The Cult of the Crucified Jew
The Old Testament, Holy Book or Blueprint for Sociopathy? (Worldview Warfare Part 4)
Reading from and responding to Our God Is Your God Too, But He Has Chosen Us: Essays on Jewish Power, by Laurent Guyénot.
(Art by Michelle Horsley)
Welcome Back to the JQ
Two diametrically opposed points of view:
1) Anti-Semitism is sourced in historical evidence for Jewish exploitation and power abuse, Jewish crimes, Jewish behaviors. It’s an evidence-based prejudice.
2) All arguments for bad behavior on the part of the Jews is sourced in anti-Semitism, which is an irrational hatred/fear of the Jews.
The first point of view is essentially that the Jews are worse than any other group of people; the second that the Jews are better.
If we start with the premise that both statements are true, that leads to a conclusion that neither is true, since logically, both cannot be true. If both are equally true, then neither is true.
Similarly, the Tanakh is a holy book, vs. the Tanakh is a blueprint for sociopathy, power and land grabs, and so on. Both is true, so neither is true.
How to cut this Gordian knot? The answer is not to find the middle point, because then both relative truths cancel each other out, leaving nothing that can be said about Jews at all. Ironically, this is close to the truth: there is nothing that can be said about Jews, at all, at least until we firm up our terms.
As we try to firm up the terms, we may discover that the root of both propositions is the same error, that of Jewish identity.
Antisemitism is predicated on a mistaken assignation of Jewish identity, and the Jewish sense of “chosenness” (including actual malfeasance that results) is also predicated on a mistaken assertion of Jewish identity. Both sides of the apparently irreconcilable conundrum are, ironically, pushing the same argument, namely, that the Jews are somehow unusual and special, and that there is a continuous lineage from Hebrews to Israelites to Jews to Zionists to Israelis.
In this sense, anti-Semitism can be seen as somewhat correct, if it is seen as being opposed to, and as exposing, an illegitimate assertion of Jewish identity that has abused the power bestowed upon it by that identification. By the same token, those who defend the Jews and accuse the other side of anti-Semitism are also correct, because there’s a mis-assignation of identity happening.
Insofar as there is such a thing as “a true Jew” nowadays, a true Israelite or descendant of the original Israelites, it cannot ever be identified, which means there’s no way to cast aspersions against it or to defend it.
Enemy of the Good
Returning now to Guyénot’s book, chapter 4, “The Holy Hook: Yahweh’s Trojan Horse in the Gentile City.”
on the one hand, the Jews are told that their Yahweh is the true God and that their Bible is holy, but on the other hand, they are criticized for behaviors they have learned precisely from Yahweh and the Bible. They are accused of plotting to rule the world, although it is the very promise that Yahweh made to them: “Yahweh, your God, will raise you higher than every other nation in the world” (Deuteronomy, 28:1). They are blamed for their materialism, and they agree, but that also they learned from Yahweh, who dreams only of plunder: “I shall shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will flow in” (Haggai 2:27). Above all, they are rebuked for their separatism, although this is the very essence of Yahweh’s message to them: “I shall set you apart from all these peoples for you to be mine (Leviticus 20:26). . . .
If the Italian rabbi Elijah Benamozegh is right in saying that, “The constitution of a universal religion is the ultimate goal of Judaism,” then Christianity is a great step toward that glorious future: “In Heaven, one God of all men, and on earth a single family of peoples, among whom Israel is the eldest responsible for the priestly function of teaching and the administration of the true religion of humanity.” Christianity has prepared the way for the next stage: the cult of the crucified Jew is now being superseded by the cult of the exterminated Jews (the Holocaust world religion) (p. 76, 81).
