OPINION:
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Passover begins on Monday at sundown. The pharaoh of Exodus was history’s first antisemite — the first in a long line stretching over 3,300 years.
Since the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, a tidal wave of antisemitism has swept over the West. Passover helps to put it in perspective. The monsters murdering and torturing the innocent, launching rocket barrages and shouting their vile slogans in the streets aren’t just targeting Jews. They aim to destroy the foundation of civilization.
The war we find ourselves in is part of the eternal struggle of good versus evil, law versus chaos.
Antisemitism is like a virus that keeps mutating.
“In every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us,” says the Passover Haggadah.
Like Hamas, the pharaoh had hostages he refused to release. After him came Amalek, who attacked the children of Israel in the desert, the Syrian Greeks, Romans, Haman of the Purim story, Crusaders, Cossacks, communists, Nazis and militant Muslims.
There’s always a rationale for such genocidal hatred.
The Jews are too different. They refuse to integrate, or they pretend to integrate, so we won’t know who they are. They won’t submit to our rule, or they want to rule us. They’re occupying our land. They’re greedy. They’re power-hungry. They start wars. They reject our religion. They’re capitalists. They’re communists.
God said we would always be a nation apart, and our apartness drives them nuts.
Just when we think things have cooled down a bit, they heat up again. Now they’re on the front burner.
Before Oct. 7, antisemitism was muted. Muslim nations targeted Israel in one way or another. Terrorist groups looked for opportunities.
In America, there were jihad cells, neo-Nazis and sporadic attacks on synagogues. Anti-Jewish hate crimes rose 37% in 2022 — the year before the war in the Gaza Strip. Imagine what 2024 will be like.
Then came Oct. 7 and the highest one-day Jewish death toll since the Holocaust — 1,200 dead, many in the most horrible manner imaginable — women gang-raped and sexually mutilated, children burned alive. Based on population, it was comparable to 45,000 deaths in the United States or 15 Sept. 11 attacks.
But it was only the beginning.
Israel’s war on terrorism in Gaza provoked an outpouring of antisemitism. In the United States, mobs marched chanting “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” They blocked major roads and chased Jewish students on campus. College presidents refused to condemn calls for genocide.
While claiming to be q steadfast ally of the Jewish state, President Biden has decided that votes in Michigan outweigh lives in Israel.
Jews have been described as the miners’ canary — a harbinger of disaster. Those who start with the Jewish people rarely stop there.
Hitler is the classic example. The Nuremberg Laws, which made Jews second-class citizens of the Third Reich, preceded the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the Munich Accords, World War II and 15 million to 20 million dead in Europe.
But so many wars that have plagued humanity have begun with attacks on the Jewish people.
Like metal filings pulled to a magnet, monsters are drawn to hatred of Jews. It’s their nature.
The roots of morality can be traced back to the encounter at Sinai. The monsters don’t like to be reminded that there’s an immutable moral code governing human action. Jews recall that reality. Hitler believed that by killing every Jew, he could kill the idea of God.
We’re all players in this monumental struggle, including those who sit on the sidelines. Israelis, diaspora Jews, our Christian allies, Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, the mullahs, and their American fifth column are like pieces on a cosmic chessboard. But they’re chess pieces with free will. We can choose the light or the darkness. We will be judged accordingly.
On Rosh Hashana, we say it is written in the Book of Life: Who will live (spiritually), who will die, who will prosper, and who will fail? The judgment is sealed on Yom Kippur.
Each day, we can add to or detract from our account in the ledger of heaven. The struggle before us presents a unique opportunity. We can listen to what President Abraham Lincoln called “our better angels” or the shrill and strident voices of the street shouting “End the occupation” and “From the river to the sea.”
Save Israel, and we save our souls.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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