The eternal mystery of the self-hating Jew
The long history of Jews who loathed their brethren may help us understand those who do so today.
Among many Jews, there are few questions more fraught than that of self-hatred. Today, with self-hating Jews supporting openly genocidal antisemites, the question is all the more pressing.
At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. The overwhelming majority of world Jewry supports Israel in general and in its current war. At the same time, that overwhelming majority is enraged at and frightened by the wave of antisemitism unleashed by the Red-Green Alliance between the progressive left and Muslim antisemites. In this sense, self-hating Jews have never been less relevant to Jewish life.
Nonetheless, they are there and their effect is profoundly deleterious. In particular, the provide the antisemites with the perfect excuse, so often expressed that it has become a banal cliche: Since some Jews oppose Israel and support us, we can’t be antisemitic.
While we should take some comfort in the fact that today’s antisemites are still reluctant to acknowledge their antisemitism, we should not discount the effectiveness of this argument in the eyes of non-Jews.
Jews often forget that almost all non-Jews are wholly ignorant of Judaism, the Jewish community’s internal politics, and the views of the Jewish majority. As a result, it is disturbingly easy for non-Jews to accept the antisemites’ argument and conclude that there is no reason to properly stigmatize the antisemites.
Thankfully, the antisemites’ defense is less effective at the moment than it has been in the past. Though left largely unreported by the media, large numbers—perhaps a majority—of non-Jews were horrified by Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities. They find the mass demonstrations in support of the massacre repulsive and the pro-genocide protester-terrorists disgusting. Moreover, particularly in Europe, there is growing acknowledgement that, if the Red-Green Alliance grows stronger, non-Jews may well be the next to be massacred.
Still, self-hating Jews remain a weapon that could become more potent as Israel’s war drags on. In addition, thanks to social media, the world now has the attention span of a gnat. As a result, the memories of the Oct. 7 horror may soon fade. The desire to appease the Red-Green Alliance, which has shown a terrifying capacity for nihilistic violence, could grow stronger. In such a situation, self-hating Jews will be essential to the Alliance’s war on the Jews.
This makes the self-hating Jew a phenomenon that is essential to understand. The problem with this is that, for centuries, it has been remarkably stubborn in its capacity to defy understanding.
II.
The self-hating Jew is certainly not a modern phenomenon. Since ancient times, there have been Jews who rejected their identity and actively sought to harm their former brethren. Nonetheless, it is important to point out how remarkably rare the phenomenon has been—as it is today. The paradox is that the very rarity of such Jews allows them to do wildly disproportionate damage. By exploiting their knowledge of Judaism and the cache that their former identity gives them as unimpeachable witnesses, they have caused considerable carnage.
Religious Jews today often point to the mityavnim, the “Hellenists” or “Hellenizers” of the Maccabean era, as the first self-hating Jews. The term refers to the Jews who assimilated into the prevailing Greek culture that emerged following the conquests of Alexander the Great. In the stories surrounding Hanukkah, the Hellenizers are identified as collaborators with oppressive non-Jewish authorities; authorities that sought to destroy Jewish religion and culture in the Land of Israel. The Maccabean revolt, it is said, was as much against the Hellenizers as against the Seleucid Empire that ruled the Land.
In religious discourse, this archetype of the “Hellenizer” as self-hating Jew or Jewish antisemite is often expanded to include all Jews of assimilationist or simply secular tendencies. In its most extreme form, the late far-right rabbi Meir Kahane used it to refer to any Jew who disagreed with Meir Kahane. Still, it is a potent image and describes a phenomenon that is not entirely exaggerated: The Jew who, by adopting or assimilating into non-Jewish culture, ends up hating himself and his people.
It does not appear, however, that this form of extreme “Hellenization” was widespread or common in the ancient world. Enormous numbers of ancient Jews in the Land of Israel and the great centers of the Diaspora like Alexandria adopted Greek culture and language to a certain extent. Indeed, it appears that many of them lost the ability to read or speak Hebrew, requiring the first translations of the Bible into Greek.
Nonetheless, almost none of these Hellenized Jews were actively hostile toward their own people. Many of them, such as the philosopher Philo, were fiercely loyal to their communities, defended them against their enemies, and advocated for them before the non-Jewish authorities. The Kitos War of 115-117 CE indicates that Jewish identity in the largely Greek-speaking Diaspora was firm enough to result in a widespread and extremely violent revolt. Even the historian Josephus, who had surrendered to the Romans in the Jewish Revolt of 66–74 CE and become the client of the imperial Flavian dynasty that destroyed the Temple, wrote the lengthy essay Against Apion in order to denounce the Jews’ ancient opponents. The Hellenized Jews may have assimilated, but they did not abandon.
One notable exception was Tiberius Julius Alexander, the scion of a prominent Alexandrian Jewish family who became a high-ranking Roman military and political official. The Alexandrian Jews were often subjected to anti-Jewish violence, and during one clash with the non-Jews of the region, Tiberius led the Roman military response that put down the Jews to devastating effect. He also took part in the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE and thus played a part in the Temple’s destruction, though to what extent is not clear. In this case, we have a Jew who became so Romanized that, for all intents and purposes, he was not a Roman first and a Jew second, but a Roman only. This exchange of identities permitted him to commit horrendous violence against his own people.
In some ways, the most famous of all the “Hellenizing” villains was Elisha ben Abuyah, a prominent Torah sage who became a heretic. In the rabbinic literature, he is an archetypal character, usually referred to only as “Acher”—“the Other.” It is said that he embraced heresy due to his proclivities for Greek culture and eventually became a violent hater of his people, going so far as to murder Torah students.
It is not clear precisely what occasioned Elisha’s heresy. Besides the influence of Greek culture, it is also said that he misinterpreted a mystical vision of God’s throne, leading him to heretical dualism, and that he witnessed events that led him to question the existence of divine justice. Obviously, much of this is legendary, but in general terms, it seems clear that Elisha grew disillusioned with rabbinic Judaism and either embraced heresy or became something as close to an atheist as was possible at the time. Whether he then turned to violent anti-Jewish actions is uncertain, but it is by no means impossible.
The real truth about Elisha ben Abuyah can never be known. In a sense, however, the historical truth is somewhat irrelevant. In the rabbinic literature, Elisha is less a historical figure than a literary personification of a specific type: The Jew who is or becomes “acher”—other to his people. In rabbinic thought, such a Jew is created by the failure of religious principle or, in a sense, religious courage. Faced with the pressures of the outside world and forced into doubt by what the orthodox consider irresponsible theological or mystical speculations, this Jew eventually casts the principles of Judaism aside.
This “other” goes further than that, however. He does not simply go on his way in a non-Jewish life. He turns to destroy the life he has left.
This is described metaphorically in the Talmudic story of four rabbis, including Elisha, who enter “the orchard”—usually interpreted as a mystical vision of God and the divine throne. The Talmud recounts that one rabbi died, another went insane, and one emerged safely. Of Elisha, it is said, “Acher chopped down the saplings.” It was not enough for Elisha to leave the orchard unenlightened; he had to destroy what he found.
The Middle Ages made clear the enormous importance of the role played by such apostates in attacks on both Jews and Judaism itself. Most striking of all is that the earliest incidence of the blood libel appears to have been either prompted or buttressed by the claims of an apostate.
In 1144, the Jewish community of Norwich, England was accused of the ritual murder of a boy named William, who would be hailed as a martyr and given the unofficial title “Saint William of Norwich,” though he was never officially canonized. The details of the case and the accusers’ sadistic fantasies of the tortures to which the Jews had allegedly subjected William are too complex to be fully described here. Importantly, however, it appears that the ultimate source or at least confirmation of the blood accusation came from an apostate Jew.
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