Jews Are a Fifth Column: A Libel as Old as the Pyramids
5 min read
The greater evil always attacks the greater good.
Hatred of Jews goes far beyond stereotypical prejudice, discrimination and scapegoating. Antisemites are driven to total genocide of the Jews.
The biblical Amalek is the prototype rabid antisemite and arch enemy of the Jews. Amalek attacks when the Jews are riding high on the miraculous Ten Plagues, Exodus from Egypt, and splitting of the Red Sea. (Exodus 17:8)
Everyone was afraid to challenge the Jews. Except Amalek.
Ancient Jewish literature (Midrash Tanchuma 9) compares his attack to someone jumping into a boiling hot vat that everyone fears to enter. Although the jumper suffers massive burns, he cools off that vat, enabling others to attack. Amalek self-sacrificed for their primary goal: to show that Jews are vulnerable.
Amalek’s ideological heir and direct descendent (through Agag – Esther 3:1) is Haman, who plotted genocide of the Jews 2,500 years ago in Persia (Iran).
Haman's hatred is so great that he offers 10,000 kikars (approximately 460 tons) of silver for the right to annihilate the Jews (Esther 3:9).
In the end, the plot fails.
Each generation has its own ideological Amalek. In the 20th century, Hitler murdered six million while proclaiming a “righteous cause”: exterminating “Jewish vermin” to heroically save the world.
For Hitler, genocide was all-or-nothing, “either us or them.” He said: "If only one country for whatever reasons tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition." (July 21, 1941, cited in Hitler’s Apocalypse, p. 122)
Hitler regarded the killing of Jews even more important than winning World War II.
Hitler regarded the killing of Jews even more important than winning World War II. With the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944, top German military officers urged Hitler to prioritize railway lines to transport vital troops and desperately-needed supplies to the battlefront.
Ignoring their warnings, Hitler allocated the precious rail-lines to deport Hungarian Jewry en masse to the extermination camps. This “self-sacrifice to destroy the Jews” proved a key factor in debilitating the German war effort.
Channeling Haman, Hitler harbored a venomous hatred for the holiday of Purim. "Unless Germany is victorious," he proclaimed, "Jewry could then celebrate the destruction of Europe by a second triumphant Purim Festival." (January 30, 1944, cited in The Purim Anthology, 1949)
When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, he banned the reading of the Book of Esther, and ordered that on Purim all synagogues be closed. On Purim 1942 in Zdunska-Wola, a town in Nazi-occupied Poland, ten Jews were hanged by Hitler's SS, in a sadistic parody of events in the Book of Esther. (Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust)
Even after their ignoble defeat, Nazis continued to draw “inspiration” from Haman. At the Nuremberg Trials, as Julius Streicher ascended the gallows to be hanged, he shouted “Purimfest 1946.” (Newsweek, October 28, 1946)
Today, 2,500 years after the Purim confrontation with genocidal Persians, the Jewish people face another Persian enemy: the mad mullahs of Iran. The tentacles of the “Iranian octopus” are remote-controlled from Tehran: Hamas, Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militias in Iraq and Syria. This modern-day Amalek is building nuclear weapons and – with repeated threats to "wipe Israel off the map” – is patiently waiting to strike.
On October 7, Iran’s proxy Hamas unleashed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The sadistic cruelty was straight out of the Nazi playbook. Hamas terrorists entered the Gaza-border kibbutzim, savagely murdering, raping and pillaging, incinerating many homes along with their inhabitants.
Hamas “justifies” violent jihad as a noble, righteous holy war to “liberate their homeland stolen by the Jews,” and follows Mohammed’s directive to massacre Jews “wherever you find them” (Koran 2:191).
In the Amalek tradition of self-sacrifice, Hamas invites death and destruction on its own civilians, using them as human shields, both to protect terrorists and to cynically bolster civilian casualties in hopes of stirring global condemnation of Israel.
As Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh declared: “We need the blood of the children, women, and elderly” to “ignite within us the spirit of revolution” against the Jewish state.
Tragically, the Hamas strategy appears to be working. Backed by conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers, antisemitism is now fashionably PC in polite society. Alarmingly, a recent Harvard-Harris Poll shows that 60% of American voters ages 18-24 believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and a majority believe that Israel should "be ended and given to Hamas."
Fortunately, the Jewish people have a potent weapon to fight back.
In seeking permission to annihilate the Jews, Haman accused them of being "a nation scattered and split (Esther 3:8), a reference to Jewish division and strife. This lack of unity gave Haman the confidence to advance his genocidal plan.
Esther understood that the solution to antisemitism is Jewish unity.
Esther understood that the solution to antisemitism is Jewish unity. She told Mordechai: “Go assemble all the Jews” (Esther 4:16). Haman's threats brought the Jewish people together and triggered a 180-degree shift from disunity to unity.
This idea of shared destiny was formalized in the Purim tradition Mordechai of Mishloach Manot, sending gifts of food to one another (Esther 9:22). The idea is to increase love and friendship, and engrain the message: To prevail, we must work together.
Prior to October 7, Israeli society was polarized. There was tension on the streets, with talk of civil war and splitting into two states.
And like in the Purim story, October 7 triggered a 180-degree Jewish shift: from disunity to unity.
Though we cannot know the reason for all our suffering, it does prove a maxim: The greater evil always attacks the greater good.
During the Holocaust, a Jew was being sadistically beaten by a Nazi guard who scoffed and sneered, "How do you like being a Jew!"
The Jew looked up and proudly said, "I'd rather be in my position than in yours."
The best response to antisemitism is Jewish pride. Truth and goodness will prevail. From darkness will come light.
As a son of a Chazan (with all rabbinical duties), born in Czechoslovakia in 1929, my first information about antisemitism came from Jewish refugees while running from the Nazi Germany and Austria through our tiny town. My first political awareness came from debates how to save the Jews from the Hitler’s promise to annihilate the Jews that he clearly formulated in his book MEIN KAMPF published already in 1925. My parents, that time chalutzim in Eretz Israel, took it seriously. Our family of six had chosen the example of the BOOK OF ESTER - to resist and to fight back. The rest of our less prepared relatives succumbed to the 1942 Nazi/Slovak government DECEIT to be moved to the Labor camps, while the deportations headed straight to the Death camps. None of them survived.
In Gaza they found Mein Kampf in Arabic, so our enemies have the same goal as the Nazis ( may their name be erased) making the world Judenrein( free of Jews), how sad to hear that my mom( obm) was in Auschwitz-Birneau
AMEN! Yes, those who are trying to exterminate us today are using the classic Nazi inversion techniques when they say we are the ones trying to commit genocide.
It is interesting that all the enemies of the Jews, have names starting with the letter "h", is this some type of pattern, plus the name of the terrorist group called "Hamas" the name is written in Torah, Psalms, etc in Hebrew translated as violence also the country that are sending the terrorists are from Iran, which used to be called Persia, which happened in the time of the book of Esther, like King Solom said " there is nothing new from under the sun" from Kohelet, maybe what is unfolding today is written in the prophets and in the end we will be redeem from exile and moshiach will come around the corner , "amen"
My understanding regarding what the rabbis of the Beit Din ask a convert just before dunking in the mikveh, is along the lines of "Why would you want to join the most hated group of people on earth over thousands of years?"
Would say this article does a good job of answering that question.
They never ask such a question. Other Jews do, however, and give advice such as, Dress English, think Jewish. I would never dream of doing such a thing, even after fifty years!
Amen!!! Wear your Jewish star, Hansa, Yarmulke! Be united!!!
It's amazing that so many people accuse Israel of genocide, when it was Hamas that vowed to "wipe the Jews off the earth". That statement amounts to genocide. I don't recall hearing that Israel wants to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the earth - just Hamas, as Esther did with Haman
The presence of Jews and Israel unites Arab Muslims too: if not for that, they’ll be fighting each other.
Milla, they are fighting each other even as I post this. True the Jews are a common enemy, but that doesn’t stop them from killing each other at every opportunity.
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We will never never never give up fear not the God of Abraham Issac and Israel is with us
Provocative and Inspiring!
Great!
A superb article putting the Hamas terror in perspective and why Purim is so significant this year. It should point up the lack of historic memory of Hamas apologists like Naomi Klein.https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/14/the-zone-of-interest-auschwitz-gaza-genocide
I just clicked your link and read her article, and was horrified. I can see I missed a lot by not watching the oscars this year...
Weapons of mass destruction occupies most of Gaza. At no time do Palestinians desire peace. They even annihilate their own women and children. The only 2 state solution is a myth. Israel offers Peaceful recognition as a rite to exist. Palestinians refuse since their path to Statehood is annhilation. Warriors for Peaceful existence has been Israel’s path for more than 3,000 years and will always be. Peaceful agreements with Terrorizing Palestinians is Impossible.
Definitely needs to re-read this wonderfully written article. Thank you for publishing it and continuing to fight back against the pervasive, growing antisemitism in our world.