The Development of Anti-Semitism

It is my belief that as Moses and the Israelites arrived at Mt Sinai they were in transition from bondage to freedom. That for this transition to be successful, God gave to Moses to share with the Israelites law, The Ten Commandments.  

The purpose of law was so that freedom would begin as individual responsibility. That a person choosing to live their life within the limits of law, that they didn’t commit murder, adultery, steal, lie, and covet, their development of self will create a transition to the becoming of their own, the freedom of self.               

An important part of this, and any development of freedom is thinking. The ability to think is learned. The efforts of thinking and learning needed to learn of the self and the law developed their ability to think. 

Thinking then, of law limiting behavior without limiting freedom or the development of freedom, and simultaneously, the thanking of God for their life given, created a learning of becoming more.             

Throughout history, the Israelites freedom of thinking, of becoming their own created fear in those whose only interest in any people is control. A fear of what freedom would mean to the people they did control. A fear that began an anti-Semitism to control the people of freedom. The people that brought to all the gift of freedom, thinking.           

Regardless then, of whatever is an effort of an anti-Semitism, the cause is fear. A fear of freedom, of people thinking and becoming their own.   

The experiences of my life enabled me to think, learn. and create a perspective of responsibility, faith, and freedom. A perspective of how this affected, and still affects our freedom.                   

One experience involved anti-Semitism. It was unique. Not what most experience. The problem began when I chose to hate. And hate, for those that say they don’t know, exists when a person or a people choose. For hate, like any emotion is choice, and emotions affect thinking.     

My hate began from an experience with a psychiatrist. I wanted to kill him.     

I wrote of this in the article, To Avoid Committing A Far Greater Crime. The uniqueness of the experience though, to understand my thinking, was in an anti-Semitic slur.        

When I went by the police department to pick up my writing, the original thoughts and the development of hate were laying in a pile, on a counter next to my police file. The file was open, and showing the page of my writing they were keeping for their file. On the page, and among the written thoughts, were two items. One was of riding a horse, from a popular song. The other was an anti-Semitic slur. I knew the writing of the slur was mine. But I had no memory of writing it. The words written of riding a horse, were written from my memory of listening to the song.           

For years I couldn’t understand the why. There was no anti-Semitism in my thinking when I began writing. I wanted to learn, but nothing would begin. Then came a slow development.     

The hate that I choose to begin, became an enjoyment of being correct. Whatever were my thoughts and actions they were correct.

One day I asked my lady friend of the poem to dinner. She declined. She had previously accepted a dinner invitation with some Jewish friends. 

But I was the one that was important. I was correct. Magnificent thinking huh? An example of the thinking of hate. I began a dislike of her Jewish friends. Jealousy? Maybe. But the problem here was my subconscious.   

My subconscious feared the hate. It was developing as my wanting to kill the psychiatrist. My subconscious also knew of my previous involvements with my Jewish friends. My subconscious attached the feelings of dislike for her Jewish friends to the developing hate. This began the anti-Semitism.  

My subconscious used the developing hate to develop anti-Semitism. Now, as one development of hate became, wanting to kill the psychiatrist, so did the other, creating anti-Semitism.  

As the hate and anti-Semitism developed, my previous experiences and emotional involvements, memories of the love for my Jewish friends, began a conflict. My love for my friends was more than I hated, even the psychiatrist. The memories of my friends were of enjoyment and fun. I more than liked them.   

The anti-Semitic slur on the page of my writing the police kept for their file, was the last gasp of a dying subconscious drive of hate.  

In beginning the experience of hate, my thinking was also of learning. We are not, and in my life I certainly haven't been, something that is always good. I shut down the experience when it became, no longer needed. Learning the ugliness of hate soon became enough. My learning then became, trying to understand what I had done to myself. The hate had taken away my freedom.      

I was yet to learn of my Jewish heritage. 

The dinner my lady friend attended, was Passover. A learning of the transition from bondage to freedom. The choosing of a person to live within the limits of law. The becoming of one's own that simultaneously begins the freedom of self. All, also of Commandments covered within Christianity.              

© Ernest G Jackson 2022 All Rights Reserved | 891 words.