JEWS CAN DEFEND THEMSELVES
What is about the Jews that throughout history they have been persecuted and oppressed? Why does this Israel-Palestine war show no sign of abating? Award-winning author and journalist Jonathan Freedland believes that the answer is not that simple.
Ever since I met him at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year, it has been an ongoing conversation about a plethora of topics including the year-long raging war between Israel and Palestine and the Jewish community with the award-winning British author, and journalist, Jonathan Freedland. He is also a columnist at the Guardian and the host of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America Podcast. He also presents BBC Radio 4’s The Long View and is the author of the award-winning The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World, along with several thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne. He is a past winner of an Orwell Prize for journalism.
When we met at the Jaipur Literature Festival, the very first question that I asked him was about why is there so much hatred for Jews? Hitler persecuted them, they have always been talking about the promised land but their promised land has always been besieged with wars.
Jonathan said, “I don’t think the explanation will lie with Jews but instead it will lie with the people who hate them. And so have to ask why is it that there has been this hate throughout history. There are all kinds of theories about it. The one that is probably the heart of the matter is that in the Christian world, the Jews stood out for refusing to embrace Christianity and that became very irritating for the followers of Christianity for centuries. It was an irritant to them that there was this group of people who were refusing to fall in line and the very fact they continued to exist proved that there was another way. For example, in England, the country I am from, the only minority at all in the 12th century in England were Jews. Everybody else was Christian. Today, we’re used to minorities. But for many centuries the only minority in all of Europe, before there were Muslims for example in Europe, would have been Jews. So, for the masses, there is indeed something annoying to people about a group that refuses to fall in line with everyone else. That’s one part of it. There are different things in the Muslim world. Again, the refusal to adopt the main faith is part of it. And then there is another theory which says, it goes back even further, which is Judaism, the religion, offered the form of the Ten Commandments (which were the first sort of moral rules). People don’t like rules and they don’t like to have to behave in a certain way and Jews have been in this theory. I’m not saying I necessarily agree with it. Jews have been like a guilty conscience to mankind.
Jews are around sort of saying you should behave better, you shouldn’t kill, you shouldn’t commit adultery, etc. according to the rule. Therefore, people would rather not have a voice in their ear saying to behave better. I believe this was also because 5,000 years ago, Judaism was the first religion to insist on there being one God. Monotheism begins with Abraham and the Jews and then Christianity comes next and then Islam after that. And therefore, before then, with many gods, you could live differently and Judaism has sort of come along early and spoiled that way of living. But all said and done, the truth is that it is hard to work out why there is prejudice against black people, why there is prejudice against people who are not white or people who are brown. It’s a very hard thing to explain why prejudices live on.”
Why do you think Hitler hated the Jews?
“Well, he was steeped in anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish racism for centuries. I don’t think there’s any value in trying to think of there being a rational or logical reason why people hate minorities. They always have.”
From Hitler’s time to this time, when the wars are continuing, what has changed?
“The big change in the world for Jews anyway has been the fact that Jews are no longer unable to defend themselves. So that for 2,000 years Jews were always a minority who were vulnerable because they never had any means to defend themselves. It’s fascinating, in 1947 there were two big partitions in the world, one that created India and Pakistan and the other one that created Israel. That vote of the United Nations in 1947 said there should be a Jewish state and from 1948 onwards there has been a Jewish state. And now for the first time in 2,000 years, Jews have an army and can defend themselves and that is a very big difference. In the big sweep of Jewish history that’s the big change.”
So, now that the Jews have a great army and are defending themselves, can it put an end to this hatred in the long run?
“No. It has been there for many decades. But it is as strong now. Anti-Semitic attacks in London are high, they’re up. More now than in many decades. Same in the United States. So, it has not ended the hatred. But I think it has meant that people, the attitude is different because there is now a place where Jews are defended. Now as it happens, the act of defending themselves has been part of this war between Israel and Hamas, which of course has brought out a whole lot more hatred for Israel and therefore for people who stand with Israel. So, the ability of Jews to defend themselves has not ended the hatred, it has in a way just created a new set of problems.”
Can you relate some anecdotes that have shaped your writing?
“There is this stereotype about Jews that they are miserly with money, that they hold on to money. It goes back a thousand years actually to the time when Jews were not allowed to do other jobs and the only job, they were allowed to do was to lend money. The king would allow them to collect taxes or lend money. And so, this arose, this idea that Jews are somehow mean with money. So, years back, my wife and I, were a young couple looking to buy our first home in England. We were at a flat that we liked and we asked the agent who was showing us around about would the place cost. The agent told us the price and said that we could negotiate with the owners of the flat. He said that the owners are Jewish and added that they might squeal a bit. He used the word squeal which one would use for the noise a pig makes. It was a very racist thing to say, that the people who owned the flat would somehow want more money and would behave like animals. It was just a small moment, you know, it came and it went, but it was proof to me that there are still these attitudes. This man didn’t know that we were Jewish. We told him we were; he was very embarrassed. It was just a prejudice that just came out. But all the time, you know, even if it’s not me personally, there are these stereotypes that sort of live on, you know, this idea that Jews operate and conspire in secret networks. And so, I remember once at work, a friend of mine had phoned and left a message with a number, and the colleague who took the number said, one of your networks called. He didn’t say one of your friends, he said one of your networks. And he would never say that to somebody else, but the word came to his mind because he knew I was Jewish. And so immediately he thought Jews have networks as if they are sort of secretive.”
In India, there are two worlds. In one there’s a caste system where people are treated differently on the basis of their caste and in the other India, the caste system doesn’t matter. It is more cosmopolitan. Is it the same for Jews as well?
“I think that’s very interesting, what you said about India. Maybe it is something like that, where both things can exist at once, where on the one hand, you know, you can grow up and live without really encountering these prejudices. On the other, it’s there. So, for example, if you go past any Jewish building in London, or Paris, or Berlin, well I don’t know about America, but certainly in Europe, you will always see a security guard outside the door of a Jewish school, a kindergarten even, for three and four-year-old children because even these buildings are prone to attack. If you go to a synagogue or a Jewish house of worship, there has to be security anywhere in the places I’ve mentioned. We get used to it now, we’re just, that’s part of life. But that’s not there because people want to do it, that’s there because they have to do it. There is a security threat. So, these communities are living under threat. I’m not a particularly religious Jew, so I don’t wear a cap, but people who do wear a skull cap, are vulnerable in traveling around. Some choose now not to. Even if you just get on with your life, it’s there.”
To be continued…
This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on October 23, 2024.
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