Antisemitism is a Unique Hatred and Evil: Agudath Israel Statement on Comments from Yair Lapid

By BJLife Newsroom
Posted on 07/20/21

There has been much discussion of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s speech before the 7th Global Forum on Combatting Anti-Semitism on July 14, in which he offered a new definition of antisemitism.

It is certainly true that slave traders who threw human beings into the ocean, and African tribes who slaughtered other tribes and Muslims who kill other Muslims are evildoers.

And that those who have hated and attacked and killed Jews over the centuries were and are evildoers too.

But to wrap all deranged murderers and haters into a neat malodorous package does a grave disservice to the most ancient, multifaceted and tenacious hatred, one that persists even into lives of Jews around the globe today. It does a grave disservice to history.

To note that antisemitism is unique and uniquely senseless and ugly is not to claim some sort of special treatment for Jews or to assert some Jewish racial superiority. It is simply to respect a historical, and lamentable, fact.