Answering the Question: Why the Jews?

August 24, 2010

Dear Fellowship Friend,

In June, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a Jewish elder care home in Metz, France. Two months prior to that, in Argentina, swastikas and phrases such as "Morten Juden" (death to Jews) were spray painted near a hotel where more than 200 people were celebrating Passover. Two months prior to that, a synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida, was vandalized and scrawled with anti-Semitic slurs.

These are just three of the latest examples of anti-Semitism in the world today, showing that — contrary to what some maintain — what one author called "the longest and deepest hatred of human history" is alive and well. While incidents like these, and far too many more like them, illustrate that the reality of anti-Semitism is difficult to refute, its continued existence from ancient times into the present day begs one question: Why?

This is the query Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, and Joseph Telushkin, a rabbi and scholar, tackled in their landmark 1983 book, Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism. The book explores the unique reasons behind the hatred of Jews, and explains why this phenomenon is often misunderstood and not taken seriously enough outside the Jewish community.

Seeing an increasing danger to Jews throughout the world in the years after Why the Jews? was first published, Prager and Telushkin revised and updated their book a few years ago. As the authors state in the introduction to the updated version, "Explaining the almost astonishing eruption of international anti-Semitism is one reason for the new edition of this book. The other is the threat that this Jew-hatred… poses to civilization."

Anti-Semitism, the authors argue, is a scourge not just to the Jewish community, but to the world; non-Jews who believe they are not threatened by it are sadly, even tragically, mistaken. "Moral non-Jews who fail to act against anti-Semites inevitably suffer from them. Nothing about Jew-hatred is clearer than this," Prager and Telushkin write. "Jew-haters begin with Jews but never end with them, as anti-Semitism is ultimately a hatred of higher standards" — as Hitler demonstrated by engulfing the entire world in war during the mid-20th century.

Why the Jews? is an insightful and helpful resource for those who want to understand the unique role of the Jews in human history — and for caring friends of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide, like you. Purchase a copy today. Armed with the knowledge within this book, you can better defend the Jewish people and the state of Israel, fight the rising tide of anti-Semitism, and pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the world.

With prayers for shalom, peace,


Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
Chairman, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews^® of Canada