Why do people hate Jews? by Nadav Peretz

 As someone who was born in the 1980s, grew up in Israel during the 1990s, and later lived in the United States, I can honestly say that I hardly experienced antisemitism growing up. Quite the opposite. I was always proud to be Jewish, and in most places I lived or visited I was treated with respect and curiosity.

Then the past few years happened.

Today we are witnessing a wave of antisemitism unlike anything most people of my generation have ever experienced. The last generation to experience hatred on this scale was the generation that lived through the Holocaust. For many of us, those stories came from history books, documentaries, family stories, and Holocaust survivors who dedicated their lives to ensuring the world would never forget.

Now we are living through our own chapter.

That is why tonight I attended a lecture by Jeremy Fogel in Tel Aviv called Why Do They Hate Us?

Not because I expected one simple answer, but because I wanted to better understand one of the oldest and most irrational forms of hatred in human history.

Of course, many familiar explanations came up. The endless conspiracy theories. The myths about Jewish control of banks, governments and the media. The Rothschild family. Blood libels. Every generation seems to invent a new version of the same old story.

But there was another idea that really made me think.

Sigmund Freud, in one of his final books, suggested a controversial theory. He argued that perhaps one of the deeper psychological roots of antisemitism is resentment toward the Jewish introduction of moral responsibility through monotheism. The idea that there are commandments, that there is right and wrong, and that human beings are accountable for their actions.

It is only one theory, and certainly not one that everyone accepts, but I found it fascinating because I had never looked at it from that perspective before.

At the end of the day, there is no single explanation for antisemitism.

It changes its face throughout history.

Sometimes it is religious.

Sometimes it is racial.

Sometimes it is political.

Today it often spreads through social media and misinformation.

But one pattern never seems to disappear.

Jews become the convenient scapegoat.

Here is what I do know.

Anyone who spends a few days with me in Israel, walks along the beach in Tel Aviv, rides the train to Jerusalem, sits in one of our cafés, or simply meets ordinary Israelis, will quickly discover that the wild conspiracies about Jews have nothing to do with reality.

Most of us are simply ordinary people.

We work.

We raise families.

We worry about our children.

We celebrate.

We struggle.

We laugh.

We dream.

Just like everyone else.

And maybe that is why I keep asking the question.

How can someone in Brussels, London or New York develop such deep hatred toward people they have probably never met?

I still do not have one answer.

Perhaps nobody does.

But I believe we must keep asking, keep learning and keep trying to understand. Because understanding the roots of hatred is the first step toward confronting it.

by Nadav Peretz