THE WANDERING AMALEK
Purim, February, 1941
PEOPLE speak of us as “the wandering Jew.” The wandering Jew does not travel alone; he is accompanied by the wandering Amalek. Wherever the Jew may go, Amalek follows on his heels. We have known him since first we made our appearance on the stage of the world’s history. Amalek has driven us from country to country, he has followed us from nation to nation. It has always been the same story: Jews fleeing from oppression, wandering on deserted tracks, hoping for rest, longing for safety, and when they thought that they found it at last—**Exodus, XVII, 8.“Then came Amalek”. Jews run from Amalek, but Amalek is everywhere. They say the Jew is ubiquitous, much more so is Amalek. They call us international, much more so is Amalek.
“Then came Amalek.” Once more Amalek has come; but this time he has laid aside his mask and revealed himself in his true shape. This time he has come not only to us Jews, but, like a lightning scourge, he has swooped down on the nations and the whole of mankind. For the first time in history he has revealed himself in his true colours. Amalek! The enemy of the Jew, the enemy of the world.
This, of course, must have been a very unpleasant surprise to those who had some sneaking regard for Amalek, the Jew-baiter. There is, however, nothing new in Amalek being the enemy of mankind. This has always been so. Whether people saw it or not, our enemies were always the enemies of progress and happiness.
For why does Amalek hate us? There are many people, and very often even Jews, who are always prepared to point to certain faults of the Jewish character, or to certain forms of Jewish behaviour, as the causes of anti-Semitism. When a non-Jewish clergyman not long ago in a letter to the Jewish Press suggested in all good faith and with the best intentions that the reason why the Jews were hated was because they were no longer good Jews, we were treated to the absurd spectacle of a number of Jews rushing into print to prove that his theory was ridiculous, and that the faults for which the Jews are blamed are not their faults, or that they are not responsible for them.
Of course, we do have our faults. We do not wish to be angels. We go even further and declare that in claiming our right to live we claim the right to have faults like any other nation on earth. Whoever denies us the right to human shortcomings is at the bottom of his heart denying us the right to live. Yes, we do have our faults. But only the most narrow-minded can think even for a single moment that we are hated because of our faults. Ask the record of the world to give evidence. When have the nations hated out of moral indignation? How often has it happened in human history? When has the world at large hated faults and loved moral perfection? It is true that once upon a time there lived a Jewish prophet who called for such a hatred and such a love, a prophet who, witnessing social injustice, the exploitation of the poor, the persecution of the weak, called out in the anguish of this soul: **Amos V, 15.“Hate the evil, and love the good”. But when did men listen to him? When did they hate evil as they can hate, and when did they love good as they can love?
The general history of the nations fully explains the particular history of the Jew. Moral considerations have hardly ever in history determined the objects of hatred or love. The story of love and hatred among nations as told by history shows that nations love themselves and as a consequence they will love the lie that subserves their selfish interests, they will love the evil that will lead to the attainment of their aims, they will love every crime and every vice that will help them to satisfy their boundless self-love. They can hate too, and how they hate everything that stands in their way! They hate justice if it attempts to interfere with their machinations or to curb the gratification of their desires: they hate decency, if it bids them to abandon their plottings against the happiness of others. But faults? They do not hate faults. The idea of an anti-Semitism created by Jewish faults, as an expression of moral indignation sustained for 2,000 years, is contrary to all historic experience, it is a fairy tale that can only be believed by cretins and hypocrites.
All historic experience goes to show that peoples and nations have always been so wrapped in self-love as to resent everything that is strange to them, everything that differs from them. The more unusual a thing is, the stranger it appears, the more is it resented. Normally, however, the general aversion against the stranger is kept in check by certain considerations. For instance, one cannot always hit him when one would wish to, for most probably he will hit back. But what if there need be no fear of retaliation, and what if the person whom you resent but need not fear is the strangest among all the strangers, differing from you most? Then, naturally, the aversion becomes more intense. Then, there is but one thing that can control it: humanity, justice, the love of good and the hatred of evil. And if people do not hate evil, they will love only themselves and hate everything that is not themselves and can be hated without fear of reprisals.
These rules derived from historic experience are, in the main, sufficient explanation of anti-Semitism. Jews are hated because they differ and dare to differ without having a hard fist to defend themselves when the necessity arises. We are hated not because this or that is wrong with us, but because much is foul in the world at large.
Amalek stands for the person who lives by uncontrolled impulses, by animal instincts. He hates because he is a hater. He hates us because he follows the line of least resistance and in doing so he is able to trample justice and human dignity underfoot without risk of retaliation. But he hates not only us. He is the enemy of the world to the same extent as he is our enemy; as he hates us, so does he disdain decency and justice.
And again Amalek has come; not only over us, but as a consuming pestilence over the world. This time he is mightier than he ever was in the past and for this reason he has had the audacity to strip himself of his old disguise. This time he stands before the world in all his naked brutality and hideous ugliness, exposing himself and all the other little Amalekites who were still pretending to hate Jews because of this or that. He has torn the mask from all of them and has taught the world once again that the enemy of the Jew is the enemy of mankind. It is time that the world learned the lesson.
He who denies justice to the Jew will deny justice to anyone else whenever it suits his purpose.
He who repudiates decency in his dealings with Jews will do the same whenever he is able to afford it in his dealings with non-Jews.
He who treads the human dignity of the Jew under his feet has no respect for the dignity of other human beings either.
It is time that all this should be understood and acted upon in the best interest of all mankind.
In these days there is much talk about the coming of a new and better world which is to be built on the ruins of the past. What is to be the place of the Jew, of the Jewish nation in this New World? We hear almost nothing about it. In fact, a suspicious silence is kept on this question. On the other hand, we have witnessed certain actions on the part of those who are fighting for that better world which are not encouraging at all. Remember the shameful regulations concerning Jewish internees in one of the camps in Canada. Think of the disgusting treatment of refugees who were fortunate enough to escape from enemy-occupied territories and succeeded in reaching the shores of Palestine. After having been rendered homeless (partly also thanks to the stupidity and hypocrisy of “democratic” policy in the years before the war), now they have been deported like criminals in their hundreds, men, women and children, to some unknown destination.
We do not know what this New World will look like. But here I give the most reliable method of proving its real worth: what is the plight of the Jew in the New World?—this will be the test. Have the wrongs been righted, has justice been done to this nation? The answer to this question will tell of the sincerity of the New Order. For here you have a nation, claiming its right to live, which is unable to back up its claim by huge armies and by might, a nation that is claiming its right in the name of right, that can back its claim only by the moral conscience of the world. The measure of justice the world is prepared to grant this nation is the measure for the acknowledgment of all true justice on earth.
Once more Amalek has come; not only over us but over the whole of mankind. Will the nations understand the meaning of this lesson? Will they learn that justice as well as freedom is indivisible: that there can never be one measure of justice and freedom for the use of the Jews and another for the mighty masters of the earth? Will a new period of human history open in which the watchword will be: “Hate the evil and love the good”? Or shall we again be disappointed?