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The Causes of Anti-Semitism: A Critique of the Bible

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I've read Arthur Blech's Causes of Anti-Semitism and found it shed much needed light on a topic few want to discuss seriously. Another review on this site suggested that Blech offers no solutions to the causes of anti-semitism. Actually, he offers this important insight--unless the major religions (Christianity and Judaism) and their leaders change the hatred and bigotry in the Bible there can be no end to anti-semitism. The very use of the Bible with its inflammatory words against Jews in the Old & New Testaments, will ensure that people continue to be filled with animosity against the Jews.

Blech offers an answer--rid the Bible of its inherent ant-Semitism and start a real dialogue among Christians and Jews. One may not like Blech's views (seeing the truth is hard for many) but that doesn't mean they aren't accurate. And we certainly shoudn't shoot the messenger.

Arthur Blech has written a courageous book. Required reading for those seeking truth.

After reading this book one can only wonder how no one has ever brought many of these points to light. This book will cause many to re-think their concepts of both Christianity and Judaism and how they became what they are today. This is only one of but a few things this book has done for me. Through well thought out arguments and evidence, Arthur Blech shows, using the Bible as his main references, how anti-Semitism has been propagated by the upper echelons of both the Christian and Jewish hierarchies and even by some of the most important names in Biblical history. The contradictions Mr. Blech points out are many, yet the flaws in his logic are almost non-existent.

This book will make a whole lotta people mad and I'm okay with that. It's about time someone had the guts to tell the truth in such a clear, unbiased way.

Finding the roots of Anti-Semitism in The New Testament is not novel, but Blech in a well reasoned polemic digs deeper and finds the ultimate cause to be the exclusivity fostered by the Jewish religious establishment, first the priests and then their successors, the rabbis, the compilers of the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible canon. The latter, also, because out of the writings then current that they could have been deemed scripture they chose to include in the Hebrew Bible many that provided fertile ground for charging Jews with being an accursed nation. Undoubtably the book is offensive to many readers, Jews and Christians, but I found the thesis to be well reasoned and supported by the evidence. The author is a secular Jew ; I find no sign that he is a self- hating Jew. My only criticism is that the book could use better editing , and , if polemical it is justifiably so, considering that millions have died because of greed and superstition if the author is correct.

Book Summary:

According to the author, the causes of anti-semitism are two-fold:

1) Christian philosophy is at its essence anti-jewish and antisemitic. Anti-semitism springs from the writings of Paul and the writers of the Gospels. These invented works canonize anti-jewish sentiments such as the diecide of Jesus by the Jews. This led to the invention of the charges of ritual murder and blood libels during the middle ages. Further grooming of these falsehoods by Martin Luther led to a culture of intense hatred of Jews in Germany...which led to the Nazi's and the holocaust.

2) The Torah (Old Testament) and the Jews are contributorily negligent in allowing anti-semitism to thrive by "preaching exclusivity, separateness, [and the] special election and holiness of Jews to the exclusion of all other peoples...."

My thoughts and opinions about this book:

1) The book is difficult to read. Rampant use of run-on sentences. Overuse of numbered paragraphs. Confusing chapter breakdowns make the work flow funny. Not to mention that the book reads like a rant against both Judaism and Christianity instead of a valid critique of the bible.

2) The book is not scholarly. The author uses The Old and New Testaments as his primary sources of evidence. There are no footnotes. There are plenty of High School style parenthetical references like this: (31-45:3) which are confusing and do not always make sense. The author sometimes makes unwarranted assumptions, appeals to false authorities, just to name a few logical errors.

3) The author is terribly biased by his life experiences. He was unable to divorce himself from the horrors of the Holocaust to delve into the origins of anti-semitism.

4) He hit the nail on the head as far as the broad generalizations about how anti-semitism originated. However, he failed to convincingly address WHY anti-semitism occurs. How would the author explain why the Japanese and Chinese who are primarily non-Christians, hate Jews? How did anti-semitism arise in a secular fascist state like Germany? In a secular Israel by Palestinians? In Arab countries against Jews? Etc.

5) The books critique of the Bible is interesting and thought provoking even though it reads like a rant against the Bible. It seems that the author believes that both the old and new testaments are fictious, and completely false. The critique could use much in the way of improvement.

6) The tone of the book is insensitive, insulting and denigrating to religious people. I can not imagine recommending this book to an Orthodox Jew or to devout Catholic. A slight change in tone would render this book valuable to the religious-minded.

7) The author offers no solutions. According to him, nothing can be done to combat anti-semitism. What hogwash.

As a student of life (and history) I loved this book. Seldom do works of such powerful truth come along to shatter conventional thinking backed by irrefutable research. Blech is to be commended for taking a brave stand against the powers-that-be. He doesn't simply place blame on Christians for hating Jews, he takes on both Christians and Jews--and identifies exactly the Who, What, Where, Why and How anti-semitism came about...and sadly, continues to thrive.

Everyone should skip church or temple next weekend and read this book.

You would think a book like this would be a very dry read, but you would be wrong. The way it challenges ideas that so many of us (both Christian and Jew) hold to be fundamental truths kept me turning pages for hours on end. I also liked the way the author was both even-handed and logical in dealing with the roots of anti-Semitism. While not glossing over the ancient and more modern traditions of Christian anti-Semitism, Blech rightly points to the inherent "separateness" of Jewish communities around the world as playing a part. Though he misses some finer points in his arguments (for example, there were no "civic celebrations" in the ancient pagan world in which Jews - or Christians, for that matter - could participate while being true to their religion), this is a good read, especially for those with a working knowledge of both books of the Bible.

The Old Testament is only a partially-true historical document, created by and for jews only. The New Testament doesn't have the cachet for trustworthiness. Religion is strictly the effect of mental conditioning so when reading this book, which may try to make sense without actually mentioning the reasons religions exist, keep in mind (pun intended) that the contradictions found in the bible are really meaningless as there is no jewish god, and Jesusianity (erroneously called christianity) has no historical evidence to support it.