Jews have traditionally kept non-Jews at arm’s length. The rabbinic approach to anti-Semitism may be summarized as Halakhah hi b’yadu’a she-Eisav sonei et Yaakov, “It is an established normative principle that Esau hates Jacob” (Tosafos HaShalem: Mesiach Ilmim). Esau: the anti-Semitic antecedent of Babylonia, Rome, Christendom; anti-Semitism incarnate, immutable, forever. More than that, the formulation of the rabbinic dictum as a normative principle gave quasi-legal weight to the idea that anti-Semitism was embedded in the DNA of non-Jews and, by extension, impeded normal relationships between Jews and other faith communities.
But is this the case? Is Jew-hatred the defining characteristic of the relationship? What about other dynamics, historical and theological, which have informed relations between Judaism and other faiths? More generally, how does any religion respond to the “Other”?
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