Inverse Reality: How Anti-Semitism Ensures Jewish Survival

“…In order to exist, slave morality always first needs a hostile external world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all—its action is fundamentally reaction.” Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Although anti-Semitism has exposed Jewish populations to socio-political oppression, forced conversions, and even death throughout the medieval and early modern worlds, the ultimate impact of anti-Jewish sentiment has ironically supported Jewish survival and identity. Segregation, expulsion, discrimination, and massacre have deeply impacted the Jewish psyche, prompting refuge and reflection among disparaged populations. These reactions have taken place in many forms and to varying degrees, but they have inevitably diversified, developed and revitalized the Jewish experience.

The precarious political backdrop of the medieval world cultivated animosity among the Muslims, Christians, and Jews, who, despite similar religious foundations, had contentious relationships with one another. As the Pope summoned a rallying and violent Christian insurgence to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims, the crusaders themselves, a mob of ignorant commoners, could not tease apart the political objectives of Muslim conquest from the ingrained propaganda of Jewish deicide. Lacking the analytical skills to comprehend the Augustinian doctrine, which sought to preserve the Jews that they might bear witness to the second coming of Christ (p 105), the armed masses abandoned a war over land for a war over ideology, based on demonized perceptions of the Jewish collective. The unabashed Christian anti-Semitism of the first crusade lead to the deaths of approximately 5,000 Jews, whether directly killed by crusaders, or prompted to martyrdom as an alternative to massacre. In this case, Jewish refuge took the form of suicide when attempts to enact contractual protections as stipulated by secular rulers failed (p 106). As hopes of physical protection dwindled, Jews prayed and murdered themselves.

While this incident weakened Ashkenazic rabbinic learning, it stimulated a spiritual revival that immortalized the experience of the crusade in three major Hebrew chronicles and a variety of Hebrew liturgical poems. Thus, Jewish survivors were forced to reflect and “reevaluate their attitudes about Christians, their own religious face and their own self-image” and in the process, reinforced themselves in opposition to the “other.” Despite the causality of the devastation being the mere fact of Jewish identity, the crisis reinforced that identity instead of compromising it. Rekindling memories of the Holy Temple, the Jewish people emboldened a spiritual platform that chose death over Christianity (p 107), and in doing so, balanced the loss of life and Rhineland centers of rabbinic learning with explicit and romanticized ideals of repudiating Christianity at any cost, thus reinforcing their own psychological connections to Judaism. What is more, the crusade served as an impetus to convert rabbinic oral tradition into writing, therefore preserving rabbinic thought. It was the process of documentation by R. Solomon b. Isaac (Rashi) that lead him to prodigious biblical commentary, composition of the responsa (an independent Jewish legal tradition) and establishment of a critical school of Talmudic scholarship (p 113-114). In this way, Jewish culture continued to thrive and grow in light of, and in response to, the crusade of 1096.

Although configured as martyrdom in the first crusade, refuge took a very different form in response to the Spanish Inquisition, although some Jews did choose death over forced baptism. The Spanish Inquisition represented the apex of anti-Semitism, as Spanish Jewry was the oldest and largest Jewish community within the Christian world, and the only one (with the exception of a small English community) to be banished at once. Prior to the official expulsion, the massacres of 1391 bore witness to Jewish conversions measured in the thousands. Although many Jewish apostates would publicly rally against Judaism, historians cannot accurately gage the degree of sincere conversions, as many Jews continued to practice secretly, despite a pseudo-baptism (p 119). In fact, it is plausible that widespread conversions took place at a disingenuous level, because the threat of insincere conversos lead to the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. The Inquisition marked the more literal practice of refuge, whereby 100,000 Jews immigrated to Portugal, Italy, North Africa, and Turkey.

Just as the crusade of 1096 had forced Jews to reconsider themselves in opposition to Christians, the Spanish Inquisition forced the expelled Jewry to reflect on “the ultimate meaning of Jewish existence and Jewish belief” and to question “where was God in their hour of need and what future could they expect as wandering, unwanted castoffs?” (p 127). Statesman, economist and philosopher Don Isaac Abravanel paralleled Jewish plight to parallel devastations in Jewish experiences, namely the destruction of the temple and the Exile. He called upon the Jewish legacy of divine intervention and traded his secular lifestyle with spiritually and religiosity, proclaiming the coming of the messiah (p 128). Former Portuguese converso Samuel Usque delivered a similar message. Premonitions of the messiah ran rampant among Jews and conversos alike, undoubtedly influenced by Christian apocalyptics, astrological events, the discovery of new lands, as well as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation (p 142). Despite other external factors, the impact of the Inquisition marked a thematic shift in Judaism, focusing on messianism and redemption, and underscoring reflections of sin and purity in the Jewish psyche.

Historiography as a means of post-Inquisition Jewish reflection gave way to mystical interpretations of reality that sought to explain Jewish suffering as the result of a pre-historical event (p 130). In this way, intellectual retrospect was replaced by a spiritual introspection to contextualize the Spanish Inquisition. As Spanish immigrants were welcomed into Ottoman lands, kabalistic scholarship developed in Salonika, Cairo, and Constantinople. Specifically, the town of Safed in the northern Galilee became a religious center for post-Inquisition Jewry, serving as a viable platform for the re-emergence of an empowered Jewish scholarship and culture. The “messianic fever” in Safed prompted passionate religious practices, including midnight prayer vigils, public fasting and ablutions, prayers at the graves of ancient sages, meetings of worship and spiritual meditation, all of which served to “reinforce a deeply felt sense of spiritual ecstasy and spiritual mission” in the region.

Through the incessant historical presence of xenophobia and Jewish hatred, the vilification of the Jew has served to reinforce Jewish identity and cultivate Jewish self-perception in relation to the “other.” The understanding of self through opposition against and separation from, operating in tandem with elevated panic and heightened crisis throughout medieval and early modern Europe, has forced refuge and reflection among Jews, diversifying and stimulating the Jewish identity. Forcing Jews to examine the causality of their plight, anti-Semitism provoked internal and spiritual revelation, as well as alternative modes of living, that ultimately fostered a Judaic evolution, placing Judaism in a constant state of stimulation and growth. Whether romanticizing the martyr, disingenuously converting to Christianity, or abandoning one’s home and livelihood, the Jewish people have internalized the urgency of survival. Anti-Semitic segregation and persecution have never allowed Jews to forget that they are in fact Jewish, and therefore Jewry must always consider and re-define what that means. The continuous reminder of self has engaged the Jewish identity, kindled its growth, and allowed Judaism to adapt and last throughout time. That is to say, Jewish survival is merely a reaction to anti-Semitism.

Source Cited:
Hallo, William and Ruderman, David. Heritage, Civilization and the Jews (Study Guide). United States of America: Prager Publishers