As the final blows upon Iran loom, and as the Deep State accepts a loss of a client state, it has decided to try and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. This is the chance to rip MAGA apart from within!
How?
By utilizing the oldest hatred in the book: Antisemitism.
Twitter, podcasts, and other social media sites are currently awash with a renaissance of Jew-hatred, complete with reprises of accusations involving well-poisoning, messiah-murder, and societal manipulation that many had thought had died off with the Holocaust and with the popularization of coherent thought. The stupefying thing is how easily the Candace Owens of the world are led into the fiery pit.
Esther denouncing Haman by Ernest Normand. Public domain.
Is it rank stupidity? Is it (to paraphrase her)...Satan?! Is it simply a human predilection for conspiracy theory to explain what it cannot understand? Or is there some latent but powerful reason for this pernicious hatred?
Hitler believed there was a reason. He saw Judaism as the primary threat to his weltanschauung. To him, humans were just advanced animals—meant to fight, dominate, and survive through strength. But Judaism taught something different; namely, that humans are made in the image of God. That we can rise above our instincts and choose to be kind, fair, and moral.
Circumcision, in Jewish tradition, is a symbol of this. It’s a daily reminder to every man to control his urges and try to be holy, rather than giving in to his base desires.
Hitler and his Nazi followers saw this idea as dangerous. They thought caring for the weak would weaken society. Instead, they believed in strength, power, and survival of the fittest. Hence the Riefenstahl film, “Triumph of the Will.”
Today’s conflict with Iran echoes old stories, like the one in the Book of Esther, when Haman wanted to eradicate the Jews throughout the Persian Empire. Haman beseeched the King to act by making the claim that the Jews followed a “different religion.” While the rest of the nations worshiped many gods, the Jews worshiped just the One, all-powerful God.
Further, as a pagan, Haman believed in gods of limited power, trusting, instead, in Fate and Fortune. Thus, he used a lottery to pick a date to attack the Jews. Ironically, that appeal to the pagan gods gave Queen Esther time to implore the One God for help and, ultimately, to stop Haman, consigning him to the dustbins of history and the pastry shelves of kosher bakeries. (Try the prune hamantaschen sometime: much superior to the apricot, or Heavens, the poppy).
As alluded to in the Book of Esther, Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites, an ancient tribal nation that attacked the weakest Israelites after they exodus-ed Egypt. The Bible says Amalek’s sin was preying on the ‘stragglers’—the vulnerable people at the back of the Hebrew pack.
To simplify things, Amalek and Haman stood for the pagan belief system, where strength rules and the weak are ignored or preyed upon. Judaism stood for the opposite: the idea that humans can and should rise above animal, bestial instincts. Some Nazi leaders understood this. Legend says that one, Julius Streicher, even called his Nuremberg Trial execution “Purimfest, 1946.”
Today, people like Candace Owens and others may not understand all this—but on some (below the belt?) level, they seem to resent the Jewish message that tells people to control their desires and act morally. Judaism introduced the idea of ethical living, which influenced Christianity, Islam, and even Greek and Roman philosophy.
And that’s where much of anti-Semitism comes from—not just jealousy or religious disagreement, but a deep discomfort with what Judaism profoundly represents.
It’s not about Jews being rich. Poor Jews have been persecuted throughout history, as well.
It’s not about deicide. The Romans did that, and furthermore, Jews never believed Jesus was divine, so they cannot stand accused of having killed a god.
It’s not about being “Chosen,: Jews believe being chosen means responsibility, not superiority. Gentiles only have to follow seven basic laws, while Jews have 613 commandments. Anyone can convert or choose to follow more.
It’s not about looks or sports skills. For every Gal Gadot or Sandy Koufax...um, there are a couple of others on the opposite side.
Anti-Semitism is the hatred of an idea: The idea that people should control themselves, care for others, and strive to reach the limits of humanity’s ability. Mankind is built in the image of God. Just as God is limitless in His powers and can rise above the strictures of Nature, Man can rise above his bestial nature and approach the heights of the Divine.
That’s hard for some to accept, so they hate the people who introduced it.
Of course, this essay doesn’t explain everything—antisemitism is a huge, complicated topic that goes back thousands of years. But this is a starting point.
Norman Krieg is a pseudonym.