Zionism, Jews and the coming inquisition

Roma Pride has announced that Jewish LGBT+ groups will not be allowed to take part in their parade this year, because they have done too little to distance themselves from what Roma Pride calls the “genocide perpetrated by the Israeli government”.

It is not clear whether Roma Pride made every group seeking to take part make a declaration about Israel’s actions in Gaza, or just the Jews, but either way, this incident speaks to a truth that the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks brought to our attention almost 20 years ago.

He famously called antisemitism a “mutating virus”. In its first iteration it was based on religion. Jews were hated because they rejected Christianity, and they clung tenaciously to their own faith. That was the medieval antisemitism, powered by the teachings of the Church. The second stage was a racial antisemitism. Jews were hated for their ethnicity, even their biology. That was the antisemitism of the Nazis.

The third, and current form, is that Jews are hated for their state. Jews are the subject of attack for their nationalism, their belief in their right to self-determination, in other words for Zionism and as Zionists.

I want to add two further details to this analysis. The first is to point out what medieval and contemporary antisemitism have in common, which sets them apart from the racial antisemitism of the Third Reich. In medieval times, the way for a Jew to escape antisemitism was conversion to Christianity (or, in Muslim countries, to Islam). If they repudiated Judaism and adopted Christianity, then not only would they escape hatred and prejudice, they would often be regarded as heroes. Figures such as Nicholas Donin and Pablo Christiani, who converted from Judaism to Christianity in 13th century France and Spain became celebrated figures in European Christian society and determined enemies of Judaism, at the forefront of attempts to ban or burn the Talmud.