are doing. One man greets you and you have him killed, and the other who does not greet you, you also have him killed. Why is this?” And the Emperor replies: “are you attempting to teach me how to get rid of my enemies?”
—Eicha Raba, 3:41
You made us as filth and rejected among the nations. All our enemies jeered at us.
—Eicha/Lamentations 3:45–46
God has granted to us, His Chosen People, the gift of the dispersion, and in this which appears in all eyes to be our weakness, has come forth all our strength, which has now brought us to the threshold of sovereignty over the whole world.
—The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, 11D1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
David S. Katz and Richard H. Popkin, Messianic Revolution—Radical Religious Politics to the end of the Second Millenium (London: Penguin, 1999), 17.
Yossef Kaplan, “Jews and Judaism in Political and Social Thought of Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in The Hatred of Israel Throughout the Ages, ed. Shmuel Almog (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 1980), 175.
Salazar, in M. J. Cohen and John Major, History in Quotations (London: Cassel, 2004), 334.
Interview with Mikis Theodorakis, Jerusalem Post, November 11, 2003, and Macedonian Press Agency, November 13, 2003.
Interview with Mikis Theodorakis, Haaretz, August 27, 2004.
Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994).
Sergio I. Minerbi, “Neo Anti-Semitism in Today’s Italy,” Jewish Political Studies Review 15 (Fall 2003): 3–4.
Nicholas Aleksandrovich Berdyaev, Christianity and Antisemitism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), 11.
Naphtali Prat, “Nikolai Berdiaev and the Jews,” Shvut 3, no. 19 (1996): 6.
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).
Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 175.
Shmuel Ettinger, “Soviet Antisemitism after 1967,” (Hebrew repr., Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1985), 53.
Ignaz Maybaum, The Jewish Mission (London: James Clarke, 1949), 158.
Jean Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 65–69, 91, 134–37. Originally published in French in 1946.
Albert Einstein, “Why Do They Hate the Jews?” in Ideas and Opinions, ed. Carl Seelig (New York: Bonanza Books, 1954), 196.
Albert Einstein, About Zionism: Speeches and Letters, trans. Leo Simon (New York: Macmillan, 1931), 33.
George E. Berkley, Vienna and Its Jews (Cambridge, MA: Abt Books, 1988), 81.
Baruch Spinoza, The Theological-Political Essay (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1962), 42.
Paul Mendes-Flohr and Yehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 534–37.
Yehiel Alfred Gottschalk, Ahad Ha-ham and the Jewish National Spirit (Jerusalem: WZO, 1992), 40.
Norman Choen, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967), 268.
Peter Schaffer, Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 3.
Neil Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews—The Mass Production of Hate (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 28.
Henry Ford, The International Jew—The World’s Foremost Problem, abridged ed. prepared by Gerald L. K. Smith (Los Angeles: Christian Nationalist Crusade, 1954), 26, 55.
Henry Ford, Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States, vol. IV of The International Jew (Dearborn, MI: Dearborn, 1922), 238–39.
Emil G. Kraeling, The Old Testament since the Reformation (London: Luttewortt, 1955), 153.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London: Athlone, 1986), 25.
Peter the Venerable, Sermones tres, ed. Giles Constable (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 232–54.
Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb—Perceptions of Jews and Christians [In Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 2000), 141.
Josef Joffe, “The Axis of Envy—Why Israel and the United States Both Strike the Same European Nerve,” Foreign Policy 132 (September–October 2002): 68.
Walter Russell Mead, “Review Essay: Why Do They Hate Us?” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 2 (March/April 2003): 141.
Copyright information
© 2008 Avi Beker
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Beker, A. (2008). Hating the Chosen. In: The Chosen. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611689_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611689_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37005-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61168-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)