Everybody:
Please know that although Chaim would love to answer all of your questions, owing to time and space constraints he can only address one from each of you per week. Thank you for understanding this policy.
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Shalom Chaim,
A couple of weeks ago, you said that millenia of anti-Semitic persecution is responsible for Jewish self-hatred, because it has made wimpy Jews desperate for acceptance from the Gentile nations. I disagree, for two reasons:
1: Historically, the great majority of Jews who have lived where the worst, most savage abuse and systematic brutality occurred--the ghettoes of Europe and Russia and the Muslim Nazi Middle East and North Africa--have been devout, pious Jews. Even in Europe during the Shoah, the vast majority of the 6.5 million Jews who were murdered were very faithful. In contrast, the majority of the worst self-haters have lived in places that are free of overt or official anti-Semitism--the United States, Israel, and Western Europe after WWII. While devout Jews were getting burned alive in Adolf Hitler (ys"vz)'s ovens, the fat, lazy, secular, self-hating Jews of America were begging fellow Jews not to "make a stink" about the Shoah to Roosevelt (ys"vz) because "it will make us look like whiny little Jews". Likewise, the likes of Pruneface and Arlen Sphincter (yimach schmam vezichram) don't have to fear too many pogroms.
2: The policies self-hating Jews promote (i.e. releasing violent criminals, gun confiscation, affirmative action and "civil rights" for blacks and other lowlifes, unlimited immigration, support for Muslim Nazis, etc.) are just as injurious to the Gentile nations they live in as they are to fellow Jews. In fact, self-hating Jewish positions are often extremely unpopular with average Gentiles, and the actions of this sick few often bring anti-Semitism down on all Jews.
I would say the sin of self-hatred comes from, in addition to deliberate pride and chutzpah, contentment and being spoiled. Comfortable, successful Jews (and Christians) tend to forget the Bible and Torah and lead lives purely based around their own pleasure and hedonism, leading them to abhor justice and all morality. I also think Satan (ys"vz) has specifically targeted Jews with the temptation of self-hatred because he knows they are the Chosen People (note--I know the Jewish view of Satan differs from my own).
G-d bless you. Chaimfan
Topic: Ask JTF for Sunday, September 21, 2008. (Read 10977 times)