1. Ramadan. 2. Envy and Antisemitism
Two topics with a subtle connection
1. A few words about Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, prayer…and violence
Like Jewish months, Islamic months begin at the new moon, but the calendars are very different. . This year Ramadan coincides with the Jewish month of Adar 2, the month when the Jewish festival of Purim occurs.
Ramadan is a month-long Muslim holy period commemorating the revelation of the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an. According to ING, the Islamic Networks Group, during Ramadan Muslims “fast from food and drink during the sunlit hours as a means of drawing closer to God and cultivating self-control, gratitude, and compassion for those less fortunate.”[i] Accounts from minorities living under Islam report that “compassion for those less fortunate” meant less fortunate Muslims and did not generally include members of minority groups living among them.
Today, many Muslims living in the West do consider non-Muslims’ needs at Ramadan. When I was teaching ESL to predominantly Saudi and Kuwaiti students at an academic prep program in an American university town, I was always asked during Ramadan to suggest charities in our city to which they could donate. It is worth noting that Saudi and Kuwaiti students, in my experience, were not taught by UNRWA’s antisemitic textbooks and had no animus against Jews or Christians.
Muslim sources stress that minority (dhimmi) status mandates protection for minorities. For example, Yaqeen Institute states, “[Their] protection was guaranteed in a number of ways.” Continuing however, the article states, “That said, there have no doubt been incidents throughout history in which that protection was threatened or revoked and the Muslim ruler engaged in persecution of religious minorities.”[ii]
However, the history of Jewish communities under Islam paints a different picture—one strikingly similar to that of Jewish communities under Christian rule in Europe: milking the Jews with exorbitant taxes, restrictive laws mandating only a few permitted occupations and forbidding ownership of land or buildings, often restricting or requiring particular forms of dress, and governments ignoring or even advocating massacres of Jews. In Christian Europe, massacres were most common around Easter and Christmas. In Muslim regions, massacres were most common during the month of Ramadan. While these massacres might not (or might) have been directed by clerics, what is clear from history is that the rulers did not generally stop or even slow them.
This year, Hamas has been threatening Israel with another “Al Aqsa Flood,” their name for the tidal wave of thousands of terrorists who destroyed Jewish communities, killed over 1200, took almost 250 hostages (including children) of which 134 still remain, and wounded over 5000. Israelis, especially those living near the border with Lebanon and those living near the Palestinian-controlled sections of Judea and Samaria, are rightfully concerned.
Reports of the Israeli military preparing for Ramadan does not mean preparing to attack civilians (although those used as human shields by Hamas cannot be protected by the Israelis). Preparation by the Israeli military is to protect Israelis—Arabs, Druze, Christians, Jews, and others.
2. Antisemitism and Jealousy
Many years ago, during the Rwandan civil war between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority, I heard an interview with several Hutu women asking them what the war was about, and whether it was in their eyes justified. They said that the Tutsi lived better than they, had nicer things and better jobs, and they wanted those things, so they killed the Tutsi and took them.
I am hearing similar statements of jealousy in interviews with pro-Hamas demonstrators in the USA. In short, jealousy appears to be a major reason for the antisemitism that underlies the demonstrators.
The chapter, 'How Envy Can Incite Anti-Semitism and Genocide', in Leonard S. Newman (ed.), Confronting Humanity at its Worst: Social Psychological Perspectives on Genocide,[iii] discusses that Jews are perceived to have great competence as well as intentions to change the majority culture, and thus are hated.
Liberal Jews certainly do have intentions to change the majority culture. They claim that Judaism mandates them to “repair the world,” tikkun olam in Hebrew. This is why they take out full-page ads in the New York Times supporting the progressive cause of the day, from the rights of men to play in women’s sports to blaming Israelis for not showing compassion to people who have been bombarding them with rockets for years.
However, the world needs to know that the liberal Jewish interpretation of tikkun olam is not in any sense traditional. It is a left-wing, progressive, even woke interpretation of a Biblical demand that Jews live according to life-, societal-, and justice-affirming laws that bring holiness into this material world. We are to follow 613 laws, but God only expects non-Jews to follow a few. The liberal interpretation of imposing ideas on others is absolutely contrary to the Jewish tradition (as are many of the ideas liberal Jews espouse).
Years ago I learned from non-Jewish friends that one of the most important things Jesus did, which proved he was the Son of God and the Messiah, was that he went out and preached to non-Jews in order to save their souls. Judaism, however, does not go out to convert others. We do not believe that most souls need saving—we believe God loves all His creatures, so does not close Heaven to some while opening it to others, depending on belief. Judaism focuses on action, not belief. It teaches that there are seven universal laws, and that God expects people to live according to these seven laws. Unlike faiths that believe that nonbelievers are damned, Judaism teaches that anyone following these laws still has a share in the World to Come.
The Seven Laws of Noah
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica On-Line, the Seven Noahide laws are prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and robbery, and eating flesh cut from a living creature, as well as the positive command to establish courts of justice.[iv] But this definition only scratches the surface of what these seven laws mean. For example, the prohibition against adultery also defines and prohibits incest, rape, homosexuality, and bestiality.[v],[vi]
These basic laws are required for any society to operate smoothly and provide safety for both women and men.
Islam, which like Judaism states there is only one god, is a Noahide religion,[vii]. Some question this today because the emphasis on suicide bombers and using people as “shields” and deliberately putting them in danger in the name of Islam sounds suspiciously like human sacrfice. Although the concept of the Trinity gave early Jewish leaders concern as being perhaps idolatrous or polytheistic, Christianity is also considered monotheistic because the three parts of the Trinity are aspects of the One.[viii],[ix]
The Chosen People
All of this is a long way of explaining that while Judaism teaches that God gave the Law to the Jewish people, that in no way denies the humanity of others or their ability to reach the World to Come after their deaths.
We Jews do not, as a matter of traditionor law, consider ourselves better than other people, although many Jewish “intellectual elites,” like their non-Jewish associates, have inflated senses of self. Rather, Judaism teaches that Jews have the additional responsibility of following God’s Law[x] in order to increase the amount of holiness in the world, which benefits everyone. This is not a new concept. Thousands of years ago, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the seventy nations of the world brought sacrifices during the Sukkot holiday in order to bring blessings down from God onto their people and lands.
Economic Success
Envy of the economic success of Jews, a primary factor in antisemitism, is based on a total misunderstanding of history. In Europe, Jews were forced into limited occupations. One was money-lending, which eventually led to a handful of very wealthy families, but also led to great poverty when the Jews were forced to “lend” to non-Jewish people of power, who then did not repay the “loans.” But the perception, especially among the peasants, was that the Jews controlled the money. Adherence to Jewish laws against theft also gave the perception, probably generally true, that Jews were responsible, trustworthy treasurers for the wealthy.
Jews were also responsible for a great deal of trade in medieval Europe. With a culture, common religion and common language that was spread across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, trade was easier for Jews than for others. Additionally, feudal laws that kept serfs tied to their masters’ lands did not generally apply to Jews, giving them the ability to travel, buy and sell.
In my opinion, the features, more than any others, of Judaism that lead to Jewish success, are:
Self-discipline, learned from earliest childhood by adherence to laws covering many aspects of daily life;
Literacy and the study of the Jewish holy books, which include laws of morality and civil behavior;
The ability to brush off disaster and move forward, rather than wallowing in self-pity and a sense of victimhood.
These cultural traits are all things that can be learned. In fact, many people are studying Talmud and Judaism in Korea[xi] and Japan.[xii] Those who are jealous of Jewish success can learn them, follow them, and become successful themselves. However, the present philosophy that societies are divided into victims and oppressors has destroyed the initiative of those who have been taught they are perpetual victims, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is not the fault of the Jews, but the Jews, both in Israel and the rest of the world, are paying the price.
[i] ING, Ramadan Information Sheet, https://ing.org/resources/for-all-groups/calendar-of-important-islamic-dates/ramadan-information-sheet, accessed March 10, 2024
[ii] Alkiek, T., Religious Minorities Under Muslim Rule, published Feb. 8, 2017, Updated Oct. 22, 2020, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/religious-minorities-under-muslim-rule, accessed March 10, 2024.
[iii]Smith, Richard H., and Charles E. Hoogland, 'How Envy Can Incite Anti-Semitism and Genocide', in Leonard S. Newman (ed.), Confronting Humanity at its Worst: Social Psychological Perspectives on Genocide (New York, 2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Nov. 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190685942.003.0003, accessed 10 Mar. 2024.
[iv] Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Noahide Laws". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Dec. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Noahide-Laws. Accessed 10 March 2024.
[v] Spitzer, J., The Noahide Laws: Seven commandments which, according to Jewish tradition, are incumbent upon all of humankind, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-noahide-laws/, accessed March 10, 2024.
[vi] Chabad.org, The 7 Noahide Laws: Universal Morality. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Morality.htm, accessed March 10, 2024.
[vii] The emphasis on committing suicide in order to kill infidels and the destruction, rape and murder happening in many places around the world by Muslims in the name of creating a “caliphate” (one universal government under Islam and sharia law) does raise questions about whether Islam as practiced today by many is, in fact, Noahide. It seems to have accepted human sacrifice (both suicide bombers and human shields deliberately put in mortal danger) as a major tenet, which is specifically outlawed in the Noahide laws. It also appears to ignore the laws against murder, robbery, and justice.
[viii] Is the belief in the Holy Trinity Polytheism? Sept. 6, 2023, https://copticorthodoxanswers.org/general/is-the-belief-in-the-holy-trinity-polytheism/, accessed March 10, 2024.
[ix] Nash, T., Isn’t Holy Trinity Christian Polytheism? https://www.catholic.com/qa/isnt-holy-trinity-christian-polytheism, accessed March 10, 2024.
[x] Dubov, N.D., The Chosen People: Chosen for What? https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/108391/jewish/The-Chosen-People.htm, accessed March 10, 2024.
[xi] Arbes, R., How the Talmud Became a Best-Seller in South Korea, www.newyorker.com, 6/23/2015, https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-the-talmud-became-a-best-seller-in-south-korea, accessed March 12, 2024.
[xii] Japan. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/japan, accessed March 12, 2024.
Excellent!
Well said