#Jews have no capacity to defend their righteousness for we feel in our genes that we are to blame for everyone’s woes. The only escape lies in rising above and becoming an example of unity to all people. Thus we will fulfill our mission and secure respect and pride …
instead of lowliness. #antisemitism

From Twitter, 11/18/21

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My new article on Linkedin “The Darkness of the Crystal Night Continues”

The words “crystal night” may evoke the image of stars twinkling in the clear night sky, but it is nothing of the kind. This week, 83 years ago, the Nazi Party’s paramilitary forces (SA) smashed the windows of synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions, broke into them and set them on fire. The coordinated pogrom took place throughout the Third Reich, in Germany and Austria. The smashed windows scattered on the ground gave the night its name, Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), or the Night of Broken Glass. More than 400 Jews were slain that night, 400 more died in concentration camps shortly after, and many more committed suicide as a result of the pogroms.

Jewish unity must never be for its own sake. The whole purpose of the existence of the Jewish people is to build an exemplary society. In the short periods when we had such a society, we thrived and the nations admired our achievements. When we grew apart, they began to hate us since our division sent the opposite message from the one we are intended to send, that unity above differences creates the ideal society and the happiest people.

This week, Austria unveiled a memorial in Vienna to commemorate the memory of the victims of Kristallnacht, and the memory of the 65,000 Austrian Jews who perished in the Holocaust. This event is also an opportunity to acknowledge that antisemitism is rapidly intensifying the world over, and another Holocaust is already on the horizon.

I wish I could be a bearer of good news, but the reality is that we have not coped with the reasons that generated that violent hatred and its subsequent horrors. We are still deep in the darkness that originated that pogrom, and all the pogroms before and after it.

Nevertheless, I see no cause for despair. On the contrary, the key to changing our position in the world is in our hands; if we muster the determination, we will prevent such atrocities from afflicting our nation going forward.

Memorial days should not focus on remembering the dead. I, too, lost the majority of my family in the Holocaust, but remembering them will not prevent it from happening to my children or grandchildren. If we want to secure our future, we must focus on what we can do today to achieve it, rather than mourn the dead, although that has its place, as well.

In the spirit of this proactive approach, I think we should look at what we can do about antisemitism. For all our efforts, we see that reasonable explanations do not uproot the hatred. We can, and should, forbid expressions of online antisemitism, and we should do all that we can to curb overt Jew-hatred and Israel bashing, which has become trendy among politicians and opinion leaders. However, these measures will only buy us a little time; they will not prevent the eventual intensification of the hatred to levels that will erupt in large-scale violence against Jews.

To use the little time we have, we should focus on ourselves rather than on our haters. There is a lot we can do that will change the world’s view about us. Below is a list of don’ts and dos regarding coping with antisemitism.

Don’ts:

1. We should not attempt to appease our haters, neither abroad nor in Israel. They hate Jews, and anything we do to appease them will only embolden them and add derision to the hatred.

2. We should root out the thought that antisemitism is the result of this or that policy of the Israeli government. The expulsion from Spain, the pogroms in Russia, Kristallnacht, and of course, the Holocaust, happened long before there was a Jewish state. Therefore, bashing Israel is just an insinuated way to express hatred of Jews.

3. Don’t argue with Jew-haters. Hatred needs no justification; the hater always feels entitled to the hatred, so arguments are a waste of time and energy.

Dos:

1. Develop solidarity among Jews. Our ancestors were strangers who united around an ideology of creating a society where people love each other as themselves. Only when they committed to be “as one man with one heart” did they become a nation. Moreover, we were exiled because we hated one another, so the basis of our restored nationhood must be unity.

Incidentally, unity does not imply uniformity. On the contrary, the differences among us will create a society whose strength is in its diversity. The shades and nuances of a united Jewish society will generate a lively, dynamic, and powerful society.

2. Once we establish unity among Jews in Israel, it should spread and encompass every Jew around the world who wishes to join in. Following the same idea that diversity generates power and vitality, any Jew who wants to contribute one’s special flavor to the rejuvenated united nation will be welcome to join.

3. Finally, and most important: Jewish unity must never be for its own sake. The whole purpose of the existence of the Jewish people is to build an exemplary society. In the short periods when we had such a society, we thrived and the nations admired our achievements. When we grew apart, they began to hate us since our division sent the opposite message from the one we are intended to send, that unity above differences creates the ideal society and the happiest people.

As I have shown in two extensive publications on the subject, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, history proves that these dos and don’ts work. Now we must have the courage to implement them.
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My new article on Linkedin “Sally Rooney’s Hate Is the New Normal”

It is not easy to convince the Snapchat generation to read books. To do so, you must be a gifted writer and know which buttons to press in young people’s hearts. Sally Rooney, a young Irish author, is that kind of writer. Her first two books have won multiple awards and she is widely regarded as one of the most prominent voices of millennials.

Rooney is also very opinionated. She is a self-proclaimed Marxist and an avid supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS). In line with her views, she has refused to sell translation rights to Israeli publishers. Because of her notoriety, her decision caused quite a stir. The New York Times stated, “Sally Rooney Declines to Sell Translation Rights to Israeli Publisher.” CNN echoed, “Sally Rooney refuses to sell Hebrew rights for latest book to Israeli publisher, citing political objections,” and other prominent news outlets also reported her decision.

In response, Israel’s two largest bookstore chains announced that they would pull all of Rooney’s titles from their shelves. This also caused a stir, though not as much. The BBC reported it, as did The Guardian and other British news outlets. Naturally, the Jewish press was all over the case, as well.

I sympathize with the response of the bookstore chains, just as I was in favor of banning other individuals and brands that boycott Israel. At the same time, I understand why they are doing this, and I am glad that it is causing a stir in Israel.

We can look the other way for only so long. At some point, we will have to ask ourselves why the world hates us, and it is better if we do it now than later.

We need to use such incidents constructively. By “constructively,” I mean that we should use them as an impetus to return to the roots of our nation, to our fundamental principles of mutual responsibility and brotherly love. These are the building blocks of our nation, and these are the qualities that we lost long ago and for which we were exiled from Israel.

When we were cast as a nation that was to be “a light unto nations,” we were made to reflect the splendor of love of others to the entire world. Long before we gave the world Albert Einstein and Arthur Rubenstein, we gave it “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Granted, we did not quite manage to make it a reality, but the idea itself was, and still is, so novel, so unlike human nature, that to this day it seems undoable.

Still, the world will not leave us in peace until we begin to implement this very legacy we had left to humanity. Indeed, it makes perfect sense to demand that the progenitors of this sublime idea be the first to implement it.

The more the world becomes divided and hostile, the more it needs its opposite – love of others. The more people hate each other, the more they will demand that we love each other, and they will hate us for not doing so and setting an example for the world to follow.

In the near future, numerous celebrities, pundits, and politicians will declare their disapproval of Israel. They will not justify our existence as a sovereign state unless we justify it by setting an example of unity. Nothing else will satisfy them; nothing else will appease their hatred.

For more on this, see my publication The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Canopy – How Jews Can Break the Spell of Antisemitism”

It seems like a vicious circle: Every time Jews settle somewhere, the local population welcomes them, they prosper there and believe that they have found their “new Jerusalem,” new homeland, but right when they become complacent, their hosts turn against them, banish them or kill them, and often do both. Since the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem in the first century CE, they have been driven out from nearly one thousand places. If you stick a pin anywhere on a map of Earth, chances are that Jews lived there and were ousted from there.

We thought we were safe in England until we were driven out from there in the 13th century. We thought we were safe in Spain until they expelled us in the 15th century. We thought we were safe in Poland until we were butchered there in the 17th century. We thought we were safe in Russia until the pogroms of the late 19th century taught us better. We thought we were safe in Germany until the Nazis came and taught us that no place and no time are safe for the Jews.

Now, many of us still think we are safe in America and in Israel. We are not, and we mustn’t mistake complacency for safety.

Yet, this is not an unbreakable spell. If we conduct ourselves correctly, we can lift the curse and have a bright and prosperous future. For this, we must build a canopy of unity over our divisions, which will shelter us from the stormy clouds ahead.

We are nearing a critical point in the history of the world, and we Jews will be at its center, as we always have been. We will be accused of everything that is wrong in the world, as we always are, and there is a lot that is wrong with it today.

There will be no distinction between Jews in Israel and Jews abroad; all of us will face the world’s indictments. Moreover, the more we stall, the more momentum and intensity the hatred of the Jews will gain.

In the past, we could run from one country to another when things got bad. But one of the most important lessons we can learn from the Holocaust is that Germany was not alone in its hatred for the Jews. The Nazis were willing to expel the Jews right up to the Final Solution, but the developed countries closed their gates without exception. They even convened in Evian, France, for a special conference in 1938, where they decided not to grant German and Austrian Jews visas, while adding denunciation of how the Nazis are treating “their” Jews. Hitler took it as proof that the world tacitly agrees with his arguments against the Jews.

European Jewry had nowhere to run, and the vast majority of it was eliminated. Now we are facing a worldwide wave. If there was nowhere to go then, there is certainly nowhere to go now.

However, the ominous future does not mean that there is no hope. On the contrary, we have every reason to be hopeful since we have a key that can solve the problem in an instant if we only place it in the lock and turn it open.

Our shelter is not physical, but spiritual: It is our unity. As such, it needs no place, and we need not flee to one country or another. All we need is to find the strength within us to stop hating one another. After all, this is why we were expelled from Jerusalem in the first place.

It is beyond the span of such a short piece as this to detail their words, but our sages throughout the ages have advised us to do only one thing to avert trouble: unite. One by one, they promised that if we love each other as brothers, we will be safe from harm.

There have been too few times in history when we listened to them, and these times were so peaceful that we hardly hear of them today. It is simply that there were no wars, poverty, or division in Israel during those times; there was nothing “interesting” to report. Nevertheless, this is our way out of trouble; unity is our salvation. For more details on the merits of our unity, please look in my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Antisemitism.

Our unity will not give us any military strength. It is itself the source of our power since this is what the world wants to see from us—that we unite above our divisions. At a time of great division, humanity wants the Jews to lead not in cyber technologies, but in resolving social rifts through cohesion and solidarity.

When Henry Ford, a notorious antisemite, advised his readers to learn from the ancient Jewish society (see the book referenced above), this is what he aimed for. When member of the Russian Parliament Vasily Shulgin, a rabid antisemite, wrote in the early 20th century that if the Jews were teachers, he and all the Russians would follow them (again, see the reference above), he meant teachers in unity and love of others.

Unity is our shelter. If we build it, we will be safe and appreciated everywhere. The only benefit that can come from the rising wave of antisemitism is that if we turn to unity, we will save ourselves from harm and save the world from war. I hope we take the advice of our sages before the wave crests on us and breaks.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Ever-Complacent People”

In his book Israel, the Ever-Dying People, American thinker Simon Rawidowicz writes, “There was hardly a generation in the Diaspora that did not consider itself the final link in Israel’s chain.” Very poignant. At the same time, this statement is just as true: There was hardly a generation that was not complacent until it was too late. Why do we never learn? Why do we always think, “It’s just temporary; it’ll pass”? It never passes, and it never will pass until we realize the meaning of being Jewish and the onus we must carry even if against our will.

On October 25, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) released its annual State of Antisemitism in America report. AJC Managing Director of Public Affairs, Avi Mayer, writes that 90% of American Jews acknowledge that antisemitism is either a very serious problem or somewhat of a problem, and 82% of Jews think it has intensified over the past five years. The report also found that one in four Jews has been a victim of an antisemitic incident in the previous year alone.

What are American Jews doing about the situation? They are doing what Jews have always done—they adapt. According to the report, “Over the past year, many American Jews have changed their behavior, limiting their activities and concealing their Jewishness due to concerns about antisemitism.” Four out of ten American Jews have “avoided posting content online that would reveal their Jewishness or their views on Jewish issues, refrained from publicly wearing, carrying, or displaying items that might enable others to identify them as Jewish, or avoided certain places, events, or situations out of concern for their safety.”

However, keeping a low profile until the storm passes will not help. It never did, and it never will. It did not help us in Spain before the expulsion, it did not help us in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust, and it will not help us in America.

We could suggest that American Jews move to Israel. Antisemites in America certainly would not object to the idea, and Israel has always tried to cajole American Jews into making Aliyah [immigration to Israel]. But American Jews do not see Israel as their home. Just as German Jews saw Germany as their homeland and Berlin as their capital, American Jews see America as their homeland and Washington D.C. as their capital. In the near future, they are about to find out that most non-Jewish Americans do not agree with them on this.

There is a solution to antisemitism, but Jews hate the thought of it. This is why they have never used it until it was too late. In Nazi Germany, with the Nazis making every effort to make them leave for Palestine, only a trickle of German Jewry did so. By 1938, when many Jews realized that they had better leave or else… the British authorities, who had control over Palestine, had shut the doors, and the rest of the world denied their entry using multiple pretexts.

For this reason, I hope that this time, American Jewry will hear and spare itself the bitter fate: The solution to Jew-hatred is Jewish unity. Jews must unite not in order to tackle antisemitism, but to set an example of unity, and for no other reason.

It is not a coincidence that we had articulated for the world the ultimate expression of altruism: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is not a coincidence that we had outlined the basic principles of social welfare, and advocated for caring for others and compassion. It is also not a coincidence that the father of our nation, Abraham, was known not as a great conqueror, but as a man of mercy, who had built a nation through hospitality and kindness. And finally, it is not a coincidence that we coined the term “mutual responsibility,” the basis of a balanced and sustainable persistence of any society.

From the perspective of the nations of the world, it is not a coincidence that despite our great ingenuity and countless contributions in every area of human engagement, the world feels no gratitude toward us. It is not a coincidence that Jews are always accused of evildoing, even though such accusations almost never have anything to do with reality.

All those things are not coincidences because the world expects only one thing from the Jews: to be a role model of mercy, like their father, Abraham. When Jews unite and rise above all their differences, the world venerates them for their example and comes to learn from them. When they are divided, the world despises them, accuses them of every possible wrongdoing, and wants to see them gone.

This is the truth that we have always refused to acknowledge. However, until we acknowledge and accept it, the world will not accept us.

Below are two books and a webpage I have written, elaborating on the root cause of the most ancient hatred and how to dissolve it.

1. The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism

2. Like a Bundle of Reeds: why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour

3. Why Do People Hate Jews?
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My new article on Linkedin “When Will Conspiracies about Jews End?”

The latest fabrication about Jews is that we are profiting from the spread of the coronavirus. Who exactly are those Jewish profiteers? Is it all of them or just those who are scheming this? To the haters, it makes no difference. The only thing that matters is that the word “Jew” is attached once more to the word “blame.”

This isn’t new. We have been accused of every woe that humanity has ever suffered. Everything that upsets, offends, hurts, or otherwise displeases people, they often attribute to the Jews. Jews have suffered from blood libels such as baking matzahs (the Passover bread) with the blood of Christian children. In the Middle-Ages, they were accused of poisoning wells. Later, they were said to dominate the slave trade from Africa to America, and they have always been accused of disloyalty to the countries where they live.

When it comes to plagues, you can be certain that the blame will go to the Jews. We have been accused of causing the Black Death in the 14th century, spreading AIDS in the 20th century, and in this century, we are accused of spreading Covid-19.

Jews have also been accused of manipulating the media to serve their needs, and modernity has also created a new kind of blood libel, accusing Jews of organ harvesting. Moreover, Jews are often accused of conflicting “crimes.” Communists accused them of creating capitalism; capitalists accused them of inventing communism. Christians accused Jews of killing Jesus, and the French philosopher François Voltaire accused them of inventing and spreading Christianity.

In short, any view that people disagree with, they blame its invention on the Jews. As if all this is not enough, Jews have also been labeled as warmongers and as cowards, racists and cosmopolitans, spineless and unbending, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Yet, the fact that antisemitism is irrational does not mean that it is without merit, without a root that causes it. In fact, thinking that there is no reason for antisemitism is just as irrational as antisemitism itself. Just as there is no smoke without a fire, nothing can happen without something that causes it. In the case of Jew-hatred, that something has been fueling the fire for millennia. Therefore, since there is clearly a cause, we should find it, treat it if we can, and cure it before the flames burst once again and land another blow on our people.

So how will Jew-hatred end? I think we can find the answer in the words of Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly before the Nazis came to power. In 1929, he argued, “Anti-Semitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.”

We established our nationhood when we pledged to unite “as one man with one heart”; we were dispersed and exiled for hating one another for no reason; and we will regain our nationhood when we restore our unity. We were chosen to set an example, to be “a light unto nations,” and no declarations that we are like everyone else will help. Our “chosenness” has never been about science, culture, or ingenuity.

We have given the world Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Leonard Bernstein. A quarter of Nobel Prize laureates are Jewish, though we are only 0.2% of the world’s population, but is anyone thankful? I have yet to hear applause.

The world does not thank us for our contribution in these fields because this is not the contribution it expects from us. The world is not ungrateful; it is dissatisfied because it is not getting what it really needs from us: an example of unity.

Our sages have always told us that when we are united, we are so strong that no one can defeat us. It is true not because of our military might, but because our unity inverts the nations’ hatred toward us into respect and gratitude.

The more divided the world becomes, the more it grows antisemitic. It is not a conscious process, but a natural, instinctive reaction on the part of a world that awaits an example of unity, and no one can provide it but the group that has been designated to do so: the Jewish people.

We need not fight against antisemitism; it is a waste of time. We need to fight against our hatred for each other. This is the only cure for the growing Jew-hatred and the storm clouds amassing around the Jewish people once again.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some people think Jews are running the world?“

It comes from the fact that the method for the world’s correction resides in the Jewish people, and this method eventually has to spread globally, so that everybody uses this method and brings the world to a harmonious, peaceful and perfect state.

The nations of the world feel it internally, on the biological level. They don’t even know where it comes from, but they feel dependence on the Jews.

They feel that there’s something about the Jews that makes the Jews superior, that they have a kind of secret that they’re hiding from everyone, from the world, that the Jews have a method of correction for the world, and that they are perhaps waiting for a time when they can sell it for the highest price, that they will be able to control the world by it.

This is a natural thought that awakens in all nations. They started feeling it not long after the destruction of the Temple, and this will not go away until we will spread the method of correction to the world, that we will completely open ourselves and explain to ourselves and the world the state that we and the world are in.

Based on the video “Where Does the Thought That Jews Conspire to Rule the World Come From?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “Shipping Crisis Calls for Wising Up on Shopping”

Informally, Halloween, which is a few days away, begins a shopping season that stretches through the beginning of the following year. But this year, ships are stuck at sea, ports are jam-packed, and merchandise is not reaching the stores or the customers who ordered online. It appears as though many children and lovebirds will be disappointed this holiday season. From computer chips to cars, the world seems to be downsizing volumes, and I think it is a great thing for all of us.

Because we are unwilling to feel connected, nature forces us to realize it. We have been interdependent and interconnected for decades, if not more, but our attitude toward each other has been to exploit and harm one another wherever and whenever possible. We derive pleasure from others’ pain, oblivious to the fact that their suffering will eventually hurt us, too.

Now, using precise blows to our emotional soft spots, nature is making us see what we refuse to see: We are all connected. The shipping crisis will be a blessing for all of us if we wise up and understand what it is telling us about shopping, and about our attitude to one another as a whole.

When you create ties on the basis of trying to pull your way as hard as possible, at some point the ties will snap. This is what is happening today. All the systems of connection we have built are breaking, which affects every aspect of our lives—from food prices to gadgets to transportation, and to every realm of human engagement. We have built our entire system on egoism; can we expect it not to collapse?

Now we have no choice but to start thinking more in terms of “we” and less in terms of “me.” When it is clear that disruptions anywhere lead to disruptions everywhere, we cannot maintain abusive and exploitative attitudes toward other places or other people. We have to shift from thinking nationally to thinking globally, from an exclusive thinking to an inclusive one.

Eventually, we will need mechanisms to coordinate global activities, functioning mechanisms, not like the UN or its affiliates. But this will come later, after we change our thinking and build what needs to be built without trying to use it for power or exploitation.

In a world where plagues spread like the wind, production stops the world over, and food and gas prices spike everywhere, collaborative thinking is not optional; it is imperative. Cooperation is the only reasonable attitude, the only one that will change things for the better. If we keep pulling our own separate ways, the strings that tie us all together will snap and we will all fall painfully hard.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the root cause of antisemitism and collective hatred towards the Jewish people and their faith?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Jewish people bear the method of humanity’s correction, and negative phenomena in the world surface more and more due to the Jewish people’s failure to implement this method.

In other words, according to Kabbalah, Jews are responsible for the world’s correction. By failing to accept such a responsibility, and instead seeking to find success in this world, hatred against the Jews subconsciously dwells in non-Jews.

Antisemitism will continue until the Jewish people correct their connections up to a point where they unite “as one man with one heart,” and by spreading the method of such correction, they will realize their destiny as “a light unto the nations.”

If the Jewish people succeed in fulfilling their mission, it will act as a true solution for antisemitism. That is one of the points that the Kabbalah sages have stated throughout the generations. The Jewish people have to be corrected and connected, and through such unity, love will spread to the rest of the world. Then, all nations will respect and honor the Jews.

Based on the video, “What Is the Solution to Anti-Semitism?” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “When Jews Turn on Jews, So Does Netflix”

Last week, Netflix launched a new collection of Palestinian films professing to portray “the truth” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with 89% of the films being directed by BDS supporters, there is little hope that there will be any attempt to present a truthful, let alone balanced picture of reality. The films, which play on people’s most vulnerable emotional triggers, are bound to create even stronger anti-Israel sentiments than people feel already.

I share the frustration of those trying to fight against the demonization of Israel. However, I think that we are shooting ourselves in the foot by trying to explain ourselves instead of addressing our division, which is the root cause of the hatred toward us.

From the history of our people, and from the words of our sages at every generation, we know that the people of Israel determine their own destiny. The Book of Zohar (Pinhas 64) writes that Israel are not subject to fate or to luck; the Talmud (Shabbat 156a) states that Israel have no fate, meaning that they are not bound by it; and other sources state likewise.

When you look at how the world treats Jews, it is easy to see that we are always singled out, usually for condemnation. Jews were condemned before they were allowed to mingle with the nations in the Diaspora; Jews were singled out before there was a Jewish state; Jews are singled out now that there is a state; and if the Jewish state ceases to exist and a Palestinian state is established in its place, they will still be singled out for condemnation. Jews have been persecuted and executed for different reasons at different times because the root of Jew-hatred has nothing to do with the present circumstances of the Jews, but with their eternal duty. Until they carry it out, the world will hate them and despise them. When they carry it out, the world will love and appreciate them.

The world is not wrong in its attitude toward the Jews; we are not like other people. The nations judge us by a different standard not because they are antisemitic, but because we became a nation in order to set a different standard for the world. The world judges us by the standard we are meant to achieve, and not by the standards it judges the rest of the nations.

The standard that the world uses to judge us is the standard of unity. When we are united, we are praised; when we are divided, we are condemned. We became a nation only when we agreed to unite “as one man with one heart,” and we were immediately tasked with being “a light unto nations.” Only when we display unity, we are a light to the nations; when we are divided, we spread darkness and the world hates us for it.

According to the book Sifrey Devarim, in antiquity, when Jews celebrated their unity during the festivals of pilgrimage, people from the world over would “go up to Jerusalem and see Israel … and say, ‘It is becoming to cling only to this nation.’” Conversely, the Talmud (Yoma 9b) explains that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel and destroyed the First Temple because the people of Israel spoke to one another “with daggers in their tongues.” Similarly, the Second Temple was destroyed by Sina’at Hinam (unfounded hatred, hatred for no reason), say all our sages. Our cataclysms throughout history have all followed prolonged periods of division and self-hatred.

I have spoken to prominent Israeli academics who are active in the BDS movement; I saw how adamant they are in their objection to the State of Israel. In my view, subconsciously, they are trying to protect themselves by showing hatred for their own people. However, condemning their own nation and their own people will not help them escape the world’s wrath. Only our unity, precisely above those deep chasms that splinter the Israeli society will earn us the world’s favor.

We have to focus on educating ourselves on the importance of internal unity. This is the only thing we can or should do. If more Israelis understand the unique role of our people, the level of cohesion and solidarity that our nation is required to achieve, we will merit the world’s respect, and ultimately affection. But if we shun our vocation and choose division, then Netflix’s antisemitic films will be the least of our problems.

To elaborate on the topic, and to get a more historic perspective on the significance of unity precisely for the Jewish people, read my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Antisemitism.
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