The Evil of Judaism and the Goodness of Jews
By Andrew Bernstein
For the past two thousand years, Jews have been accused of practically every crime imaginable—almost always irrationally and prejudicially. They have been accused of denying mankind’s Savior, of demanding his execution, of kidnapping Christian children and using their blood for baking, of profiteering from war, of duplicitously causing Germany’s defeat in World War I, and much more.
Jews have not merely been accused of such things; they have been bitterly persecuted as well. They have been forcibly dispersed from their ancient homeland, slaughtered by Crusaders, locked up in squalid ghettoes, subjected to brutal pogroms, and murdered by the millions in the Holocaust.1
Their enemies span the philosophic and political maps. Martin Luther, a founder of Protestantism, wrote of the Jews:
Alas, it cannot be anything but the terrible wrath of God which permits anyone to sink into such abysmal, devilish, hellish, insane baseness, envy, and arrogance. If I were to avenge myself on the devil himself I should be unable to wish him such evil and misfortune as God’s wrath inflicts on the Jews, compelling them to lie and to blaspheme so monstrously, in violation of their own conscience. Anyway, they have their reward for constantly giving God the lie.2
Karl Marx, father of Communism, and himself born into a Jewish family, stated:
Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist.3
Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Party and architect of the “Final Solution,” wrote:
In the Jewish people the will to self-sacrifice does not go beyond the individual’s naked interest of self-preservation. . . . [The Jew’s] sense of sacrifice is only apparent. . . . If the Jews were alone in this world, they would stifle in filth and offal; they would try to get ahead of one another in hate-filled struggle and exterminate one another. . . . Here again the Jew is led by nothing but the naked egoism of the individual.4
Such contempt for Jews is not a relic of the past. It continues today. For example, Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, stated in 2018, “Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”5 And, fueled by such rhetoric, anti-Semitic attacks have increased markedly in America and Europe in recent months.6
Christians, Communists, Nazis, and Muslims may disagree on many things; but, as these examples illustrate, they often agree on one thing: Jews are evil. . . .
What does it mean to be a Jew? Judaism is first and foremost a religion. The exact meaning of “Jew” is one who subscribes to this religion. Despite misconceptions and misrepresentations, Judaism is not a race but a set of ideas, which any individual can accept or reject. Indeed, many people, especially in the modern world, are born into Jewish families and grow up to become thorough secularists, even atheists (including me). Although it is customary to refer to such people as Jews, it is more accurate to refer to them as having been reared in a Jewish family.
Historically, Jewish culture stressed the importance of scholarship, primarily study of the Talmud, the collection of Jewish law and tradition. But in the modern world, the focus has shifted toward secular education. Because of this, despite millennia of hatred and persecution against Jews and those of Jewish descent, and despite their tiny numbers (today, perhaps fifteen million out of a world population of eight billion), their outpouring of genius and creative talent in the modern world is staggering.
Albert Einstein was the greatest scientist of the 20th century. Richard Feynman made monumental contributions to physics, won a Nobel Prize in the field, and, in 1999, in a poll conducted by 130 of the world’s leading scientists, was named the seventh greatest physicist in history. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant physicist who oversaw the Manhattan Project, America’s World War II effort to develop an atomic bomb before the Nazis.7 Sigmund Freud, whatever his errors, pioneered the field of clinical psychology. Jonas Salk created the first vaccine for the dreaded childhood disease of polio; Albert Sabin, shortly after, developed an even more effective oral vaccine against the disease. Alyssa Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) emigrated to America and revolutionized the fields of both literature and philosophy. Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and others contributed immensely to our understanding of economics. Jews and those of Jewish descent virtually created the American entertainment industry: Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, and Leonard Bernstein created and sustained the Broadway musical. George and Ira Gershwin were prolific composers/songwriters. David Sarnoff and William Paley built up NBC and CBS, respectively, and introduced commercial television and its dramatic content. Jewish immigrants Louis Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn (MGM), William Fox (20th Century Fox), Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner (Warner Bros.), and numerous others pioneered the film industry.8 Later, Steven Spielberg became one of its greatest directors. These are a handful of the many Jewish individuals whose ingenuity has improved our world.
Jews are innocent of virtually every accusation that, for two millennia, anti-Semites have hurled against them. But more, in the modern world, especially in America, they have exerted an enormously positive influence on the development of advanced culture.