Delusions and Illusions
March 16, 2002

I usually don't announce the titles of my sermons. But I want you to know at the outset what I will be speaking about this morning, a topic that is captured succinctly by the sermon's title - "Delusions and Illusions."

The delusions I am going to speak about date back as far as the Israelite's enslavement in Egypt that will be commemorated in less than two weeks, on Pesach. In the book of exodus, Pharaoh explains to the Egyptian people his reason for enslaving the adult Israelites and killing their newborn males. He says, "Look, these people are too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them so that they may not increase. Otherwise, in the event of war, they may join our enemies v'alah min ha'aretz and gain ascendancy over us." So here we have the mighty Egyptian nation worried that this small group of Israelites are too numerous and, with the help of enemies, may attain mastery over Egypt.

Exaggerated notions of Jewish numbers and power have been at the heart of anti-Semitism from Pharaoh's day on. In tapes released to the public two weeks ago, Rev. Billy Graham, sitting in the Presidential office of Richard Nixon, states that the Jewish "stranglehold'' on the media is ruining the country and must be broken."

"The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion," a vicious treatise fabricated by the Czarist secret police in the late nineteenth century, claimed that a cabal of Jews control all the money in the world. This tract has enjoyed a long life since. You can find it on bookshelves in Japan where most people have never seen a Jew. You won't be surprise to hear that it is a best seller in Moslem countries. And you shouldn't be surprised by this quote from the Village Voice, written by a reporter just returned from Pakistan. He tells of the following incident: "I introduced myself to a religious leader from Pakistan's much persecuted Shia community. He was a gentle, educated man, the keeper of a holy shrine outside the city. After we had spent some time together and I had met his family, he asked me, "So can you explain to me, why is it that America lets the Jews run everything? They run the government, the newspapers, they turn the American people against us. Why do you let the Jews spoil things between us? We could be friends." The reporter adds, "This man's sentiments were gentler than most I heard expressed in Pakistan about Jews."

These delusions about the power of our people, that currently number but 16 million in a world population of four billion, would be ludicrously funny were they not so serious.

You may know the joke about Joe Schwartz who was caught reading a viciously anti-Semitic magazine. His friend said, "Joe, how can you read such a despicable, hate-filled rag." Joe says to his friend, "It makes me feel good. I read the Jewish newspapers and it is so depressing. The Jews are going to disappear. Synagogue membership is decreasing. Israel is going to be pushed into the sea by increasingly powerful Arabs. But I read this anti-Semitic magazine and it says, 'The Jews govern the world; they control the media; they have a monopoly on the world's wealth.' It makes me feel good to know the Jews are doing so well."

If it were true, maybe we would feel good about it. But we know it is not true. It is a delusion and when it is believed by people with antipathy toward Jews, it is a dangerous one with consequences for the safety and well-being of Jews throughout the world. Which brings me to the next part of my talk - illusions. For Jews not to be cognizant of an upswing in anti-Semitism in our world is to live with a dangerous illusion. The world has changed in the past few years. The Durban Conference held this summer was a prime example. Anti-Semitism, which for many decades after the holocaust was rarely expressed in public places, is now being openly voiced, especially by Arabs and Muslims. The semi-official Egyptian Newspaper, El Ahram, ran an article about how Jews use Christian blood in making matzahs for Passover. A hit song in the Arab world is titled, "I Hate Israel." And just before he was gruesomely and barbarically killed by his fanatical Moslem captors, Daniel Pearl, whose parents are Israelis by birth, was forced to say over again, "I am a Jew, my father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew." The fact the anti-Semitic nature of Pearl's death was played downed by the world's press, is itself disturbing evidence of a wish to pretend that anti-Jewish hatred in Moslem lands is a mere illusion.
And though I know there is a serious conflict in Israel that pits Jews against Arabs and Moslems, I assure you, there is no popular song in Israel called, "I hate Arabs," and there are no vicious anti-Arab and Muslim articles in Israeli newspapers. The conflict in Israel is no excuse for civilized people and nations demonizing the Jews with the most disgusting anti-Semitism seen since Hitler.

Worse, still, it is not only in Arab and Moslem countries that this visceral hatred manifests itself. In European leftist, liberal and intellectual circles, the true "axis of evil" is not Iran-Iraq and North Korea but Jews-Israel and America. Israel in particular is the object of their wrath. While to us Israel's right to existence is incontrovertible, in these circles, it is a question mark. Zionism is equated with apartheid - even though Israeli Arabs are full citizens. Although there are dozens of Moslem nations, a Jewish country is seen as incompatible with democracy. And though it is quite clear that Israel's military actions are taken in defense of its people who are being subjected to terrorism that no other country in the world would tolerate, these actions are equated with Nazism. Given that the distance between anti-Israel feelings and anti-Semitism is short and given Europe's long history of prejudice and persecution directed against our people, one cannot help but wonder, if anti-Israel sentiment in Europe is not just a cover for plain old bigotry against the Jews.

Admittedly, Europe today is not what it was before W.W. II regarding its treatment of Jews. But according to the World Jewish Congress, incidents of anti-Semitic violence in Europe have tripled in the last year and a half. And a new book published in France chronicles some 400 attacks against individual Jews, synagogues and Jewish schools over the last year. And this was just announced yesterday: the mayor of Paris won`t attend an exhibition of 45 Israeli artists because Jerusalem's mayor will be present. These incidents should cause responsible Europeans to pause and think about whether they are paving the way for a return of anti-Semitism as a prominent feature of their society.

We, as Jews, should have no illusions about the danger of other people's misapprehensions concerning us. The fact that Pharaoh's assessment of the power of the Israelites in Egypt was delusional was of no consolation to the Israelites there who became the victims of his genocidal measures. We can't afford to harbor any illusions about the extent of evil in the world nor about the ability of hate-filled individuals and groups to do tremendous harm to innocent people.

Andrew Sullivan wrote an editorial in the New Republic magazine in which he addressed specifically anti-Semitism among Arabs and Moslems, but his thoughts apply equally to anti-Semitism in general. He wrote: "We simply don't want to believe that this kind of hatred exists; and when it emerges, we feel uncomfortable. We do everything we can to change the subject. Why the denial, I ask myself? What is it about this sickness that we do not understand by now? And what possible excuse do we have not to expose it and confront it with all the might that we have?"

There is no excuse. And after the Holocaust, we Jews have the right to ask the world to take notice that an age-old social disease is menacing again. Above all, we have a right to expect responsible world leaders to do something about it.

Shabbat Shalom