When Victims Rule (pdf)

THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
are…. [with] Jews in their midst, I have come to realize the vitality of
Jewish racist notions, and I am more than ever convinced that the hold
Judaism will have on this and future generations will be gravely impaired
unless these notions are neutralized by an internal reordering of
traditional values.” [GREENBERG, p. 33]
Such traditional values may be found in the memoirs of Yossi Klein Halevi
(an American Jew who eventually moved to Israel) and what he was taught as a
youth at Brooklyn’s Talmudic Academy:
“Jews and goyim [non-Jews] were locked in eternal struggle. For now
the goyim prevailed. But when the Messiah came, we would triumph.
Twenty goyim would cling to each thread of our prayer shawls, pleading
to serve us as protection against divine judgment.” [HALEVI, p. 68]
One Talmudic Academy teacher taught that “Jews were the center of the
world … Anything extraneous to Jews was of no real interest to us, or, by implication,
God himself.” [HALEVI, p. 68]
Today’s Orthodox Lubavitcher movement (famous for its yearly Chabad
telethon to raise money for its projects) also reflects the principles of Jewish
racial uniqueness, for example, in its Sefer Hama’Amarim, by Rabbi Yosef
Yitzchok Schneersohn:
“The Jewish people were granted the unique ability to draw down all
Divine effluences through their performance of Torah and mitzvos [the
fulfillment of religious commandments] … [Jews] become vessels for
G-dliness … The reason why only Jews possess this unique quality is because
of their power of mesirus nefsh, total self-sacrifice… [SCHNNER-
SOHN, Y., 1986, p. 2] … The Talmud comments that Jews possess three
innate character traits: they are bashful, merciful and benevolent. These
traits are not only meritorious in and of themselves, but also reveal the
greatness of the Jewish people. Every Jew inherently possesses these
beautiful traits. [SCHNEERSOHN, Y., 1986, p. 11] … G-d’s conduct
with the Jewish people transcends the bounds of nature. When a Jew
submits all his natural matters to G-d’s service, the Almighty then helps
him in a supranatural manner.” [SCHNEERSOHN, Y., 1986, p. 199]
[See http://jewishtribalreview.org/micsam.htm for the courageous comments
about Chabad by a concerned former professor of Jewish studies in Montreal,
Michael Samuel, in a 1999 email to the Moslem Student Association]
[See http://jewishtribalreview.org/bush.htm to note the public double standards
applied to this group]
Some in today’s Jewish community recognize a growing problem with what
Jacob Katz disregarded as the “original meanings” of Jewish religious tenets,
particularly when reinvigorated by Jewish Orthodoxy and fused to modern
Zionism, wherein “theoretical” status is revived as practical actions in the real
world. In a 1994 issue of Tradition magazine, published by the Rabbinical
Council of America, four questions were posed to a panel of scholars, including
this one:
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