Why , ask Jews and non-Jews alike, do so many Jews support policies that often seem suicidal to both themselves and their own community. Although the answer is extremely complex, Diane Weber Bederman provides a thought-provoking explanation, exploring some of the psychological underpinnings of Jewish hatred turned inward in “The Psychopathy of Jew-Hating Jews.”
The Psychopathy of Jew-Hating Jews
The Times of Israel | AUGUST 11, 2014, 8:27 PM
Sadly, I feel I have come to understand the mindset of Jew-hating Jews. It is a well-known phenomenon in family systems therapy. You come to believe that you are the cause of everything going wrong in the relationship. You know that because you have been told in so many ways-overtly and covertly. Aggressively and passive aggressively. You can almost taste the animosity.
Comments about the way you dress, or how you speak. Your friends. Your priorities. And you begin to think if you just change; a little, a lot, everything would be better. But you discover over time that this is not true. Nothing you do is making it better. You are no more loved today than yesterday and you feel bereft. You feel as if you will never be right. Never DO right. And it comes to you, that you are the problem, you are the cause of the turmoil . You are the reason there is no Shalom B’bayit. Peace in the home. It is all your fault.
And so there develops a deep sadness. A loss of self-worth; of meaning; of self.
And then you realize that bit by bit your soul is disappearing. You begin to withdraw. You start to turn away from the light and slowly descend into the abyss of darkness. Of nothingness. Of hopelessness. And then one day you realize that your soul has departed. And now there are two paths before you. Will you give in to the despair and take your own life-well what’s left of it-an empty vessel, or do you make a change, leave this poisonous relationship and find another one, a more loving one?
And so you begin the process of Tshuva, turning around, starting again, taking a new path. Therapists tell you of the pitfall that awaits. That too often when one leaves an abusive relationship one finds succor in another, just as abusive. The call of the familiar. The abuse is never quite the same but the relationship remains one sided-one taking all and the other giving in.
And that is the psychopathy of Jew-hating Jews. Like all Jews, they have been in an abusive relationship with the rest of the world all their lives and throughout history, back to the beginning of Jewish time. From the time of the Pharaohs to today. Like all of us, these Jew-hating Jews carry the oppressive, stifling burden of the memory of hate, and the scars that come with it. The expulsions, the executions, the pogroms, the Inquisition, the rampages, the hate for being a Jew, whether from a Christian or a Muslim.
And just when they thought the Jew hating would end, it would have to end because the world had recently, within living memory conspired to exterminate an entire culture, our culture, the Jewish culture, by methodically murdering with bullets and then developing factories in which to turn human beings into ash, it’s back. In full force. All over the world. From old-world European anti-Semitism to Muslim anti-Semitism, that same old irrational, deep-seated hate wearing a new party dress.
These Jew-hating Jews come to realize they can no longer bear the vicious vitriol, the burden of so much hate; never-ending hate weighing on their shoulders. They can no longer take the abuse day in and day out. Personal attacks. Name calling-baby killer, genocidal maniac. They read over and over that it is their fault that that they are hated. That Israel-another name for us- is the problem. We, the Jews are the new Nazis.
Try as they may, they can’t run away from the contempt. All they really want is to be a respected equal partner. But social media is spewing hate 24/7 telling them that they wish Hitler had finished the job. They realize they are slowly dying, suffocating from the hate, the abuse. They can no longer carry the burden of being blamed for everything sick in the world. They are exhausted from forever defending their right to exist. Who wouldn’t be? Rather than falling into the abyss, succumbing to the hate, taking their own life- they choose to leave the relationship to save their sanity; to save their soul, their very life. Is that not Pikuach Nefesh? To save a life?
And they look for another relationship as we are wont to do. And here it is. Within their reach. Here they are. In front of you is a group of people waiting to take you in. Embrace you. And make you feel loved and appreciated. And respected. And admired. It feels so good. No more blame to bear. No more hate. Relief.
How long, though, will it take you to realize that you have done what the therapists have feared. That like so many others who leave an abusive relationship, you unconsciously entered into another abusive one because it is familiar and we are creatures of the familiar. Granted this abuse is different. But abusive, nonetheless, because you are not loved for who you are, which as a Jew that’s all you have ever asked, but rather you are “loved”- embraced, for what you can do. And that is to speak against the Jews. Find reasons to justify moral equivalency. Blame the Jews. Blame Israel. Do unto others what had been done to you.
And the legitimacy that you provide for those who hate Israel and the Jews is more important to you and the needs of your soul than the harm that you are doing to your people. In a way you have honoured the commandment “Choose life”-haven’t you? You chose your life even though the cost is more hate heaped upon the people you abandoned and the loss of your Jewish soul.
Diane Weber Bederman is a multi-faith, hospital trained chaplain who lives in Ontario, Canada, just outside Toronto; She has a background in science and the humanities and writes about religion in the public square and mental illness on her blog: The Middle Ground:The Agora of the 21st Century. She is a regular contributor to “Convivium: Faith in our Community.”
