Campus Currents

By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez
Publications Intern

Rabbi Sam Blumberg said people often cause harm to others inadvertently just from a lack of background or understanding.

In response, it’s best to have some compassion while trying our best to avoid making the same mistakes, he said.

Blumberg spoke at a discussion on antisemitism given at the Center for Inclusive Excellence , where he shared its history and how it’s still impacting people today, especially in the United States.

He said the preferred way to spell antisemitism is without any dashes and in all lowercase letters, though some people prefer to call it “Jew hatred.”

Blumberg defined antisemitism as “prejudice toward or hatred against Jews.”

He went over three different “streams of antisemitism” which he believes are important to know in order to better understand American antisemitism.

The first stream is theological antisemitism, he said.

It is “really religious hatred against Jews that comes from a religious place specifically,” Blumberg said.

Even early on Jewish people were “othered” for being monotheists among polytheists, he said. This meant they believed in one God while other people believed in several.

Blumberg said there are still differences today that set Jewish people apart, such as dietary restrictions, circumcision, ritual clothing, and more.

The second stream is economic antisemitism, he said.

In medieval Europe, Jewish people were barred from many professions but were allowed by the church to go into money lending, something Christians were barred from, he said.

The Jewish people could not serve in the military, hold civil service positions, or own land in much of Europe, he said.

For over a thousand years Jewish people have been connected to money in some way, which ties into an antisemitism trope still seen today, he said.

“It actually comes from more than a thousand years ago, from a place where there’s a kernel of truth,” Blumberg said.

The last stream is political or social antisemitism, he said.

Throughout history Jewish people were blamed for society’s problems, such as the Black Death, he said.

Another example is the myth that Germany lost WWI because of being betrayed by the Jewish people, he said.

“If you can put a problem onto a people, especially a minority, you have an easy answer to a much more challenging problem,” Blumberg said.