The Root Cause of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism

Leading to a New Type of P.R. (hasbarah)

First delivered to a Limmud * Audience, December 2025, Birmingham, U.K.

 

Good evening, everyone.

To begin, two points:

 

There are university departments and institutes all over the world devoted to the study of antisemitism.  I’m not attached to any of them.  I’m not an academic by profession.  What you’ll be hearing, what follows is independent research 

 

Secondly, Limmud in its considerable wisdom puts on excellent training sessions for lecturers.  One very important tip is to manage the expectations of your audience.

 

I’ve got to tell you how this lecture will pan out.

 

So, you will be taken to the theme of the root cause of antisemitism and anti- Zionism gradually.

 

Why?  Because the emotions at work behind antisemitism and anti-Zionism are, at their lowest level, universal.  It’s good that this should be shown. They’re at work in every culture.  

 

So this lecture is about what makes people tick – one human emotive reaction in particular.  

 

The actress, Maureen Lipman, working for BT, said that everyone should have an ‘ology.  Well mine is ‘anthrop’-ology.  At it most high falutin, it deals with the universality of the human mind.  In simple terms, cultures may vary hugely; the people inside them don’t - be they in New York, New Guinea or this room!

 

Success and achievement are your first port of call – or, more specifically ‘negative reaction to success’.

 

How can you ever have ‘negative reaction’ to success?

 

To other people’s success, you most certainly can. Sometimes, it’s unavoidable.

 

Take road-rage, for example: It’s the stuff of foul language at a minimum), serious injury, even murder!  (Picture 1: J/salem parking ticket riot)

 

I have to own up.  If someone gets to the parking space I’ve got my eye on before I do, expletives fly.  In my book, you’d have to be a saint or a lammedvavnik for them not to.

 

Do you get end-of-year round-robins from your friends?

(Picture 2. Simon Hoggart)

For the writer, (usually a “her”), and all the family, everything over the year has been ‘just wonderful’.   Then - the travel.  

 

“Additionally my wonderful sister Andrea and her new man have invited us to join them, in the lap of luxury, on a cruise in the Bahamas over Xmas”

 

Another: “In January, I went to Sri Lanka, to Armenia in May, and to Guatemala in October.  

 

‘Friends’?  Sometimes, unwittingly I’m sure, your ‘friends’ can make you feel small.   You want to ‘burn them in effigy’.

 

Up on the screen is a December 2012 Daily Mail page by the late Simon 

Hoggart (he passed on in Jan 2014) excoriating round robins.  

 

So far, you have the words ‘negative reaction to success’.  They now need to be expanded:

Please insert: ‘prodigious and inexplicable’. You now have: ‘negative reaction to prodigious and inexplicable success’ words you’ll be living with throughout the rest of this lecture.

 

Do you remember Gail Trimble?  She gave us ‘prodigious and inexplicable success’ On Mon. Feb 23rd, 2009, she was a complete unknown.  Next morning she was headlines. No-one had ever seen anything like it.  On University Challenge, she amassed 825 of her team’s 1235 points.  

Jeremy Paxman said: “My God! You’re laughing because they’re so easy”.

 

In her case, a two-way reaction - positive and negative: positive “She’s a human Google; negative, unsavoury personal comments by trolls.

 

Two more as quick as possible examples:

 

The, as-it-happens Jewish, anthropologist Max Gluckman (1911-75) did his PhD research in the late 30’s among the Ba-Rotse people of modern-day Zambia.  They live on the Zambezi flood plain and fishing is their forte.  Gluckman was asked to join a fishing party.  With everyone else, he was given a set of spears.  They hurled their spears blindly into the muddy waters of the shallow pool.  No-one got anything.  Only four fish were caught – all, as luck would have it, by Gluckman.

 

The empty-handed leader of the fishing party was not a happy bunny:  He didn’t mince his words.  Eyeing Gluckman: “He who got fish today is a witch”.

 

Four fish when everybody else got none.  This was ‘prodigious and inexplicable success.’  

 

When success is perceived as prodigious, and inexplicable, negative reaction is the norm.  If it’s one-off, prodigious and inexplicable success, as with Gail Trimble, it’s not so bad.  But when prodigious and inexplicable success is on-going and sustained, that’s a different thing altogether.

 

It worries people.  They want, they need to account for it.  They can’t.  They speculate.  And speculate they do.  Big Time.  The world becomes a world of conspiracy theories.  Allegations and accusations fly.

 

Four fish.  All of a sudden, young Max Gluckman was a …. witch

 

Martin Page, a great student of anthropology, my mentor, as I call him, wrote: 

 

“In our society, a suspicion of ‘excessive’ success is shown in the widespread assumption that a man who has won spectacular riches for himself is guilty, unless proved otherwise, of probably having done so by dirtily doing others down” (My emphasis).

(Martin Page: The Company Savage, 2nd edition 1974, p. 178)

 

He continues, and I hope this hasn’t affected any of you here in this room

 

“This is a cross which some Jews, having prospered through unusual determination and honest hard work, have found to be their social burden”.

 

If there’s any one thing for you to please take away from this lecture, it’s that  prodigious and inexplicable success often provokes negative reaction.  

 

And once the accusations start,  they’re extreme and extravagant.  

 

You really mustn’t think that witches and witchcraft are the stuff of anthropology in far away places.  They’re not.  They’re part of everyday life. We may not use the words witch and witchcraft.  But our substitutes are not far different.  We go on a witch-hunt, we demon-ise.  We’re very much into conspiracy theories.

 

The book I’m waving around in my hand ‘Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumours and Gossip’ (2004) by husband-and-wife team Pamela J Stewart and Andrew Strathern quickly gives the lie to any notion that witchcraft is ‘other’.  They give it to you straight and, believe it or not, to their own academic profession.

 

“To bring these points home to our academic readers, we point out that hidden processes in academic life often correspond closely to veiled accusations of sorcery, or, acts of witchcraft and sorcery.  Words uttered, or written on paper, can destroy a person’s or a project’s integrity, while ostensibly operating as part of a confidential review process” (p.55).

 

And finally poor Paul Kiely from Burton on Trent less than 50 miles from here.

(Picture )

Thirteen years ago, (he was 39 at the time), in March 2012, ‘negative reaction to prodigious and inexplicable success’ led to Paul being cancelled, nixed.

 

Cancelled? Nixed?  He was cast out of his fishing club

  

Why?  Paul was too successful. Prodigiously successful.  He won half of all his Club’s last year’s twenty in-house competition trophies.   It looked as if he was going to go on ad infinitum.  His Club wasn’t having it.

 

“I can confirm for the good of the Club, a decision was made not to allow Paul back as a member.” said Club Secretary, Andy Horton.

 

“We have a lot of older anglers and if Paul had stayed we risked losing a lot of members.  The decision was made by the club as a whole and we feel it was the best one in terms of the club going forward.”

 

Against this background, let’s now look at Jews, Israel, antisemitism and anti-Zionism.  Be warned! You’re into a whole new ballgame in when it comes to ‘prodigious and inexplicable Jewish success’.  

 

Nobel prizes.  They’re quantifiable.  So, let’s do it. Get your calculators out.  

 

1 Jews are 15.8 million.  World population is 8.2 billion.  15.8 million divided by 8.2 billion x 100 = 0.2%. = Google’s figure for the world Jewish population.

 

2. Google says 1000 Nobel awards have been made from 1901 to 2025.

If proportions (0.2%) were at work, Jews should have got just …  two.

 

3 In fact, Jews have been awarded over 220 - a massive 22% of the total 1000.

 

4. 220:2 equals 110:1

 

5. Jews are disproportionately represented a massive one hundred and ten times more than might be expected.  Prodigious?   “super”-prodigious!

 

What to make of it?

 

Although there are no back-up figures there’s reason to believe that ‘prodigious success’ is replicated in many of the professions in which Jews engage.  Obviously, involvement waxes and wanes.

 

In my Oxford Concise English Dictionary (p. 55), an antisemite is described as ‘a person hostile-to or prejudiced-against Jews’.  It doesn’t say anything about why this special term was created.  It doesn’t say anything about ‘negative reaction to prodigious and inexplicable Jewish success’.

 

But I put it to you that you are allowed to infer that this is the reason.  It can be inferred from the circumstance of the word’s creation.

 

German journalist / politician Wilhelm Marr (1819-1904) wrote a pamphlet in 1879 Der Sieg des Judenthums uber das Germanenthum (The Victory of ‘Judendom’ over ‘Germandom’).  He wrote it for his League of Antisemites.

 

Two Points: In his pamphlet, Marr made out that Jews and Germans were locked in longstanding conflict – and that the Jews were winning.  He saw a victorious ‘Jewry’ (Judendom).  Really?  He perceived Jews this strong?  Seems the Nobel ratio has been at work long before it has been put to you.

 

Secondly, and this is a very important point in this lecture.  So far, I have just used the word ‘success’.  But, of course, it’s not just success.  It’s also about, maybe much more about, theconsequences of success: about power and authority.  Too much power and authority in a concentrated minority group.

 

Thirdly, and very significantly, the unwieldly term ‘antisemitism’ has stuck.  It has filled a bill which it unfortunately still fills, in spades, to this day.

 

Fourthly, you all know that Jewish success, is, and always has been, achieved by ‘unusual determination and honest hard work’ (to re-quote  Page).  Individually, it’s wonderful; cumulatively, it’s proved disastrous.

 

Can it ever be stopped?  No, of course, it can’t.  Should it be?  Again, NO.

 

Identifying “negative reaction to prodigious and inexplicable Jewish success” as the root cause of antisemitism and anti-Zionism is one thing, to be honest, the easy thing.

 

Quite another is the unanswered and probably unanswerable $64,000 question, why are Jews are so prodigiously successful?  Not all are, of course.  But enough to provoke widespread antisemitism. 

 

Jews themselves for sure don’t know why: it’s min ha-shamayim (divinely inspired), it’s Torah, it’s Talmud; It’s nothing of the kind, we’re ‘driven’ that’s all there is to it; We’re not overly successful – we’re just like everybody else. 

 

Do you remember Chaim Weizmann’s pithy little observation?  When asked: ”What are Jews like?”  He replied: “Just like everybody else- only a little bit more so!”  A little bit more so?  The understatement of the 20th. century.

 

What do you think?  Hopefully, there’ll be time to tell us.

 

And if the Jewish world doesn’t know, how can the non-Jewish world be expected to know?  And if something’s inexplicable, as we now know, out comes allegation and accusation – anything and everything under the sun.

 

As a matter of interest, who are the non-Jewish world?

 

According to Google A I, 54 to 57% of the world’s population (8.2 billion) adhere to an Abrahamic religion. (Well, what d’you know?) primarily Christianity (Christianity 29 – 31% = 2.4 billion) and Islam (24 – 25.6% = 1.9 – 2 billion).  

 

We’re coming to the end.  How could I?  How could I have forgotten?  We are, are we not?  …….. The People of The Book.  That’s enough in itself.  A huge millstone round our necks.  We’re the historical antecedents of Christianity and Islam.  They know it.  And they don’t like it.

 

 Forget Nobel prizes.  Forget the super-prodigious success story stuff.  Who’s in the spotlight?  A paltry 14-15 million Jews.  We’re at the apex of the triangle.  2.4 billion Christians plus 2 billion Muslims, over half the world’s population, intently scrutinising our every move.

 

Yes, we’re ‘Mother’.  Christianity and Islam are our ‘daughters’- at times, in our history, our very errant daughters.  With their updated theologies, they often treated ‘mum’ as a pariah.  They were the new kids on the block.  ‘Mum’ had passed her sell-by date.  

 

Great shock, when, after two millennia, ‘mum’ revived.  For her daughters, it wasn’t meant to happen.  Not part of the script.  Still isn’t for some.  

And now, all of a sudden, mum’s back - very much a big player on the block.

 

What’s worse, Mum is super-prodigiously successful. And we all know, don’t we, what happens when you’re prodigiously and inexplicably successful, the more so if you’re super-prodigiously successful?   

 

Mum – let’s name her – the Jewish state, ‘Israel’, is certainly used to the consequences of ‘negative reaction to her prodigious and inexplicable success’:  Conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, witchcraft allegation after witchcraft allegation.  They’re all, the whole damn lot of them, a load of old Goebbels – as are all people that knowingly devise and peddle ‘big lies’.

 

Very little to say about Israel and anti-Zionism.  Let me repair the omission by simply saying: it’s all in the hand-out I have for you.

 

You’ll have to read it.  I didn’t write it.  No-one so far as I know has owned up to doing so.  Shame.  It’s a masterpiece.  It addresses Israel’s prodigious success.: “A nation this small should not be this strong. Period.”  “Israel doesn’t make sense”. “The world watches (this) and can’t make sense of it”. 

 

As far as Israel’s success is concerned, the anonymous author is a min ha-shamayim (divinely inspired) man or woman.

 

Conclusions – one negative, the second, positive:

 

1 The root cause of antisemitism and anti-Zionism is: negative reaction to prodigious and inexplicable ( Jewish) success.  The Nobel Prize calculation and Israel’s overall performance justify ‘super’-prodigious.  They are to a degree which renders this success all the more inexplicable.  This in turn hugely inflates the volume and absurdity of the witchcraft allegations flung at Jews and the Jewish state.

 

May Jewish success endure.  Without it, the Jewish people would have disappeared.  Israel would never have been re-born. This success is obviously a boon to Jews but it’s also a boon to the world.

 

Through history, the recompense has been enduring antisemitism and now anti-Zionism.  It waxes and wanes.  But it never ever goes. It reminds me of the eternal raging storm on Jupiter (the Giant Red Spot).  Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are planet Earth’s social equivalent.  Is there a parallel with anybody else?  Or, is it just Jews?

 

2. Conclusion number two is that it may not be so bad after all..  Maybe this diagnosis could lead to an entirely new form of hasbarah (political P R) for Israel and the Jewish people.  

 

It may not work.  It may not.   Got to be worth a try.

 

It would simply go like this:

 

1. We have to come clean.  We know we have a problem.  Yes, a very unusual problem.  Nevertheless, a problem.  As far as you’re concerned, we’re too clever by half.  And not knowing why we are what we are, you want to bring us down a peg or two (or more, even).

 

2. To be frank, we don’t know why either. Obviously, we’re not complaining!  Who would?  But if we don’t know, we can’t expect you to?  We do understand.  Whenever there’s prodigious success, most normal people reckon there’s skullduggery of some sort behind it.

 

3.  Can’t say we’re all as pure as the driven snow, we’re not.  But by and large, we mean well.  

 

4. So, why not give us the benefit of the doubt?  Use us as an asset. Our success could be your success and vice versa.

 

5.  No need to see us as a threat.

 

6. But obviously, when attacked, we’ll defend ourselves.  Who wouldn’t?

 

How’s this for size?

 

“Your country will exist and continue to exist until our ideology will obliterate you just as it has obliterated others before it.

(Three guesses (you need three?) whose Charter this comes from)

 

If you’ve got an ideology like this, it needs to be de-platformed.  And if comes our way, we will de-platform it.  And we can de-platform it.

 

But why go down this road?   If you’ve got a forthright ideology like this, maybe it’s time to change.

 

7. Let’s be friends.  Jaw-jaw.  As Dear Old Churchill said: it’s better than war-war.

 

 

Geoffrey Ben-Nathan

London, UK

December 2025

 

 

 

 

 

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