Believe it or not, there is an Antisemitism Memorial Day.
Most Jews have never heard of it. Last month, June 5 coincided with the 20th of the month of Sivan, a date established nearly 900 years ago by Rabbeinu Tam following the first major blood libel in Europe. In 1171, the Jews of Blois, France, were falsely accused of murdering a Christian child. No corpse was ever found and no evidence was ever produced. Yet tragically more than 30 Jews were burned alive because of a lie on this day.
Five centuries later, the 20th of Sivan took on new meaning after the horrific Chmielnicki massacres of 1648 and 1649, when tens of thousands of Jews were slaughtered across Eastern Europe on this same date.
Sadly, the 20th of Sivan has been overshadowed by larger and more recent catastrophes like the Holocaust, wars against Israel, and October 7, 2023.
What makes the 20th of Sivan so haunting is that the accusation that gave birth to it never really disappeared.
Nine hundred years ago they accused Jews of murdering children. Recently a young Jewish woman riding the New York subway was assaulted for supposedly “eating babies.” Israel was blacklisted at the United Nations while defending itself against terrorists.
The blood libel has not died. It has simply updated its vocabulary.
It is all almost impossible to comprehend. We are the people who inspect an egg before breakfast to make sure there isn’t a speck of blood inside. Yet somehow we are accused of craving the blood of children.
It’s not hatred; it’s hysteria. It’s not prejudice; it’s paranoia. It’s not indignation; it’s insanity.
The 20th of Sivan is a memorial to one recurring mystery: Why does every generation find a new reason to hate the Jews?
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks shared a profound observation: “Antisemitism is a virus. It mutates. In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, Israel.”
Think about how strange Jewish history really is: They hated us when we were poor and when we became wealthy. They hated us when we were religious and when we became secular. They hated us when we lived apart and when we assimilated. They hated us when we could not defend ourselves and they hate us now that we can. They hated us when we had no homeland and they hate us now that we have one.
At some point, every honest observer has to ask the obvious question: If every explanation contradicts the previous explanation, perhaps none of them is the real explanation. Perhaps the Jew has always been standing trial for a crime he never committed.
A recent parsha offers a startling clue: As the Ark journeyed through the desert, Moshe proclaimed: “Arise, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered; let those who hate You flee before You.” Rashi comments that those who hate the Jews are ultimately those who hate G-d.
The Rebbe explains that the hatred directed toward Jews is often not because of what Jews do, but because of what Jews symbolize. They do not hate Jews. They hate the G-d whom Jews represent. The Jew became the messenger. The message became the target.
Suddenly, history starts making sense. The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of Jews. It began with the destruction of Judaism. On Kristallnacht, ten months before the mass killings began, synagogues across Germany were burned. Torah scrolls were desecrated. Jewish books were destroyed.
The same pattern continues today. When antisemites strike, they don’t go for our businesses or theaters or military installations or government buildings. They go for our Judaism: shuls in Pittsburgh, Poway, Halle, and Colleyville. A rabbi’s home in Monsey. A kosher supermarket in Paris. A Chanukah menorah lighting in Sydney.
Because it’s not Jews that they are after — it’s Judaism.
Hermann Rauschning records Hitler as saying, “I hate the Jews because they invented the conscience, the story of Creation in six days, and the value of the individual human being.”
The Nazis were not merely trying to destroy a nation. They were trying to destroy an idea.
Judaism introduced the revolutionary belief that every human being is created in the image of G-d. That life has purpose. That morality matters. That power is not the highest value.
The Jew became the messenger. The message became the target.
Once you realize that antisemitism is not about what Jews do but about what Jews represent, modern headlines start looking very different. We can begin to make sense of the absurd double standards we witness today. America and Britain fought wars that resulted in enormous civilian casualties, yet accusations of genocide were rarely heard. Israel fights to rescue its hostages while terrorists deliberately embed themselves among civilians, and suddenly the charge of genocide becomes the slogan of the day.
The issue is not what the Jewish state does. The issue is what the Jewish state represents.
And that realization unlocks another mystery. How are we still here?
No nation has survived what we have survived. No people of our size has contributed what we have contributed. The values we brought to the world transformed civilization. Our survival defies history. None of this would be possible if not for the Divine intervention of Almighty G-d who walks with us every step of our journey.
Once we understand the root of antisemitism, we also understand the proper response.
If they hate the light, the answer is more light. If they attack our values, the answer is to live those values more proudly. If they target Judaism, the answer is deeper Judaism.
Tisha B’Av mourns the destruction of the Temple. The 20th of Sivan mourns the destruction of Jewish lives simply because they were Jewish.
But it also reminds us of something else: Every empire that tried to destroy the Jews now lives in a history book. The Jew lives on. Their hatred survives — yet somehow, so do we. And perhaps that is the greatest proof of all.
Rabbi Dovid Vigler is the spiritual leader at Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens, with over 85,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, youtube.com/jewishgardens. Email him at [email protected].
