Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism

Why have Jews been the object of the most enduring and universal hatred in history? Why is the Jewish state the most hated country in the world today? Drawing on extensive historical research, Prager and Telushkin reveal how Judaism’s distinctive conceptions of God, Law, and Peoplehood, have rendered the Jews, and now the Jewish state as well, to other people’s God, laws, or national allegiances. Anti-Semitism is not just another ethnic or racial prejudice, and it is not caused, as so many people falsely believe, by Jewish economic success or the need for scapegoats. Rather, anti-Semitism today, as in the past, is a reaction to Judaism and its distinctive values. Separate chapters document how anti-Semitism is a unique hatred (no other prejudice has been as universal, deep, or permanent), and how the Chosen People idea has spawned hatred. The role of non-Jewish Jews such as Marx and the M.I.T. professor, Noam Chomsky, in provoking anti-Jewish animosity as well is examined and explained. WHY THE JEWS? also provides an authoritative overview of the seven major forms of anti-Semitism the Jewish people have suffered: pagan, Christian, Muslim, Enlightenment, Leftist, Nazi and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism. Prager and Telushkin explain why anti-Semitism poses a mortal danger to moral non-Jews, and what kind of changes would have to happen to produce a world without hatred of the Jews.