The Historical Blueprint for Antisemitism: Part 1

How ancient Israel's early literature, isolation, and religious exclusivism unintentionally laid the groundwork for a global obsession.

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. Painting by Henri Frédéric Schopin (1804–1880)

I want to be clear up front: This article is NOT an excuse for antisemitism.

What I’m about to describe happened many thousands of years ago and isn’t any different from any other cults-cum-religions that made many mistakes. We don’t live thousands of years ago. Jews aren’t ancient Hebrews or Israelites anymore. But we need to acknowledge a few uncomfortable behavioral origins of where the historical obsession with Jews comes from.

The Uncomfortable Question

How did Jews become the symbol of all things evil for large, historical swathes of humanity, which has never lacked for excuses to be hateful? Where does antisemitism originate? Primarily considered today to be an evil of the right, Hitler’s adopted ideological child has proven to be a powerful force on the left since October 7th. Let’s not forget the historically antisemitic Islamic world, a primary force behind it today. Where this particular moral weakness in the Western mind manifests, opportunistic Muslims seem always to be right there to nurture and encourage it.

But I got to wondering: What about pre-Islamic, pre-Christian antisemitism? The Koran didn’t invent it. Hostility against Jews was already existent, not just in the Middle East but in early Christian polemics as well, which developed the concept of ‘deicide’, contending that Jews were responsible for Jesus’s death and that Jewish descendants all bear an indelible mark of guilt for this crime, recalling the doctrine of original sin.

The Koran itself isn’t wholly antisemitic; it’s a mixture of hostility and acceptance for both Jews and Christians for a variety of reasons. Mohammad’s gang began corrupting his teachings before his body grew cold; they didn’t like anyone who didn’t accept Islam as the One True Religion (an arrogance shared by its two main competitors at various times) but the Koran also praises and lauds both. The mixed messaging demonstrates that for Jews especially, it’s clear there were pre-existing tensions with the first Muslims.

The journey begins with the Hebrews, who, like almost everyone else, lived in a risky world of potentially being swallowed up by conquering empires. They might not be able to stop it, but they could at least preserve their identity for generations to come. The evolving religious structure confined them within a framework of religious practices, language, dietary regulations and rules to distinguish themselves from the Others. Unfortunately future empires would weaponize this template to ‘Other’ them and render them hated wherever they wandered.

Let’s take a look at where antisemitism originates.

The Myth of Conquest: When archaeology meets historical Fiction

The ‘Hebrews’ were the original incarnation of today’s Jews: A wandering band of pastoralists who emerged from the Canaanite peoples who’d inhabited the land for many thousands of years. The line begins with Abraham, the first person to be referred to as a ‘Hebrew’ in the Bible, and continues with his son and grandson Isaac and Jacob, whose twelve sons became the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The slow evolution out of paganism to early monotheism took place over hundreds of years, with eventual Israelite monotheists fighting a neverending battle against backsliding, exemplified by the famous story of the Golden Calf.

This is why both factions in Israel today—Jews and Palestinians—have rightful inherited and genetic claims to the land. Both have ties or have lived there for many thousands of years. The Hebrews eventually ‘hived away’ from the Canaanites much the same way many religions or religious branches split from the mother religion, like the Protestant Reformation.

The Isolation Strategy: Pork, Laws, and the "Other"

The ‘Hebrews’ moved off into isolated hill country, developed their monotheistic Yahwism based on their God Yawheh, and began distinguishing themselves from their pagan neighbors by refusing to eat pork and creating a whole system of rules to be as unlike the left-behind Canaanites as possible. Hence the hundreds of laws. The injunction against pork is not, as many believe, a common-sense practice given the danger of trichinosis; archeaologists have found evidence of pig consumption in both Canaanite as well as early Hebrew excavations. The Hebrews stopped eating pork to discriminate themselves from their estranged community, although there were perhaps some practical reasons as well since pigs aren’t designed for a desert environment and produce no by-products themselves, unlike cows and chickens.

Fictionalizing History: The Blueprint for Backfire

Ironically, the Hebrews now set the stage themselves for a millennia-long hate-on for future Judaism by fictionalizing their own history. The Old Testament details how they set about attacking and conquering their neighbors with Yahweh’s blessings and committing various acts we would call ‘war crimes’ today: baby brain-dashing, pillaging and sacking, and all that.

Except archaeologists and historians agree that a lot of those Old Testament ‘heroic’ tales never happened.

These ‘conquests’ were inscribed centuries later, so the magnificently militaristic Book of Joshua withers under modern archaeological and historical scrutiny. The biblical writers fantasized a glorious military legend for their people acting on God’s orders when in fact they weren’t the righteous Scourge of the Pagans they painted themselves as. The lack of historical support for the Israelites’ grand conquests don’t read well for modern eyes who are aware of the rampant invention. The historical fiction did double future damage for what would one day become The Jews: It made their ancestors look like imperialistic conquerors and without question influenced the future Christian religion’s wars against competitors and non-believers. St. Augustine pointed to the Old Testament to argue that if it was okay to slaughter unbelievers and smash idols back then, it was okay now. God said so!!!

The Old Testament writers couldn’t have envisioned how their work would be weaponized to what later became a larger global crusade against ‘God’s chosen ones’.

The Exclusivism Trap: Monotheism in a Polytheistic World

“Sadat complained to me that Begin was trying to use a title deed from God to claim sovereignty over land that belonged to other people.” - Jimmy Carter, speaking of the Camp David talks, in Living Faith, 1982

If the Israelites weren’t as warlike as advertised, theirs was, at least, a highly intolerant religious society compared to their pagan neighbors, and this would also bite them in the ass for centuries to come. The Old Testament is full of references to God’s wrath against pagan neighbors, at least according to their own scribes. God wanted the Israelites to have the land, not those now-filthy Canaanites. At least so said the prophets and later writers of the Bible who wanted the land recognized as theirs and theirs alone.

‘God said we could have this land and we’re taking it!’ is an argument for a divine title deed that landed with a thud as heavily with the ancients as it did during 1978’s Camp David Accords.

Another big mother of a backfiring strategy was their hubris in setting themselves apart and above their pagan neighbors. Countless religions and cults were practiced all over the the Middle East and southern Europe and they generally existed easily enough with each other, with the understanding that whatever official/regional gods existed must be recognized and/or honored along with whatever gods thou worshippest.

The Old Testament writers had already set the stage for appearing disrespectful for those who read their heroic fantasy: Not only did they paint theselves as intolerant, violent assholes, but even their own god didn’t always support them. When the Israelites won a battle, it was with God’s help, but when they lost, it wasn’t because of God’s weakness against the enemy’s god, but because the Israelites were weak, rebellious, disobedient, prone to pagan backsliding, wicked women, whatever. To outsiders, they looked like a bunch of religious fanatics—and they were.

Early Precendents: Elephantine and Esther

The earliest recorded anti-Jewish event occurred in Elephantine in 410 BC when Egyptian priests destroyed a Jewish temple. Another early example is the story of Esther which details the arguments Haman makes to her husband, the Persian king, to justify wiping out the local Jews.

"There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose laws are different from those of all other peoples and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them." - Book of Esther

It’s ironic to our modern eyes that religious tolerance was widespread back then, if not available everywhere. One could customarily avoid running afoul of the local religious authorities by recognizing the local gods and attending a religious festival now and then. Yahweh, with his relentless tyrannical monotheism fetish, failed to foresee his narcissistic Commandment prohibiting the worship of others would easily become a primary vehicle of hatred for his Chosen People.

Familiarity may breed contempt, but unfamiliarity breeds fear, and the Yahwists’ unwillingness to socialize and worship with their neighbors made it easy to wonder just what those people might be up to. Humans have always distrusted secrecy for very good reasons. Sometimes those others are up to something.

The ancestors of the Jews unconsciously created an unfortunate antisemitism blueprint by pioneering religious intolerance and fanaticism, leading to a worldwide spread that continued through the centuries, even to countries with hardly any Jews or knowledge of their alleged history. Fanaticism is never popular although it’s ever-present in human society. It’s likely what prevented them from asking themselves why they were hated so much and making a few changes. Then again, it’s hard to argue with a fanatical prophet. They claim to speak directly to God and who are you to say they don’t?

This isn’t to blame the Jews for antisemitism; they live much more comfortably with their non-believing neighbors today as long as those neighbors aren’t actively trying to kill them, and that’s what’s important. The Holy Land was full of seemingly crazy cults making outlandish claims in the Late Bronze/early Iron Age; why the Jews’ cult-cum-religion survived as long as it has it will be addressed in Part 2.

The Power of Fictional Holy Books

The ancients had an excuse for something they didn’t know about, nor did we until about thirty years ago: That the Old Testament was heavily fictionalized by greedy ancient real estate agents centuries after the alleged facts. It’s understandable how St. Augustine could use it to justify future Christian imperial barbarities of others even he couldn’t have conceived of. The history was what they knew in a ‘holy book’ that was said to be the inerrant word of God; the justification monotheists have been using ever since.

If you believe, as the ancients did, that my god(s) were more powerful than yours, the insanity of a god who doesn’t reliably support his own people is understandably bizarre; Zeus or Mithras might lose a battle but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The other army’s god was just in better form that day. According to the Yahwists, God let his own side lose because of alleged pious infractions; a blueprint for self-hatred we see in certain fundamentalist Christian sects today. But it wasn’t self-hatred back then; the Prophets created theodicy, in which the Israelites’ god is never defeated by a more powerful god, they’re punished by Yahweh for various moral infractions.

It’s still largely unrecognized just how fictional holy books can be; they’re rooted in many of the arguments I had with Christian literalists when I was younger and living in the States. Modern theologians try to explain away ugly Biblical justifications about slavery; warring against one’s neighbors; religious persecution of others; marital enforcement; stoning miscreants to death for ‘crimes’; and ‘blasphemies’ (mostly for social control) we now see daily on social media. They’d rather not acknowledge just how awful and immoral the ancients’ Patriarchs were to others and each other; how the God of the Old Testament approved of all of the violence. Yahweh comes across as a narcisstic psychopath who favored twelve tribes of children over all the others he created; and blames the pagans for their paganism when he never revealed himself to them.

Yahwism must have sounded an awful lot like the cults du jour we see today; and for many centuries, Yahwism-cum-Judaism was exactly that. Just another crazy cult; but also a deeply unpopular one.

Why Christianity Won the Middle Eastern Mind

It makes it easier to understand why Christianity captured the world’s imagination, eventually. Once the Gospels were created 70-150 years after the alleged birth of Christ (his Biblical character historically and archaeologically unsupported), a kinder, more loving God who would always forgive your fallibility as long as you sincerely repented and would eventually redeem you in the afterlife, had to have been a powerful draw for people tired of living under a harsh Jewish god, or who found little solace or comfort in dying Greek and Roman polytheism.

Nevertheless, Judaism survived. Why?

In Part II, we’ll pick up where we left off with the earliest recorded antisemitism of the Babylonian Exile and trace the enduring dislike or outright hatred of Jews.

📚 Support Local Bookstores: You can find titles mentioned in this piece on my Grow Some Labia page at Bookshop.org. Every purchase directly supports independent booksellers and this newsletter.

Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter Grow Some Labia so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!