The Jewish question, as it used to be called, or antisemitism, as it is more commonly called today, is a problem that continues to resurface in both the Christian Western world and the Islamic world.
But who are the Jews, and what is their identity?
In the past, the answer was simple: Jews were those who followed the Jewish religion; when a Jew converted to Christianity (or, less commonly, to Islam), they ceased to be Jewish. By the law of probability, all of us likely have at least one Jewish ancestor.
Since nationality was once defined by religion, Jews formed a separate community that followed its own ethical laws, tolerated to varying degrees by the authorities, who sometimes protected them from popular unrest — but not always. The same was true in Christian countries for Islamic minorities — few in number, mostly in southern Italy and Spain — and for Christians in the Islamic world, whose communities were more substantial. Then came religious freedom, secularization, and with positivism, a cultural battle against religion, seen as ignorance and superstition. At that point, religious faith ceased to be the defining factor of nationality, and most Jews became atheists.
So then, what does it mean to be Jewish?
To us in the West, it means being the child of Jewish parents; in Israel, it means being the child of a Jewish mother (mater semper certa), thus a descendant of Israel (whom we call Jacob). One is still recognized as Jewish even if an atheist, but not if they adhere to another faith (Christianity), which seems odd.
A
famous Jewish American journalist, Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018), defined
Jewish identity by stating that:
“Israel is the only nation on Earth that inhabits the same land, speaks the same
language, and worships the same God as it did 3,000 years ago.”
But even though this sounds true at first glance, a closer look reveals that it doesn’t match reality at all.
Do they speak the same language?
Hebrew
was only a liturgical language, like Latin for Catholics or Assyrian for the
Chaldean Church.
By the 5th century BCE, Hebrew was no longer spoken — they spoke Aramaic (the
language of Jesus). After the diaspora, Jews spoke the languages of the
countries they lived in: from German (later Yiddish) to Ethiopian (for the
Falasha). Only recently was the liturgical language transformed into a spoken
one, updated with modern terms borrowed from contemporary languages.
Do they inhabit the same land?
After the two revolts against the Romans, Jews were expelled from Palestine. With the rise of Christianity, they were permitted to return, but over the centuries, very few actually did. It wasn’t until the last century that Jewish immigration to Palestine began (the Jewish Homeland).
Do they worship the same God?
Most modern Jews are atheists; the religious ones are divided into a multitude of sects and schools of thought: there are the Haredim, who believe it would be blasphemous to leave even a corner of Palestine to the Arabs, and there are others (Neturei Karta) who consider the very existence of Israel to be blasphemous.
The same fragmentation exists in all religions. Even in Jesus’s time, there were Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, Samaritans.
It is
difficult to think of Judaism as a unified faith (unlike Christianity or Islam).
Certainly, Christianity and Islam also have divisions — many of them — but they
share core beliefs: such as belief in the immortality of the soul and eternal
reward or punishment. Among Jews, even these fundamental beliefs are not
universally accepted.
In contrast, we could say that the Greeks, Armenians, or Chinese have spoken the same language for 3,000 years (albeit evolved over time) and have lived more or less in the same lands, even if their religion changed “only” 1,500 years ago.
It seems clear, then: Jews do not have a unified culture but have historically adopted the cultures of the various peoples among whom they lived.
Jews are like everyone else: if we look at the Jews who have had the greatest influence on our civilization — Marx, Freud, Einstein — there is nothing about them that distinctly identifies them as Jewish. The same goes for the countless other Jews living among us: in recent days, amid heated debate over the war in Palestine, I discovered that many, many figures in journalism and culture are Jewish — but nothing had previously indicated that to me.
Consider even Zelensky — he is of Jewish origin, but is there anything recognizably Jewish about him?
The population of Israel is made up of immigrants from many different nations, each bringing their own mindset. From Arab countries came some who still practiced polygamy; from the West came those who championed free love.
There are those who are more fanatical about sex than Bin Laden, and there are girls in bikinis on the beaches.
In more observant communities, there are even separate buses and elevators for men and women, but women also serve in the military just like men.
There is no underlying unity, as exists to some degree in our own countries.
This process of assimilation is poetically narrated, for instance, in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which in my opinion is the finest novel of the past century.
Its author, Giorgio Bassani, tells the story of the Jewish community of Ferrara, which had enthusiastically embraced Fascism, only to be shocked and stunned when it was considered different from other Italians and subsequently marginalized (and, unfortunately, later exterminated). I also recall Margherita Sarfatti, the cultured and atheist Jew, lover of Mussolini, who played a significant role in giving Fascism its Roman identity — a key feature of the regime.
So what truly defines Jewish identity?
In my opinion, it is the fear of persecution that endured for millennia, culminating in the Shoah — a unique event in all of human history.
The idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine arose as a solution to the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, often incited by the authorities themselves. But the idea gained traction also because it was becoming clear that, over time, as religious identity ceased to define nationality, Jews would blend into local populations (think of the increasing number of mixed marriages) and thus would disappear from history, as so many other peoples have.
In reality, it was the absurd Nazi persecutions that reawakened Jewish identity. The Nazis believed, without any foundation, that all the world’s evils stemmed from the Jews — that they were not real human beings, but a sort of subhuman enemy of humanity to be expelled, and if not possible, exterminated. Hitler, in his madness, truly believed that even if he lost the war and Germany was destroyed, history would still glorify him for having rid the world of the Jews.
This led to the birth of the idea among Jews that their fate could no longer be entrusted to others — they could no longer simply pray for God’s salvation; they had to secure their own survival through struggle and resistance.
The State of Israel was undoubtedly founded through a historical injustice toward the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. But 80 years have passed: to think that the refugees could return to Palestine by destroying Israel (“Palestine free”) is a baseless utopia. By the same logic, one might imagine Istrian refugees returning to their lands, or Armenians and Greeks returning to Anatolia, or even that America might be returned to the Native Americans by expelling all white and non-Indigenous immigrants.
We must acknowledge this reality — it is a fundamental fact that cannot be ignored.
However, for Arabs, the fight against Israel is not about reclaiming a small strip of land: it is one moment in a metaphysical battle between good and evil, between believers and nonbelievers, against the Great and Little Satan, as Khomeini used to say. Israel, as Khamenei recently said, is a cancer, an infection that will soon be eradicated.
This mindset — this fideistic and utopian vision — has, in truth, been abandoned by all Arab regimes except Iran and Hamas. However, it remains deeply rooted in the Arab masses.
Once again, the Jews of Israel find themselves facing the threat of extermination: one day, they could be overwhelmed by the roughly 500 million Arabs.
This fear — this ever-present threat — is, in truth, their identity.