(NB: This reviewer insists on using the title “State of Israel” in reference to the Jewish state rather than the shorter and more conventional “Israel” for the following reason: “Israel”, in Orthodox Christianity, is a precise and profound theological term meaning, roughly, “the people of God” or “those who see God”, i.e., the faithful of God’s Holy Apostolic, Catholic, Orthodox Church. As St. Paul tells us: “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.” (Gal. 3:7) “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” (Gal. 6:16) “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil. 3: 3) The Church in short is the True Israel, not a manmade political entity today in the Levant. As Orthodox Christians, we must not cede the meaning of such an important concept to those who do not accept the Church and Jesus of Nazareth as the True Christ.)
What is Antisemitism?
A significant omission in Antisemitism is the absence of a working definition of what “antisemitism” actually means. What is, exactly, “antisemitism”? Mr. Spencer seems to assume that we already know. He does mention “hatred of Jews”; but if antisemitism roughly translates to “hatred of Jews”, then we need to have a reasonably clear understanding of what it means to be a Jew, another term that Mr. Spencer leaves undefined. (We will come to what it means to be a Jew in modern society in due course.) One is compelled to ask, why the broad term “antisemitism” for something that specifically means “hatred of Jews”? Why not a more precise term such as “anti-Judaism”, “Judeo-phobia”, or even “Miso-judaism” or “Miso-jew” (“miso-” from the Greek meaning “hatred”)? “Antisemitism” as a term in the public mind first made its appearance in the nineteenth century, in the German press, long after antipathy towards Jews appeared as a historical phenomenon and after the emancipatory policies that largely freed Jews from the ghettoes, which policies became widespread throughout western and central Europe following the French Revolution and the First French Empire (1789-1815; NJOP). After all, many Jews are not Semites and most Semites are not Jews. (One might also observe, further, that many Jews are not Zionists and most, or many, Zionists are not Jews. See TorahJews.org.) Still, “antisemitism” is what has come down to us today and is the subject of Mr. Spencer’s book, so we will continue to make reference to it, though with caution.
Judaic Attitudes Towards the Church
As if to inoculate his more sensitive readers to what follows, Mr. Spencer introduces Princeton Professor Peter Schafer’s Jesus in the Talmud with the words, “In his fascinating and groundbreaking book … the contemporary scholar Peter Schafer discusses passages from the Talmud that have been taken as referring to Jesus …” (Antisemitism, 214) And we must remember that in Judaism, it is the Talmud—especially the Babylonian Talmud—rather than the Old Testament, that is the ultimate authority: “‘Not only does the Talmud contain the entirety of Jewish law, from ritual law, to family laws to torts; it is also a work of ethics, philosophy, biography, literature, history, and folktales.'” (Rabbi Noson Weisz as quoted in Antisemitism, 171)
....But by the end of Mr. Spencer’s book, we are still in the dark about the why of antisemitism: why has virtually every culture that has come into contact with Jews and Judaism at some point reacted with hostility? What is the overarching common denominator across cultures, times, and civilizations? What would Occam tell us? Is it possible to point out that the common factor is Jews and Judaism themselves? Could that have something to do with it? Or would that be just another antisemitic remark to be dropped down the memory hole along with observing the anti-Christian contents of the Talmud, the Jewish role in the massive crimes of early Communism, God’s rebukes to the ancient Israelites through Moses and the Prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ’s excoriation of the rabbinic leadership, the warnings of Orthodox Christian luminaries such as St. Paul and St. John Chrysostom, etc., etc.? By the end of Robert Spencer’s book, Antisemitism: History and Myth, we still do not know.