Voices
We should not create a religion of victimhood
Lord Jonathan Sacks, (the former Chief Rabbi of Britain) has said that if the focus of Judaism is only on the Holocaust, then young people won’t want to remain Jewish. In fact, I know of a young man with a Jewish mother who hides his religious origin in case he somehow gets shipped off to a concentration camp.
Martin Zagnoev, Johannesburg
While the Holocaust is by far the worst tragedy to have befallen us, we have come to almost believe that it is a common occurrence, thus adding tragedy to tragedy in our minds. Having experienced a rich, 4 000-year history, it would be a pity to focus mostly on this event. And doing so would be a victory for Hitler.
A recent study has found that young European Jews are not interested in identifying with a religion of victimhood.While there have been difficult times, there is no need for us to wallow in self-pity because there have also been good times and we have contributed so much.
Since it would require an entire book to describe how much our nation has contributed towards the world, consider just a few of them:
Jews have transformed the world by introducing monotheism, the bible and the Ten Commandments. The two greatest religions (Christianity and Islam) are offshoots of Judaism.
There are those who believe that Hinduism and Buddhism are also derived from Judaism (see Rabbi Glazerson’s book on the subject). More recently the Kabbalah has caught the popular imagination of gentiles.
While Jews make up less than one per cent of the world population, they have received over 20 per cent of Nobel Prizes.
Here in South Africa, most of the white anti-apartheid activists were Jews.
Rather than being proud of these and other contributions, we tend to spend much of our time worrying about the negatives and experience high levels of depression and anxiety, instead.
Some might argue that it is necessary to be vigilant to ensure our survival. This is true, but too much vigilance will wear us out and weaken us.
Historian Max Isaac Dimont has written that Jewish historians have exaggerated the extent of our sufferings. He also wrote that various Jewish expulsions were not motivated by hatred, as we assume, but so that the kings could get hold of our people’s property.
We are living in an era with low levels of anti-Semitism, but heightened fears of this dread remain.
Although many government leaders support the Palestinians, the vast majority of black South Africans are not anti-Semitic.