I don’t like being late with putting up a post. But it happens on those days when I am busy all morning, and didn’t have time to write one the night before.

Actually, I had a topic, I was going to write about, but I think I will postpone it to another day, and talk about antisemitism. I have done that before (my general themes being (a) Jews sometimes falsely identify a comment as antisemitic, (b) I don’t think that criticism of Israel is necessarily antisemitic, and (c) we are not living in 1933 Germany because we have a government that is supportive of us, not against us), but I am going to look at things a bit differently today.

And that is because of something I heard yesterday.

A digression: My vocabulary fails me. As I understand it, a podcast is something that is audio only, and if it is also on a screen, it’s a video cast. Is that correct? I actually am not certain. But I tend to listen to programs on YouTube through Bluetooth in my car when I am driving a distance of 30 minutes or so or more. It’s a video cast, but I don’t look at it (for obvious reasons), just listen to it. So what am I doing? Am I listening to a podcast, or am I listening to a video cast, or is there still another way to describe it?

At any rate, yesterday I heard a talk by Rabbi Yossi Goldman, who was speaking to the Jewish Learning Institute. The Jewish Learning Institute, as you may know, is a Chabad entity, run out of Brooklyn, and puts out educational programs through the Chabad world. I have not heard very many of their programs and don’t seek them out, but Mr. YouTube thought this is one I might be interested in, and he was right.

Yossi Goldman, born in New York, is an Orthodox rabbi and was (or maybe still is), a Chabad rabbi. He was apparently the first Chabad rabbi in South Africa, where he lives, but at some point became a large congregation’s rabbi in Johannesburg, and I think he is still there.

Second digression: South Africa has a substantial Jewish population, although it has diminished over the past several decades. Religiously, it is by and large Orthodox. Ethnically, it is by and large Lithuanian. The synagogue that Rabbi Goldman leads is in a suburb of Johannesburg, the Sydenham-Highlands North Hebrew Congregation.

Third digression: Correct me on this if I am wrong, but this is what I think I heard and when I googled it, it seemed accurate. During the COVID pandemic, South Africa closed all religious institutions to in person services. Everything was done remotely. A couple of years ago, this was relaxed and in person services were permitted under two conditions: first, that everyone is masked, and second, that no more than 50 persons can attend a service. Goldman said that, in his shul, he has 50 live congregants and 1400 seats.

Okay, here goes:

Basically, Goldman says that there always has been antisemitism, and that there always will be. Not that it isn’t important to fight against antisemitism, but the battle will never succeed in actually eliminating it (that reminded me of trying to eliminate Hamas, but that’s another story). So, he says, get used to it being there, and don’t let it get you down. Instead, he says, hold your head up, be proud that you are Jewish and continue to do what you can to better the world. You can’t control what other people do when all is said and done, but you can control what you do.

As to why there is antisemitism, he concludes that you shouldn’t look at what people say, because their reasons are just excuses. He says that there is one reason for antisemitism, and that is that Jews irritate other people. That’s because they are never satisfied with what is, and are always the prime voices behind what could be, or what should be. Moving back to South Africa, for example, he pointed out that when Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1963, there were others arrested at the same time. These others included (he didn’t name them in his talk) Lionel Bernstein, Denis Goldberg, Arthur Goldreich, Harold Wolpe and Bob Hepple, all Jewish.

He said that it isn’t surprising that in Soviet Russia Jews were accused of being bourgeois and globalists, and in America, they were accused of being Communists. In each situation, Jews were irritating the power structure.

Goldman concludes that being irritants is part of the mission of the Jews to improve and better the world, and that irritants were always be opposed by those they are irritating. So, he concludes, antisemitism must be fought, but we must expect it to be with us forever.

Now, it’s not that I agreed with everything Goldman said. He thinks, for example, that all anti-Israel speech is antisemitic. I don’t agree. But he thinks that Jews are irritants in the Middle East (and need to be), just as they were irritants to the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. That’s just the way it is, and always will be.

You may want to listen to or watch Goldman’s speech. It’s called “Why the Jews?” and I found it on YouTube.