Why Hating Jews Feels So Good

Jean Paul Sartre wrote in 1946,: “The anti-Semite doesn’t accuse the Jew of stealing because he actually believes he stole. He accuses the Jew of stealing because he enjoys watching the Jew empty his pockets to prove his innocence.”

The word that stood out for me in this famous quote is “enjoy.”

Think of Tucker Carlson, the traveling salesman of conspiracies, that giggler in search of a scapegoat. He’s having a grand old time “just asking questions” that inexorably lead you to conclude unsavory and nefarious things about Jews.

But what about all his followers. Are they having a wonderful time, too?

Todd Pittinsky’s article in Tablet, The Joy of Hating Jews, writes that the enjoyment goes far deeper than the straightforward amusement of vilifying Jews. Something about the experience offers hidden and unexpected rewards and pleasures.

Connecting the Dots

The first reward, according to the Tablet article, is the satisfaction and sense of power that comes from connecting the dots.

A lot of people are feeling a little anxious these days. When is the other shoe going to drop? The systems and institutions we relied upon seem to be standing on their last legs. Will AI take over more than jobs? Will neighbor turn on neighbor? Will war come for us? A pandemic worse than Covid? Climate disruption that drags us backward in time? The world feels unstable. And we are increasingly adrift.

Then along comes someone charismatic and confident who offers a narrative that blows the lid off the world — revealing hidden plots, secret actors, betrayals, and dirty doings behind the mess.

As the storyteller weaves his insights, you find yourself nodding despite yourself. Bit by bit, you are brought into the inner circle of those who “see,” the few capable of understanding what is really going on. And you wonder how you never saw it before.

You are no longer the dupe. You are one of the enlightened.

It hardly matters that the story strips out complexity or invents facts. What matters is that you don’t feel weak anymore or powerless.

You are no longer the dupe. You are one of the enlightened. And mingled with your anger is the quiet thrill of certainty. It’s been years since you’ve felt this certain about anything.

That’s the pleasure Father Tucker and other far-right demagogues promise — the satisfaction of connecting the dots, which is another way of describing conspiracy theories.

The Second Reward: Moral

The Tablet article frames this well:

“Antisemitism allows its adherents to experience hate as virtue. The antisemite does not feel like a bully. His experience is one of courage. He is exposing hidden power. Defending society. Cruelty becomes public service. This framing — hating Jews as just and right — has proved infinitely adaptable.”

In Medieval times, Jews were depicted as the enemies of God, so violence against Jews wasn’t a crime, but one’s duty. In both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, Jews were depicted as a hidden danger to society, and measures against them were framed as protecting the nation, the faith, or the political order. The difference was that Tsarist Russia used religious and nationalist language, while the Soviet Union generally used ideological and political language. In Nazi Germany, persecution was portrayed as protection: Anti-Jewish laws were necessary measures to defend German workers, families, culture, and racial purity.

“In much of the world today, antisemitism travels under the banner of anti-Zionism and resistance, repackaging eliminationist sentiment as liberation theology. The vocabulary shifts — anti-colonialism, anti-globalism, anti-elitism — but the emotional architecture remains. The antisemite gets to feel good. He is a whistleblower. A truth teller. A patriot. A freedom fighter.”

Forgive me for my generalization, but it strikes me that right-wing conspiracists and left-wing moral demagogues emphasize different emotional rewards.

The antisemite gets to feel good. He is a whistleblower. A truth teller. A patriot. A freedom fighter.”

The Tucker Carlsons flatter their audience with having insight.
You are smarter than the herd. You see the hidden forces controlling everything that no one else sees.

The left-wing moral demagogue flatters their audience with virtue.
You are more compassionate, more moral, more awake to injustice than ordinary people. You are the only truly good people left.

The Third Reward: Community

All the lonely people, where do they all come from,
All the lonely people where do they all belong (Elinor Rigby)

We talk as if people are persuaded by arguments and facts. Actually, they are held together by something older and stronger: the need to be somewhere, with someone, as part of a “we” that makes life feel coherent.

People need community. They need recognition. But what’s a person to do in an age where religion and the family unit have lost their currency, and fealty to country expired decades ago? The need for people and for meaning doesn’t disappear. Instead it goes looking for substitutes.

We can see this clearly both online and offline—where ideology creates spaces for intense connection.

Derek Black, the son of Don Black (founder of Stormfront and former KKK Grand Wizard), describes in Rising Out of Hatred what it was like growing up inside a white nationalist Neo Nazi “dynasty.” What shocked me was the texture of life inside it: People helped each other without hesitation, with travel, housing, child care, money. The trust, friendship and reciprocal aid reminded me of what you’d find in an Amish village. At one point, while traveling, Derek needs a place to stay. He calls someone he has never met, only knows through the movement. The man hosts him without question.

It made me think: Anybody in the thick of living in such a warm giving community would entirely reject categorizing it as a hate group.

And once you notice that dynamic, you start noticing it elsewhere.

In recent years, similar descriptions have emerged from participants in political encampments and protest spaces—particularly around the Israel-Gaza war—where the experience, for many students, was not primarily ideological but social.

Shared meals. Sleeping in proximity. Poetry readings. Singing. Collective kitchens. Friendship forming at speed under conditions of constant togetherness.

Some students, especially the socially marginalized, described their experience in these terms. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. Or: I’ve never felt more safe, protected, and loved by a community of people… or Everyone takes care of each other, everyone feeds each other.

None of which sounds like a statement about international policy to me.

Anti-Jewish movements have always understood this mechanism. Movements aren’t only what you believe. They’re what people do together — and what they feel together.

The experience of being needed, seen, and surrounded by others can be as even more powerful than the beliefs that initially brought people together.

The experience of being needed, seen, and surrounded by others can be as even more powerful than the beliefs that initially brought people together.

In that sense, hostility — like any strong shared moral narrative — can become a bonding mechanism. It creates a “we” quickly, sharply, and emotionally.

Which is why movements that offer belonging can be so compelling even when their explanatory frameworks are incomplete or distorted. People are not only seeking beliefs; they are seeking attachment, identity, and relief from loneliness — and the brain will often prioritize those rewards over accuracy.

Give people a shared enemy and you don’t need much else. Everything else becomes background noise around the pleasure of being together on the same side. It makes sense how if someone is isolated, even a harmful or extreme community can feel psychologically “better” than no community at all.

Sartre also wrote, “[The anti-semite] doesn’t even have to make sense. All he has to do is insinuate and entertain at the same time. …[Anti-semites] know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves…They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”

Sounds like Father Tucker, all right. He’s an obvious example of somebody enjoying himself. And he’s a generous guy. He wants to make sure everyone else is having a good time, too.