The Spirituality of Hate

Jew-hatred is a matter of faith for progressive atheists who employ ancient mystical or religious imagery — often superimposed over the myth of “Palestine” — to justify smug sanctimony when villainizing Jews. 

Antisemitism has been around as long as there have been Jews and hatred of Israel has been around as long as there has been a Jewish State. And despite the stridency of their denials, those who reject Israel’s legitimacy and slander her with malicious stereotypes and blood libels are motivated by deep-seated hatred for Jews and Judaism.

There simply is no other explanation. Today’s antisemites cannot forgive Jews for their otherness, supernatural talent for survival, role as a light to the nations, and unique relationship with the Almighty.

We see it in the violent Jew-hatred that permeates academia and progressive politics, the election of brazen antisemites to high office, the embrace of hateful radicals by mainstream politicians, and also among bigots across the spectrum who identify as left-wing, right-wing, religious or secular. We see it in the savage extremism of those who seek to eradicate us physically and in the deceptive friendship of missionaries who attempt through evangelism to destroy us spiritually. And we see it in those who employ revisionism to deny thousands of years of Jewish history that are reflected in the historical, archeological, and scriptural records and to promote a Palestinian Arab national myth that has no historical basis.

It is impossible to ignore the enmity heaped upon Jews and Israel from all sides — the only question is whether one is reviled by it or revels in it. But what people on either side of the divide fail to see is how deeply spiritual this hatred is — and how morally corrosive for the common culture.

And this spirituality of hate is not limited to traditional religions, though Christianity and Islam certainly possess foundational hostility towards the Jewish people, and mainstream churches are quick to slander Israel with the modern-day blood libel of genocide in Gaza. Rather, it occupies the same emotional space in those who reject religion altogether but nevertheless crave a system of belief to give their lives meaning and a sense of connection to the infinite.

Secular people often adopt political causes with pious fervor because politics provides a sense of purpose and partisanship satisfies the dualistic weltanschauung embedded in European society (and by extension western culture) through pre-enlightenment church influence. In a culture where progressivism greatly influences educational and media institutions and cherishes victimhood (real or imagined) as the ultimate virtue, the hero-villain dynamic has become paramount for those who see society through their own ideological narcissism.

For many, antisemitism strangely fills the need for belief in a higher power that overcomes the forces of darkness. In their minds, good and evil are locked in eternal conflict, and they associate Jews with all that is wicked and profane, depicting them as disloyal foreigners and maligning them with contemptible slanders.

This is how Jews were portrayed for generations, whether in Christian scriptures that describe them as devilish spawn constituting the “synagogue of Satan” (e.g., respectively, John 8:44-47; Revelation, 2:9; 3:9), Islamic hadiths calling for their extermination in the end of days (e.g., Book 41, Hadith:6985), odious writings of early church fathers (e.g., “Against the Jews” by John Chrysostom), or the pages of Mein Kampf – which conveyed nothing that was not previously said in 1543 by Martin Luther in his vile antisemitic treatise, “On the Jews and their Lies.”

Antisemitism has a spiritual dimension for religious zealots who see it as an expression of faith founded on replacement theology, but also for secular progressives for whom it is an essential component of the ideological agenda they sacralize with dogmatic intensity.

It is easy to recognize malevolent spirituality when it arises from faith — as illustrated by the contempt for Jews and Judaism that suffuses Christian and Islamic scriptures (despite the casuistic denials of apologists who argue that blatantly antisemitic passages are simply misunderstood). However, Jew-hatred is no less a matter of faith for progressive atheists who employ ancient mystical or religious imagery — often superimposed over the myth of “Palestine” — to justify smug sanctimony when villainizing Jews.

Karl Marx demonstrated as much when he wrote: “The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew…The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general…Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself, which is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion, is the real, conscious standpoint, the virtue of the man of money.”(What would he say of the Salk vaccine, the medical and technological breakthroughs, the music, books and arts created by Jews?

And in a world gone mad, many Democrats today enthusiastically support Marxist candidates — including, it seems, Barack Obama, who praised Zohan Mamdani as “an extraordinary talent.” Affinity for communism (which is inherently antisemitic) is clearly part of today’s progressive agenda; and that should scare all reasonable people.

Indeed, disdain for Israel, Jews, and Judaism has become central to the agenda held sacrosanct by progressives, which has grown to include every radical policy promoted by the left and accepted through acquiescence by most Democrats.

Gone are the days when moderate liberals uniformly advocated free speech and civil liberties. In fact, it is mainstream Democratics who now push fanatical policies that demand blind acceptance of, among other things:

(a) extreme climate theory;

(b) transgender indoctrination for schoolchildren;

(c) unrestricted late-term abortion regardless of fetal viability; and

(d) unfettered immigration – despite the American public’s overwhelming rejection of these policies.

Though progressives scream “follow the science” to make their programs seem unimpeachable, they ignore science when it fails to corroborate what in truth are doctrinal beliefs, not empirical facts.

Arguments against radical policies are typically parried with ad hominem derision, and contrary proofs are met with stony silence; for example, when the UN recently disavowed its previous endorsement of extreme global warming models found to be inconsistent with reality. Likewise, the progressive establishment never addresses the lack of corroborative science when advocating irreversible gender surgery for children, though it reflexively challenges the motivations of victims who “detransition” as they approach or reach adulthood, for which there is a growing body of evidence.

Radical progressives also ignore history when it shows the fallacy of their sacred cows. Or they engage in revisionism to reject traditions they find inconvenient; for example, when they deny the indigeneity of Jews in Israel, which is corroborated by the historical and archeological records, in favor of a Palestinian Arab narrative, which is patently false and has no records.

No matter: these issues have become tantamount to religious dogma for radical progressives — and truth be damned. And central to this ideological stew is hatred of Israel, the embrace of antisemites by the mainstream, and the compulsive denigration of Jewish history.

Ideologically, college campuses and the progressive blogosphere evoke the mentality of medieval Europe, where Jews were accused of poisoning wells, causing the Black Death, committing ritual murder, and parasitically controlling Gentile nations. And though these tropes remain constant, they have been updated to accommodate modern sensibilities.

Ritual murder charges are now expressed as false claims of genocide in Gaza, well-poisoning has morphed into claims that Jews created AIDS and COVID-19, and the myth of Jewish global control is advanced by conspiracy theorists who assert that Jews perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and Israel manipulated the US into attacking Iran.

Though such canards come from all ends of the political spectrum, right-wing provocateurs are still largely shunned by rank-and-file Republicans, while antisemitic radicals and conspiracy theorists are welcomed within the Democratic fold. Indeed, Kamala Harris in April claimed that Trump was “pulled into” war with Iran by Bibi Netanyahu. Despite the malevolent, conspiratorial absurdity of Harris’s claim, it was met with silence from a liberal Jewish establishment that had supported her ill-conceived presidential run.

Though such claims are modern iterations of ancient motifs, the hatred that sustains them nevertheless gives rise to new calumnies without direct antecedent, for example, the lie that today’s Jews are an imposter people. This fiction asserts that Jews are descended not from Judean ancestors, but from the Khazars, a Turkic people who according to legend embraced Judaism centuries ago. The myth is used to delegitimize Jewish ancestral claims and somehow validate the Palestinian narrative.

The imposter conspiracy persists despite genetic studies showing not only the absence of Khazar DNA in Ashkenazim but the presence of a common Jewish genome originating from the Levant, including the area specifically associated with the Land of Israel. This ancestral commonality is found across Jewish population groups, regardless of how isolated some were for centuries. Predictably, however, haters attribute the lack of analogous hereditary geo-markers among Palestinian Arabs to a fraudulent coverup by Jewish scientists.

Just as empiricism cannot dissuade people of faith from their beliefs, neither can it discourage the convictions of those for whom political ideology constitutes a religion that preaches dictatorial intolerance and an absolutist, dystopian worldview.

Clearly, some impulses never change.

©2026 Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.