We’ve all seen photos from World War II. We’ve seen the German U-boats. We’ve seen the Allies landing on D-Day. We’ve seen the concentration camps with people stacked like cordwood. There may be a few people still alive who personally witnessed these scenes, but the number is diminishing daily. Soon, there will be no eyewitnesses left. All that will remain are memoirs and photos, like the accompanying picture of the young child, hands raised, subsequently “eliminated.”
This is a photo of Jews being rounded up as Schutzstaffel (SS) soldiers stormed the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland. Established in 1940 by the Nazis, this 1.3 square mile (3.4 square km) district in the Polish city had approximately 460,000 Jews at its peak. Of these, 300,000 were murdered. Another 92,000 starved to death or died of disease, all in less than three years’ time. Compare that to the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza in half that time (50,000 according to Palestinian estimates). At this rate—God forbid—100,000 Palestinians will have died in the same period.
The fact that Jews were killed under this assumption on a ratio of 3:1 does not justify what is happening in Gaza, but it should help people understand what Israel means when they say “Never again!” A conservative estimate of the number of Japanese killed on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima is 70,000 (in one day). But it is folly (and mind-numbing) to try to wrap ourselves around these figures, whether Palestinian, Japanese, or Jew.
The ghetto was intended for Jews
Historically, we’ll see in a bit that the ghetto was designed exclusively for Jews. But then the idea caught on and was applied to other groups. In Eastern Europe, many cities specified where the Roma people could live, and they would be segregated from the citizens of that city. In the U.S., Black Americans or Chinese were relegated to small, specific areas through deed restrictions and redlining mortgages. There was also a time when Native Americans were restricted to reservations, and Armenians and Kurds faced limited freedoms of their own in Central Asian countries where they were and are the minority. It was the same in South Africa while Nelson Mandela was alive and the Boers were in power.
But no group has ever felt the burden that the Jews have during their diaspora among the nations. Called “Christ Killers” by people who rarely gave religion a second thought was reason enough to put the first notch in your belt by murdering one, and there were many opportunities or pretenses in which to spill innocent blood. As a result, many Jews during the last two thousand years were forced to convert to Christianity under pain of death while others were put to death without a choice. The Spanish inquisition made a point of ferreting out Jews who claimed to have converted to Christianity during the Muslim occupation of Spain, and if the Inquisitors discovered these converts secretly continued to practice Judaism, they were in that case tortured and put to death as heretics.
Israel as a ghetto
This theory notes that if you think of the world as a single city, instead of two hundred plus different countries, then Israel would be the ghetto of that city. In fact, some authors already have (cf. Masha Gessen.) That may sound uncharitable and antisemitic, and of course there would be other ghettos, but please read on. Almost everyone knows what a ghetto is, because many cities in the world have a ghetto (and some have more than one.) A ghetto can be a dangerous place, but at the very least it is an undesirable place. One is warned not to accidentally wander into a ghetto or loiter among the residents of a ghetto. The perimeter of a ghetto is usually sharply defined, if not by specific streets or signs, then with walls and gates.
The very first metropolitan district in the world to be called a ghetto was in 1516 in the Italian city of Venice. It was an area where Jews were herded like cattle to separate them from non-Jewish Venetians. There was a government-owned copper foundry (il ghèto) that cast cannonballs near the area, and the term for the foundry was geto or ghèto from the word gettare which means to cast, throw or eject. That is how the word ghetto first came into use.
Definitions and distinctions
There is a subtle difference between what was known in the Middle Ages (and perhaps even today) as the “Jewish Quarter” of a city and the description of a ghetto. In New York City, the borough with the highest concentration of Jews is Brooklyn, and particularly in Crown Heights where there are Hasidic communities. The people who choose to live are free to come and go. However, and historically, for much of the last five hundred years Jews in European cities were forced to live in Jewish Ghettos, like it or not, observant Jew or not. There were civil laws that promoted segregation except in rare circumstances.
In Prague, the ghetto was called Josefov, Czech from the name “Joseph.” Because of friction between Jews and non-Jews, Jews were forced to wear a yellow piece of clothing during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries so they could be easily identified. The yellow cloth used in Prague may have inspired the Nazis to
dedicate the color yellow to their diktat that Jews during Hitler’s reign fasten the yellow Star or David to their clothing. Perhaps the reason yellow was chosen is that certain medieval works of Christian art portrayed Judas Iscariot were a yellow tunic. Or, perhaps the color suggested gall (bile?)
Forcing Jews to dress differently in Christian-controlled areas was rooted in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, where it was resolved in §68 that Jews shall dress differently in public:
A difference of dress distinguishes Jews or Saracens from Christians in some provinces, but in others a certain confusion has developed so that they are indistinguishable. Whence it sometimes happens that by mistake Christians join with Jewish or Saracen women, and Jews or Saracens with Christian women. In order that the offense of such a damnable mixing may not spread further, under the excuse of a mistake of this kind, we decree that such persons of either sex, in every Christian province and at all times, are to be distinguished in public from other people by the character of their dress—seeing moreover that this was enjoined upon them by Moses himself, as we read. They shall not appear in public at all on the days of lamentation and on Passion Sunday; because some of them on such days, as we have heard, do not blush to parade in very ornate dress and are not afraid to mock Christians who are presenting a memorial of the most sacred passion and are displaying signs of grief. What we most strictly forbid, however, is that they dare in any way to break out in derision of the Redeemer. We order secular princes to restrain with condign punishment those who do so presume, lest they dare to blaspheme in any way him who was crucified for us, since we ought not to ignore insults against him who blotted out our wrong doings.
In Vienna, Jews were restricted to the Wiener Ghetto. Unlike other Jewish ghettos, however, the Wiener Ghetto was not enclosed by walls. The Jewish ghetto in Regensburg was known as the Judengasse or “Jew’s Lane” or “Jewish Street.” In 1519, the Jews in the confines of the Judengasse were forcibly expelled, and their homes and synagogue were destroyed. The Jewish community in this city was first established in the eleventh century.
The Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam was known as the Jodenbuurt, which, when translated, is known as the “Jewish Quarter.” It was established in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by Jews previously residing in Spain and Portugal, but who were driven out of their countries.
The Jewish ghetto in Toledo, Spain, was referred to as “Judería,” a word that means Jewry or Jewish quarter. The Judería survived both Christian and Muslim rule in Spain, only to be persecuted and expelled during the Spanish Inquisition of the late 15th century.
Rome, the “Mother City,” has its own Jewish ghetto known as the Ghetto di Roma. It is one of the oldest ghettos in Europe. Living overcrowded lives in horrific conditions, the rights of Jews were significantly curtailed by civil society. The Jewish ghetto in Rome is known as the “Ghetto di Roma.” Established in 1555 by Pope Paul IV, this ghetto was located near the Tiber River and encompassed a confined area where the Jewish population was forced to reside.
Fast forward
And what of today? Just over a year ago the Jerusalem Post picked up on this same theme, noting
Public debate in Israel in the last few years and five rounds of elections revolves essentially around one question: Is the modern state of Israel a Jewish ghetto in our ancestral homeland, or is it a Hebrew kingdom in our ancestral homeland. Netanyahu and his coalition don’t think like a kingdom. They think in terms of Jewish ghetto politics, trying to survive among the goyim (by the way, “goyim,” meaning “nations” isn’t a derogatory term). As a result of 2,500 years in exile, Jews have developed all kinds of tactics to negotiate their very existence, finding excuses for why they should live another day or, in the case of Israel 2024, why we should be allowed to fight jihadist terror groups in Gaza until we defeat them.
The Jerusalem Post sees the current chaos in Israeli politics (incuding with the religious authorities who often refuse to take up arms in defence of the nation as something along the lines of growing pains. They say that thr Jews are in an historical transition. Says the Post:
It’s difficult to shake off the burden of 2,500 years of exile. We Israelis are in a transition now from a Jewish ghetto to a Hebrew kingdom. It won’t be easy, but I’m sure it will happen. And When it happens – the light of Israel will shine brighter than ever.
Pro-Palestinian voices in the West and other impartial voices of reason and good will are reaching the conclusion that the new ghetto is actually the Gaza Strip and that it is the people of Gaza who are suffering at least as much as the Jews did in Warsaw. Instead of being the victims again, the Jews are now being the perpetrators of genocide. That is a very thorny and troubling accusation which deserves an answer. Someone once said on the heals of 9/11 as the U.S. was threatening Afghanistan that a nation fighting against terrorism must be careful that they don’t become terrorists, themselves.
The “Wandering Jew”
And in the Middle Ages, everyone had heard of the urban legend of the “Wandering Jew.” This was based on the apocryphal belief that when Jesus carried his cross to the place of his execution, the Romans tried to impress a Jewish bystander to help him carry the cross. He refused, and according to medieval legend, Jesus cursed him to wander the Earth forever. Or perhaps it was that Jesus asked someone to give him a drink on his death march and was refused that—I don’t positively recall. That meant that whenever crops would fail in a European country, or there was a war, or an epidemic, or a woman who experienced a miscarriage, or someone spreading gossip, the culprit was the Wandering Jew (with emphasis on the word “Jew”).
Contemporary mainstream evangelical thinking
according to the paradigm, however, believes that the Jews were God’s first love. And though they were sometimes unfaithful to Him, God refuses to disown them. Because God is God and the devil is a created being and not a god, the only button Satan can push when he’s angry at God is to go after the Jews. And when God sent Jesus to redeem the Jews, Satan had Jesus killed (not realizing that he, the devil, was sort of “snookered” in the process). Even today, according to this interpretation, Satan fosters hate and stirs up trouble among Gentiles at the expense of Judaism.
Israel today
To sum up this theory, we can say that Israel is a marginalized enclave surrounded by hostile neighbors who would like nothing better than to see Israel disappear or be wiped off the map. There was a time when the belligerent Arab nations combined outnumbered Israel ten to one or more in tanks and fighter jets, and had a much larger ratio if you look at standing armies, but that is slowly changing because of the expense involved in maintaining a large military force and to a lesser extent the relative ineptitude of how an Arab army might be managed or employed.
The suffering of the innocent Gazans does not help Israel in terms of who is actually the victim, however. It must stop. It must stop. The remaining hostages must be released. Clearly the decision to use the men, women and children of Gaza as human shields is on the conscience of Hamas. If they were to quit the Strip, there woud be no reason for Israel to fight there. And I appreciate the fact that Israel is small, only twice the size of the tiny island of Jamaica and much smaller than the island of Taiwan. There is only one Jewish country in the world. There are fifty Muslim countries, however which would vote, and in many cases fight, to make Israel the fifty-first Muslim state. This is one reason that Israel’s existence must be guaranteed.
In centuries past, on Friday nights drunk citizens in a city would attack the ghetto and roust the Jews. When the Crusaders lost a battle to the Muslims, they vented their frustration on the Jews. When plague struck the gentiles or unemployment caused people to lose their jobs, when the sovereign squandered the national treasure, the first thing people thought was of the Jews. “The Jews are to blame.” “The Jews have money.” “The Jews are cursed and we’re cursed for letting them live in our city.” “The Jews are Christ killers.” And the ghetto would be set on fire, again, and again, and again.
In the First Gulf War when a despot such as Saddam Hussein coudn’t strike American forces, he launched missiles at Israel. Another assault on the ghetto. Hussein saw the Jews as the reason for his misfortune. Today, it is Iran that does it. Once again, the Jewish homeland, the one place Jews hoped to be safe, the ghetto of the world is under attack. We must not let history repeat itself.
