Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Daniel
Goldhagen is justly famous for his penetrating analysis of ordinary German
participation in the Holocaust. His latest work focusses on Christian and
Catholic involvement in the Holocaust. Here is a recent letter sent to
him.
Dear Dr
Goldhagen,
I have recently read
your book 'A Moral Reckoning', with great interest.
I am a gentile
Protestant, from an atheistic background, and having spent 6 years
recently in [the Arab world] doing medical work, have a good sense of the
extraordinary and vitriolic anti-Semitism, racial, religious and national,
expressed in the region, much of it regurgitated from Europe. It has given me
time to weigh my own community's anti-Semitic legacy. I largely agree with your
definition of anti-Semitism and its manifestations. It has three essential
characteristics: a malicious motivation (usually disguised), a falsification of
facts, and its object is to harm or denigrate. It is diametrically opposed to
the spirit of Leviticus 19.17-18. I would certainly welcome a similar summary
and charge for the Protestant churches of
However my main
purpose is to offer a short critique of some aspects of your book, in the hope
that you may find these reflections valuable and effective in sharpening
our response to Christian anti-Semitism. I do not expect to receive a reply,
although of course one would be appreciated.
I address three
things in particular.
First, the issue of
communal responsibility.
Second, the
anti-Semitic character of the New Testament (in your terms the Christian
Bible).
Third, the specific
charge of Jewish involvement in Christicide (not Deicide, for God cannot die),
and the extent of responsibility entailed.
I realise that each
of these are painful and difficult matters, fraught with the vicious spilling of
much Jewish blood.
First, you seek
consistency, and from the outset in denying communal and intergenerational
responsibility, you properly apply this across the board whether to Germans, the
Catholic Church or to the Jewish people. You show its misuse as a smokescreen to
conceal heinous, myriad individual evils, and contrarily that it is the
foundation stone of much modern anti-Semitism, up to and including Bashar Al
Assad's infamous comments. However none of this is sufficient to deny that
communal and intergenerational responsibility are insisted on in the Tenach. In
executing judgement, a son may not suffer the specific punishment due his father
or vice versa, Deut 24.16, but innumerable passages teach that God does and will
hold to account future generations for failing to denounce and forsake the evils
of their forebears, (Deut.5.9, Numb 14.31-2; 16.31-3; 2 Sam.24.17, Ezek.18.14).
What enormous responsibility a parent or leader holds, when his or her charges,
even in childhood, are justly subject to suffer with them and for their
offences, particularly in following by example!
Second, you take
great offence as do many Gentiles at the description of sinfulness in the New
Testament. But with respect, I think you have missed the point. There is a vast
gulf between the NT and anti-Semitism on all three counts of definition. Yes,
Jews, leaders and teachers in particular, are described as the offspring of
vipers, children of Satan, the father of lies, slaves of sin, but Gentiles are
described as dogs, puppets of Satan, children of disobedience, children of
wrath, and of both it is concluded that there is none good, no not one, whose
throat is an open sepulchre, with deceitful, deadly poisonous tongues.
Christians are described as adulterers and adulteresses, destitute in spirit,
wretched, miserable, naked and blind. The issue is not whether the truth is
offensive, but whether it is true. In the precious Tenach, so vehement are God's
arguments with Judah and Israel that at time his reasoning verges on the obscene
(1 Kings.14.10, Ezek.16 & 23) and rings with a note of exasperation
(Jer.2.5,11). Yet would a pious Jew claim the Tenach is anti-Semitic? What folly
- it is the greatest heritage and the richest ennobler. More precious than
praise are reproofs in a friendly spirit. Of course a distinctive case could and
was made that passages of the Tenach are anti-Semitic. How could it be
otherwise when Jeremiah for example was called to oppose virtually the whole
nation and call for surrender to its bitter enemies, Jer.21.3-5? Paradoxically
to have silenced very sharp words of appropriate and jealous criticism
was the work of anti-Semites, albeit Jewish ones. Similarly you rightly
claim that Christians failing to deal with our murderous legacy are actually
anti-Christian. God is an impartial judge, His words of truth are often highly
unpalatable - but they stand the test of time, as innumerable prophecies and the
incisive analyses of man's evil demonstrate. In this respect the Tenach is very
distinctive from the Apocryphal writings, like the Maccabees, which though
pleasant and challenging to read, sometimes have a self-congratulatory flavour.
I accept that many NT passages have primary reference to the evil of the Jews,
but often this is also in accord with the principle, found in Tenach, that
Israel is a plumbline by which all the nations will be measured, and also that
the new message was first directed to the Jews, only secondarily to the
Gentiles. Contemporary Jews were judged more harshly for their rejection of
their light, now the situation is reversed, the light against which we have
sinned is still greater and stronger, our guilt is the greater for that.
Christian anti-Semitism rehearses Zechariah’s ancient warning to the Gentiles,
Zech. 1.14-15.
Indeed
what is the essence of anti-Semitism in all its protean forms? Even against the
assimilated, and even when directed by professing Christians – is it not hatred
of Torah? Can then Torah be anti-Semitic? Yet many have judged that it is, Numb
16.3, 1 Ki.18.17, and Jer.43.2 come to mind.
Have you neglected
the yearning and longing for the blessing of Jews that characterises the NT? the
Lord Jesus wept as he offered the terrible denunciations of Jerusalem, Luke
19.41-44, Paul intensely yearned over the tragic blindness of his kinsmen and
their neglect of privilige, Rom.9.2-3, longing for better days Rom 11.15. Did
this lead him like Luther out of frustrated attempts at conversion to rage and
malice, to political restraint or control, to discrimination, to elimination? On
the contrary he calls true disciples of Christ to humility and mercy, and to
provoke the Jews to emulation by acts of kindness, Rom 11.14,25,31. In doing
this he recalls Moses’ ancient prophecy, Deut.32.21. His Master calls for
blessing not cursing, prayer not retaliation, kindness not resentment, echoing
Solomon before Prov.25.21.
I confess to you
frankly, I am deeply ashamed of how badly Protestants and Catholics have
violated this sacred call, but only reparative action will prove this.
Please do not attribute this evil to God, and not to the values of the Tenach
also found in the New Testament, God will be vindicated in spite of the folly of
His people.
The third issue is
by far the most difficult, and lies at the fulcrum of your case. Yet I want to
preface it with three points, which you will find difficult to read. I request
your characteristic dispassionate precision and objectivity. Both you and I are
ultimately interested in facts, not in opinions or in
distortion.
First, I think you
will agree that there is a continuous necessity for atonement for sinful men.
Leviticus is a plain testimony to this, 17.11. Even for the loosely observant
Yom Kippur remains the most sacred day of the calender. However since AD 70, in
accordance with Daniel's vision, nothing remains of the blood atonement, only
repentance and confession, which do not suffice in the Law. This is an extremely
serious state of affairs, it was Cain's rejected offering that was bloodless,
not Abel's. It is the sad hallmark of hollow religion.
Second, David makes
repeatedly clear the extreme evil of violating God's anointed. His own heart was
pierced by remorse when his only offence was to take a slice of Saul's clothing,
in the middle of his murderous pursuit of David. Twice he immediately executed
those who claimed to have put to death God's anointed, even though on the first
occasion it was falsely reported by the perpetrator and professedly performed at
Saul's own request to escape humiliation. If Jesus was Messiah, the Divine Son
of Psalm 2 and Prov 30, the Lord of David in Psalm 110, whoever put Him to death
is chargeable with immense guilt. Rectifying a single injustice may require
national pain and struggle. The rape and murder of an adulterous concubine, led
to the death of 65,000 men, not counting many women and children, amounting to
nearly a whole tribe, in the agonising pursuit of justice at God's direct
command (Judg.19-21).
Third, and most
critically, as Joseph said to his brethren, God is able even out of intense evil
to bring glory and grace, 'You thought evil against me, but God meant it unto
good'. Unlike the blood of Abel, which cried for justice, Jesus interceded for
mercy even as His blood was sprinkled. He prayed even as He was being offered
up, and by doing so atoned, like the two Kippur rams, one to death, the other to
the abyss of forsakenness.
You repeatedly
charge the Gospels with falsehood, fabrication and slander, in their account of
the role of Jews in the slaying of Messiah – but where is the evidence? To claim
that it must be so because of the intense evil of Christians is understandable,
but unusually imprecise, like charging the Decalogue with polytheism because of
Aaron’s evil (Exod 32.2), or Torah with sanctioning oath-breaking because of
Saul’s unfaithfulness (2 Sam.21.1-2). If the matter is so plain why not cite
yourself especially egregious examples? Yet your repeated citations do not
establish the falsehood of the claim, merely that it is made meticulously
and repeatedly. I understand that references from the Babylonian Talmud indicate
early deep anti-Christian sentiments (Sanhedrin 43a, the minim), Josephus
certainly does (Antiquities, xx, ch.9, 1). Even Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
Isaiah hundreds of years before foresaw the blessed days when the irrevocably
chosen people will lament their tragic folly and find with sorrow and joyful
contrition their only righteousness, peace in the One who has forever sealed the
everlasting covenant with Abraham, the glory and the hope of Israel. (Zech
12.10-13.2, Ezek. 39.23-39, Isa 9.2-7, 42.1-8, Jer.31.31-40). The New Testament
claims that this is the consummation of Divine purpose (Rom
11.28-36).
Behold the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world!
With friendly
regard,
C S
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