Disease

A disease looks different when it occurs in each individual: obviously, its appearance depends not only on the etiology (the pathogen, the mutation, the poison, the chemical imbalance, the injury), but also on the individual’s body and its environment. Yet we are able to classify diseases, because for the most part, two cases of schizophrenia, although differing in details, will follow similar course and have similar symptoms.

It is interesting how antisemitism manifests itself through very similar symptoms every time. One of them is blaming Jews and Judaism for things like Communism. Tzemach Atlas’s antisemitism seems to have progressed to this stage. Yet he started from going slightly off the derech (it all starts when you give up the structure — more about this later). Which makes me wonder: can we trace active antisemitism¹ to a deeper level of self-hatred and frustration? (If so, later Christian Bible authors seem to have been suffering from it.)
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¹ As opposed to passive one. Active antisemitism is a deeper, more intellectual (kivyachol) form. People who rationalize their antisemitism with pseudo-intellectual historical or social hypotheses are active antisemites. Passive ones, on the other hand, hate Jews simply because they are different: speak different language, wear different clothes, live together and don’t mix with others (or are richer and successful). Usually, they don’t know anything about Jews and would equally hate other nationalities were they in the Jews’ position.    ddd