It just occurred to me that there is a silver lining to all this antisemitism.

I’m sure I’m not nearly the first Jew to realize this but it’s a really cool notion so here I am.

So obviously antisemitism is an awful curse and is really fucking shit up for a lot of people right now so I’m definitely not trying to say that it’s a net positive, but, since there is good even within the bad in life, here’s why Jew hate a blessing. It keeps us from falling in line with the wrong crowd, and maybe that has something to do with why Jews have stuck around for so long.

If antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine for a rotten faction, even for a movement of well intentioned zealots who lost their way, If corrupted ideologues always turn on us, then it follows that we are to a degree protected from being lead too far down any path that can’t see reality clearly. They exclude us. They kick us off the ship before it sinks so to speak. Ideologies that can’t see reality are doomed to fail, and so then in antisemitism Jews have a mechanism to protect us from getting too enmeshed with those who are doomed to fail. Plus it has kept us sharp. And again, I hate antisemitism. And I want to add that I’m not a “you were traumatized for a reason” type of guy. It’s horrible. But horrible things in life lose some of their power when you realize how they might be serving you. So yeah, fuck antisemitism. But also, thank you antisemitism for protecting us from bad ideas and fake friends. Thank you for keeping us smart and forcing us to think with nuance.

Now, I’m not saying that’s the whole reason we’ve survived for so long. Personally I credit that to intelligence, hard work, unity, and mostly to G-d, but even G-d would probably act through subtle mechanisms aka mysterious ways. And I think this is an interesting one to think about. I find it a more useful paradigm for my life to believe that even antisemitism has a silver lining.

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