Haman’s Antisemitism: Gems of Torah for (Shushan) Purim, March 15, 2025

From <https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/289568/a-misunderstanding-about-anti-semitism>

Abigail, I am glad you remember my aside that “an antisemite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary.” It makes us laugh, but it should also make us think. This pithy observation, which is often attributed to the late philosopher and intellectual giant Isaiah Berlin, provides a simple and useful tool for identifying prejudice.3 Imagine that someone has done something you find objectionable. You may legitimately resent the person because of his or her actions or attitudes. But if you resent him even an iota more because this person is Jewish, that is antisemitism.

Lipstadt, Deborah E.. Antisemitism: Here and Now (pp. 13-14). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In Megillat Esther (the scroll of Esther), the term יהודי (Yehudi) reflects a religious affiliation (Jew) and not a political one (Judean). Thus Mordecai, although from the tribe of Benjamin, is described as a Jew (2:5) and thinks of himself as a Jew (3:4).^[8] In fact, the epithet היהודי (“the Jew”) appears in the Bible only in Megillat Esther, and only in the phrase Mordecai the Jew, which is found six times (5:13, 6:10, 8:7, 9:29, 9:31, 10:3). Similarly, when it becomes clear that the king backs the Jews, many Persians convert out of fear or pretend to be Jews; the word used is “become Jewish” (מתיהדים; 8:17) which may mean joining the religious (or ethnic) group.^[9] It does not mean “becoming Judeans.”



As a corollary to this, Haman’s plan is to destroy Jews, not the polity of Judea. This is clear from Haman’s description of Jews as being spread throughout the empire, even at a time when Judea exists as the province of Yehud. Moreover, those who join with Haman to kill Jews are described not merely as Haman’s followers or seekers of easy plunder, but as “enemies” (אויבים) or even “haters” (שונאים) of Jews (8:13, 9:1, 5, 16). Thus, it seems clear that the megillah is describing antisemitism.



Prof. Rabbi Marty Lockshin

https://www.thetorah.com/article/hamans-antisemitism-what-did-he-not-like-about-the-jews

Septuagint translation of Esther (~100 BCE)

…[A]mong all the nations in the world there is scattered a certain hostile people, who have laws contrary to those of every nation and continually disregard the ordinances of the kings, so that the unifying of the kingdom which we honorably intend cannot be brought about. We understand that this people, and it alone, stands constantly in opposition to all men, perversely following a strange manner of life and laws, and is ill-disposed to our government, doing all the harm they can so that our kingdom may not attain stability.

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

[T]hat there was a certain wicked nation scattered throughout the habitable land ruled by him, which was unfriendly and unsocial [emphasis added] and neither had the same religion nor practiced the same laws as others, “but both by its customs and practices it is the enemy of your people and of all mankind.”

In the last few centuries, ironically, the book of Esther became associated with antisemitism in a new way. A number of non-Jewish writers used commentaries on Esther as a springboard for venting their own antisemitic thoughts. Martin Luther once wrote: “I am so hostile to this book that I wish that it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much, and has too much heathen naughtiness.”



...The border between biblical scholarship and antisemitism was often blurred, for example in this 1908 summary of the moral teaching of the book by Lewis Bayles Patton, professor of Bible at Hartford Theological Seminary, published in the International Critical Commentary, the major English commentary series of this era:



"There is not one noble character in this book… Esther, for the chance of winning wealth and power, takes her place in the herd of maidens who become concubines of the King… She conceals her origin, is relentless toward a fallen enemy… Mordechai sacrifices his cousin to advance his interests, advises her to conceal her religion, displays wanton insolence in his refusal to bow down to Haman… All this the author narrates with interest and approval. Morally Esther falls below the general level of the OT [Old Testament], and even of the Apocrypha…. It is never quoted by Christ, nor any of the NT [New Testament] writers. The early Christian Church made no use of it…. In significant contrast… stands the high esteem of the book in later Judaism."



In the same decade, John Edgar McFayden, professor of Bible at Knox College (affiliated with the University of Toronto) wrote in his Introduction to the Old Testament that the book of Esther was characterized by “aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside Judaism,” and opined that the book’s popularity was due primarily “to the power with which it expresses some of the most characteristic, if almost odious, traits of Judaism.”



Prof. Rabbi Marty Lockshin

https://www.thetorah.com/article/hamans-antisemitism-what-did-he-not-like-about-the-jews

Antisemitism is not simply the hatred of something “foreign,” but the hatred of a perpetual evil in the world. Jews are not an enemy but the ultimate enemy. This hatred is ubiquitous. It has persisted through the millennia, through different cultures. It has been present in many geographic areas—including those with no Jews in residence. It has permeated an array of ideologies, even the resolutely atheistic Marxism.



It’s important for you to understand that antisemitism, as is the case with any prejudice, exists independently of any action by Jews. Sometimes, an accusation against a particular Jew, or even a group of Jews, may be correct. There are some Jews who are obsessed with money or who mistreat their employees. But the same can be said about certain non-Jews. Saying that “of course X is obsessed with money; he’s a Jew, isn’t he?” is antisemitic. Antisemitism is not the hatred of people who happen to be Jews. It is hatred of them because they are Jews.



Lipstadt, Deborah E.. Antisemitism: Here and Now (pp. 18-19). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Anti-Semitism isn’t just a matter of asserting unpleasant or reprehensible attributes. It sees the Jew as an antinomian threat, overturning all ethical laws. The Jew works in secret, creating invisible alliances, pulling elaborate strings, undermining society’s foundations. This is why the Protocols of the Elders of Zion has found such a fertile international ground. That 19th-century document purports to be the secret minutes of such a plotting ensemble of Jews. It is the counterfeit confirmation of a long-held belief.





From <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/books/06antisemtism.html>







To speak of “the Jews” in the aggregate, as though they form a monolithic super-entity with a single view and agenda, is exactly the kind of thinking that gutter anti-Semitism embraces in every age.



From <https://www.the-american-interest.com/2012/05/13/the-bbc-and-the-jews/>

Anti-Semitism, however, is a unique case — and uniquely corrosive to those societies that embrace it. That’s because it often takes the form of a conspiracy theory about how the world works. By blaming real problems on imagined Jewish culprits, anti-Semitism prevents societies from rationally solving them. In one of the most famous examples, Nazi scientists shunned Einstein’s advances as “Jüdische Physik,” as opposed to “Deutsche Physik,” enfeebling their understanding.



As Bard College’s Walter Russell Mead has put it: “People who think ‘the Jews’ dominate business through hidden structures can’t build or long maintain a successful modern economy. People who think ‘the Jews’ dominate politics lose their ability to interpret political events, to diagnose social evils and to organize effectively for positive change. People who think ‘the Jews’ run the media and control the news lose the ability to grasp what is happening around them.” For this reason, Mead has warned, “Rabid anti-Semitism coupled with an addiction to implausible conspiracy theories is a very strong predictor of national doom.” This is one case where the hatred ultimately destroys the hater.

By Yair Rosenberg

From