Ask the Rabbis: What Is Anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitism is a culture of commonly held malicious assumptions and attitudes toward Jews and Judaism as propagated by the sacred writ and doctrines of two major world religions for close to 2,000 years and further augmented by libelous bestsellers such as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Thus, if you are Jewish, you’re either an enigma or a stigma, thanks to the well-entrenched portrayal of the Jew as a demonic usurper bent on controlling the world, exploiting the disadvantaged and sabotaging all that is good. Even the humanist Imanuel Kant dubbed us “vampires” and our Judaism worthy of “euthanasia.” Vatican II notwithstanding, the Catholic Church still considers us dried-up has-beens and the only remaining impediments to the Second Coming of Christ (Catechism No. 674).