Why Are There Self Hating Jews?

A self hating Jew is a Jewish person who hates his Jewish religion. What did Judaism ever do to make one despise it so? One can surmise that being born as a Jew often comes with a price. That price is experiencing antisemitism. As a young boy I and most other Jewish kids who went to Jewish day school had to take a bus because the school was not near where we lived. We wore our kippot on our heads so it was obvious who we were. Many times the bus drivers would not stop for us. Were we too loud and obnoxious? Perhaps but no more than any other children our age. No it was: antisemitism.

Later I went to our local public high school. Despite living in a mostly Jewish neighbourhood which was typical of most Jews in Toronto, my high school was located in a non-Jewish enclave. I won't and can't forget the summer that my friend and I went to summer school in order to skip a year of school. The school bus took us to another high school and dropped us off at our local high school. On an almost daily basis we were confronted with a gang of non-Jewish kids with baseball bats waiting to beat us up as soon as we got off the bus. The worst part was that the bigger kids of that gang let the smaller ones beat us up.  Had we fought them off, the bigger kids would hit us with their bats! Were they just plain old bullies? No it was antisemitism. 

But there are other factors at play besides experiencing antisemitism. We all know that wealthy Muslim states have been pumping in billions of dollars every year for decades, into our school system in the West. From elementary schools to universities and of course bribing our politicians whenever possible. Their objective is to feed a false narrative that simply put, paints the Jews/Israelis as evil and the Muslims/Arabs as the good, peaceful guys. History and political science classes at colleges are almost all infected with absolute pro-Muslim lies from top to bottom. To a real historian, their courses are a joke, but that joke becoming a reality is not funny at all. That's why so many of our youth in the West are anti-Israel / antisemitic. Sadly this includes some Jewish students as well. Over time these Jewish students become adults. Some might mature enough to throw off that Jew hating propaganda that they were fed for so long but many don't. Some progress even further down that sick rabbit hole and formally become self hating Jews and worse, self hating Jewish parents. 

Just so we're clear, the land of Israel is intrinsically connected to Judaism. So if you hate Israel, you are an antisemite. 

Where have we failed? Whereas the wealthy Muslim nations have been motivated to feed their propaganda to the world, we Jews have failed to teach contemporary Jewish history or political science to our children. The Jewish day school that I went to taught both Jewish subjects and English subjects as follows:

The Jewish subjects were: Reading Hebrew, Hebrew grammar, Torah study, Gemorah Study and various other Jewish studies like Shulchan Aruch, etc. The higher grades included prayer at our local synagogue.

The English subjects had to follow the curriculum set by our local school board so for example we learned: mathematics, English, science, French, geography, history. Later years we took art, accounting, shop, gym, etc.

I quit after completing grade 8. Going to Jewish private school wasn't cheap and now the cost is through the roof. When I first went to public school I skipped out of class often and still got mostly straight A's. Not because I was so smart. But because my Jewish school taught us at a higher level than the public school system. 

But what the Jewish schools failed to teach us was contemporary history. The creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the War of Independence  and even important current events like the 6 Day War in 1967 were not talked about at all! Those subjects were left for our parents to teach us or find out via other means. Keep in mind the school I went to was a Conservative Jewish school. I'm not talking about an Orthodox Jewish school / yeshiva. I can totally understand those schools staying focused on the Jewish religion. But even they and in fact every Jewish school could and should have set the record straight as to who are the indigenous people in Israel, at the very least. So that when we grew up we would know the facts that are pertinent in every discussion one will certainly have with other ignorant people who have blindly swallowed the lies told to them by our mainstream media, our politicians and their uncle Joe.

Today, many Reform Jewish schools are focused more on gay rights than they are on real Jewish concepts and the love of Israel. They take more effort to espouse concepts like egalitarianism, trans rights and Native rights and even Black Lives Matter than they do Jewish rights. For all I know at young ages they celebrate other religion's holidays no less than they do our own. When they come home they can tell their parents about Diwali and their folks are proud. 

One of the biggest problems we as Jews face is the lack of Jewish education period. As I mentioned earlier, it's extremely costly to send your kids to a Jewish day school. One popular Jewish school in Toronto costs almost $25,000 a year per student! If you have 4 kids that would mean after only 10 years, school alone would cost you a million bucks! And this number is quoted after an apparent reduction. We need to address this problem and fast. I would have thought that our large population of wealthy Jews would help to pay down these costs and otherwise sort this out. Why is it that Orthodox Jewish schools are much more affordable than typical Conservative Jewish schools? I'm not aware of Muslim schools being so prohibitively expensive.

Typically, many non-religious Jewish families send their kids to public school during the day and Jewish schools in the late afternoon, evening or on Sundays. Once the kids reach the age of 13 (Bar Mitzvah age), they usually quit. The kids who are forced to attend these classes view it as a punishment. Unlike their friends, when they finish the day at public school they are then forced to go to another school. They usually learn next to nothing there. Except that being Jewish is a pain in the ass. 

So looking at the big picture, if you're Jewish you sooner or later experience antisemitism. You might not experience violence but you might not get the job you applied for. Case in point, I did an experiment when I started looking for a job in IT. After university I moved to Israel. I lived on a kibbutz for 1 year and travelled around the country for another half year. Every time I applied for a job and included that part of my life (Israel/kibbutz) on my resume, I never got the job. But whenever I omitted that part of my life, I always got the job offer. Coincidence? No, it was antisemitism.

Back to the big picture. You probably experienced antisemitism and didn't like it. You were never taught about modern day Israel or even antisemitism. No doubt when you first experienced antisemitism like at one of the million pro-Palestinian demonstrations world wide, you were probably shocked. Unlike most of my Jewish friends, I attended many. Actually I mostly attended Jewish or pro-Israel events that were also attended to by pro-Palestinian protesters. Check out my story from York University, here or this massive, brutal event at Toronto city hall, here.  

One of many, scary, pro-Palestinian demonstrations held in Montreal, Canada. 

As you attended university or college you were most likely indoctrinated to hate Israel and hate your Jewish self. Worse still you were/are exposed to the mainstream media, state leaders and others who call your democratically elected PM of the one and only Jewish state, hitler, who would be arrested if he stepped foot in our country (I'm talking about Canada). And that your Jewish state is guilty of committing a genocide on a non-existent people called 'Palestinians'. This constant exposure, 24/7 of Jew hatred has an effect. It can either make us stronger or we can fall for the loosing, appeasement approach in the hopes that THEY will leave us alone if we just learn to hate ourselves. I urge you to be the former!