The only known protection against the virus of Jew-hatred is the sunlight of awareness combined with aggressive legal and legislative action.
(June 4, 2020 / JNS) In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, another highly infectious virus is also flourishing: anti-Semitism. Like the coronavirus, this “social virus” spreads via personal contact; unlike coronavirus, it can also be spread via the media.
Social viruses are difficult to contain or eliminate, being easily incubated and aggressively transmitted in our connected world. And, as Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks points out, anti-Semitism, like viruses, can only survive by mutating. He pinpoints four mutations of anti-Semitism over the centuries.
The xenophobic Hellenists merely looked down upon their subject societies as barbarian. Christianity changed that. When Jews did not flock to the new religion, Christians turned against them for not recognizing the messiah and even for participating in his death.
The second mutation appeared late in the 11th century with the Crusader pogroms and the first blood libel in the mid-12th century. Jews were denounced as demonic, spreading plagues, poisoning wells and killing children. This intensified Jewish persecution.
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