As antisemitism surges across the West, and following the horrific Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, Rabbi Daniel Rowe, a senior lecturer at AISH, spoke to ILTV about why this is not only a Jewish crisis but a deeper breakdown threatening Western society itself.
ILTV asked Rowe to elaborate on his argument that the current wave of antisemitism is fundamentally reshaping Western society in ways many believed were impossible after the Holocaust.
Rabbi Rowe said antisemitism functions as a recurring social pathology, capable of erupting at any moment.
“Antisemitism in general is like this social pathology, like this thing that can just erupt at any moment, where all the world's problems are linked to the Jewish people,” he said. “A lot of the movements that drive it are angry with the world and need something that's not real to blame. They don't want to turn inwards and face their own problems. So there's this problem, so there's this mythical answer called the Jewish people.”
Rowe said that many of the movements driving modern antisemitism carry deeply anti-societal agendas.
“If you look even today, most movements driving antisemitism have a very deep anti-societal agenda, uproot the Western world, tear the whole thing down,” he said. “So that's why it's always a global issue. It's never really a localized issue.”
ILTV also asked Rowe about the way antisemitism increasingly manifests as anti-Israel sentiment, which then spreads to attacks on Diaspora Jews living thousands of miles from Israel and with no direct connection to Israeli policy.
Rowe described modern antisemitism as a constantly evolving phenomenon.
“Modern antisemitism is like a virus that's mutated into a new environment,” he said. “This is the key point, it is never really Jew hatred in the conventional racist bigotry sense. Yes, there's racism and bigotry against Jews as against all minorities. But what makes antisemitism unique is this bizarre need to take whatever the collective Jew is and demonize it.”
He said this pattern has repeated itself throughout history.
“When the collective Jew was living in ghettos, then they're the filth spreading diseases. When they were money lenders, they're raping society. When it is about religion, then they're the people who killed Jesus. When it's about secularism, they're the people infiltrating society,” Rowe said.
According to Rowe, that focus has now shifted to Israel.
“So it will always shift. Today, the collective Jew is the state of Israel,” he said. “So when you have this, criticism against the State of Israel is fine, so is criticism against individual Jews.”
Watch the full interview:
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