Antisemites Should Convert to Judaism

Antisemitism is a pseudo-religion centered on the devil, not God. Its statement of faith is that Jews are the chosen people, but chosen for evil. Instead of a “light unto the nations,” they’re seen to spread darkness. Instead of protagonists in a divine drama, they’re cast as antagonists to the rest of humanity. According to Jewish tradition, God entered into a covenant with the Jewish people, calling on Jews to observe the Torah's commandments, proclaim that the Lord is One, reject false idols, and live as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Despite their professed hatred, antisemites agree with Judaism on this one basic point: that Jews serve a world-historical, even cosmically significant purpose.

In that limited sense, antisemites are more fervent Jewish “believers” than secular Jews who reduce a profound heritage to bagels and comedy. By contrast, Jew-haters are deadly serious about Judaism. Indeed, many center their whole lives around Jews: studying a perverted version of Jewish history, interpreting current events through a Jewish lens, and forming a parasitic identity negatively dependent on Judaism. If, as Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,” then antisemites are just one emotion away from ahavat Yisrael. So why don’t the haters embrace a real religion instead of building their lives around a distortion? Why don’t they worship God instead of devoting their lives to an invented devil? Why don’t antisemites take their obsession to its logical conclusion and convert to Judaism?

The idea has precedent. Frank Meeink, the neo-Nazi who inspired the main character in the 1998 film American History X, is now an observant Jew. So is Csanád Szegedi, formerly one of Hungary’s most antisemitic politicians. Both Meeink and Szegedi renounced their antisemitism after discovering they were halakhically Jewish. (The Hebrew word for “RETVRN” is teshuvah.) But former antisemites without Jewish ancestry have also converted to Judaism. Examples include Reuel Abraham, a onetime Hitler Youth member; Rabbi Avraham Stern, a former member of Hezbollah; and Yaron Avraham, a Palestinian ex-Islamist. Jewish tradition itself teaches that the great Rabbi Akiva descended from Sisera, a Canaanite oppressor of the Israelites; that grandsons of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, studied Torah in Bnei Brak; and that Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian commander who destroyed the First Temple, became a proselyte. So, according to the Talmud, did the Roman Emperor Nero and descendants of the Assyrian King Sennacherib, both enemies of the Jewish people. In a modern reenactment of Talmudic lore, a relative of Adolf Hitler is now living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. The prophet Zechariah promises that the Philistines, mortal foes of the Israelites, will one day “become like a clan in Judah.” For modern-day Philistines, that day can be today if they accept their inner truth.

Antisemites may claim that their life’s purpose is to defeat the Jews, not join the tribe. But their invective is oddly strewn with admissions of failure. Wilhelm Marr, who coined the term antisemitism in his 1879 screed The Victory of Judaism over Germandom, wrote: “I publicly proclaim the world-historical triumph of Jewry, the news of a lost battle, the victory of the enemy without a single excuse for the stricken army.” He went on to declare that “I bow down in amazed admiration before this Semitic race that has set its foot upon our necks. Having gathered up the last trace of human energy, I am resigned to enter into Jewish slavery.” Well, if you can’t beat ’em, why not join ’em? There’s no need to resign yourself to slavery. Members of any race can convert to Judaism and become masters instead. The God of the Israelites has a proven track record of letting his people go. You’ll even get to celebrate your freedom each year at the Passover Seder.

Marr’s masochistic tone, though typically absent his mildly charming sarcasm, is repeated by his epigones. To hear the antisemites tell it, non-Jews (“goycattle”) are helpless victims of endless and contradictory Jewish plots, from communism to capitalism, feminism to pornography, open borders to a Greater Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. But if the Jews are so all-powerful, why keep fighting a losing battle? Why not convert to Judaism and take back agency instead? Chanting “Jews will not replace us!” won’t end mass migration. But if you join a minyan and daven three times daily, you can help steer the West’s immigration policies. Who knows? You might even gain a sense of purpose and a community in the process. After all, if you’re looking for a based religion, traditional Judaism is more trad than trad Catholicism, and more eastern and orthodox than Eastern Orthodoxy. Forget Latin Mass and Old Slavonic. The oldest rite of all is in the original Hebrew.

Perhaps the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline best distilled antisemitism into its vulgar, demonological essence: “Grins of the kind you find on Jewish pusses, understand, aren’t improvised, they don’t date from yesterday or from the Dreyfus Affair.... They erupt from the depths of the ages, to terrify us, to draw us into miscegenation, into bloody Talmudic mires and, finally, into the Apocalypse!” Naturally enough, this vehement anti-miscegenist once had an affair with a Jewish gymnastics instructor. After her husband had been deported to Dachau, Céline griped that “Because of my anti-Semitic stance I’ve lost all my jobs (Clichy, etc.) and I’m going to court on March 8. You see, Jews can persecute too.” But his obtuse complaint concealed a tacit admission of longing: I, too, am like a Jew. The antisemite imagines himself a persecuted outsider. But he’s a pale imitation of the object of his envy, a martyr to his own paranoia instead of the Divine Name.

The long list of antisemites with Jewish love interests also includes immigrant-loathing horror writer HP Lovecraft (who, of course, married an immigrant Jewess), novelist and self-described “Jew-hater” Patricia Highsmith (who had several Jewish lesbian lovers), and Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger (who had an affair with his star Jewish pupil, Hannah Arendt). Marr himself, the father of modern antisemitism, married multiple (!) Jewish women, though the historical record is silent on whether they role-played “The Victory of Judaism over Germandom” in the bedroom. In his Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, Gregor von Rezzori confessed that “I had finally understood that it was quite possible for me to love a Jewess, not in spite of the eternal Jewish tragedy, the age-old Jewish sadness showing in her face, but because of it.” The antisemite’s attraction to Jews isn’t just physical. His loathing masks an unconsummated spiritual desire. His passion can only be satiated by ritual circumcision. His quivering lips yearn to kiss the wall.

So, my future fellow Elders of Zion: come for the promise of world domination. Stay for the cholent and spiritual uplift of a Sabbath meal. Be a Happy Merchant, not a bitter edgelord. Stop consuming goyslop and start keeping kosher. Do you really want to solve the Jewish Question? Maybe you’ll find the answer in the deeds of the patriarchs, the words of the prophets, and the wisdom of the sages. Maybe you’ll find it was already revealed at Mount Sinai and brought down by (((Moses))) to the assembled Israelites below. Maybe you’ll find, buried beneath your hatred and hysteria, its still, small voice already resonates. You pride yourself on naming the Jew, but the ultimate noticing happens within. Why not immerse yourself in a mikveh and bring the conspiracy to light? There are no hidden protocols, no diabolical plots: just your secretly Jewish soul longing for its people.