“And Those Who Curse You, I Will Curse”

The Biblical promise plays out in deformations of thinking, a collective irrationality that both reflects a society in decline and accelerates that decline. Historian Paul Johnson, author of The History of the Jews, distinguished anti-Semitism from racism, which he took to be an innate tendency in all human means. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, he argued, is “an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive.

“Though a disease of the mind,” Johnson argued, “it is by no means confined to weak, feeble or commonplace intellects…. Its carriers have included men and women of otherwise powerful and subtle thoughts.” The fundamental characteristic of anti-Semitism worldwide over two thousand years, according to Johnson, is its irrationality: “In the whole of history, it is hard to point to a single occasion when a wave of anti-Semitism was provoked by a real Jewish threat….”

That irrationality is one reason that anti-Semitism has such a negative impact on those societies in which it flourishes: Irrationality spreads, as holders of irrational beliefs try to square those beliefs with everything else they know, or think they know. That is why, for instance, conspiracy theories become ever more convoluted over time. Candace Owens, who once upon a time did a good imitation of an articulate, well-reasoned human being, provides as excellent example of the phenomenon. With each passing day, she appears more unhinged in her promotion of ever wilder conspiracy theories.

Anti-Semitism harms the host society by depriving it of one of its deepest sources of talent. Economists regularly explain that societies that deny education and opportunities to roughly half their populations — i.e., the female half — will inevitably fall behind. And so it is with societies that deny opportunities to their Jewish populations. Just consider the impact that Jewish immigrants from the FSU have had on the United States and Israel in a variety of areas, including Torah learning.