Rabbi Howard Morrison

In anticipation of Yom HaShoah tomorrow night, Jews throughout history have been the "other," the scapegoat, the nation that suffers for the sins of the world.

Consider the book of Esther - "Haman said to King Ahashverosh, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in the provinces of your kingdom; and their laws are different from those of every people; and they do not keep the king's laws; therefore it is not for the king's profit to tolerate them."

 Jew as the "other" goes back from Amalek to Haman, from the poisoners of the wells in the black death, to the victims of the Inquisition, from the enemy of the Nazis, to the oppressors of today. We Jews are the eternal "other." 

The scapegoating of Jews finds perhaps its most damaging example in the claim by many Christians prior to modern times in that all Jews throughout history are responsible for the death of Jesus. Jews were seen as being capable and guilty of committing deicide.  While most of Christianity has reversed its stance, it fueled the perception of Jew as scapegoat for the last two thousand years. 

The origin of the term scapegoat actually goes back to today's Parsha. We learn the earliest laws of Yom Kippur, including the ancient ritual of the scapegoat. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest rolled lots on two goats. One represented the people of Israel as a holy offering. The other carried away the sins of the people into the wilderness, known as "Seir La'Azazel," literally, the "scapegoat." 

The 20^th century French anthropologist Rene Girard suggests that the ritual represents a fundamental human need. One goat represents our people, our community, the group we are to protect. The other goat represents "the other," the scapegoat, the threat to our community, the people we dislike. It is this "other" who carries on its shoulders the sins of the community. According to Girard, it is natural for a community to have "an other." Throughout history, in community after community, the Jews have been "that other," that scapegoat. Perhaps the most horrendous example of this hatred of Jews was the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis, yimach shmam. 

Some old manifestations of Jew as scapegoat include: Blaming Jews for the death of Jesus. Blaming Jews of being responsible for the Bubonic plague. Alleging that Jews poisoned wells in an attempt to kill Christians. Alleging that Jews used the blood of missing children for Passover Matzah.

Some newer manifestations of Jew as scapegoat include: Blaming Jews for the pandemic. Blaming Jews for 9/11. Blaming Jews for economic depressions. Blaming Israel and only Israel, and by extension Jews and only Jews, for conflict and violence in the Middle East.

Can we not see these vile Chamas protests on campuses in North America as the most contemporary forms of scapegoating. I have not heard of one person from any campus protest even acknowledge the murders of October 7 or the taking of hostages. But I have heard Israel as being blamed and accused of genocide.

While the following Mitzvah in the Torah seems far off; after the Exodus from Egypt, we are commanded not merely not to hate, but to learn to love the stranger, the other - "Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Deut. 10:19).

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison