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Notable &
Quotable

“What motivates anti-Semitism? For two millennia, the prejudice has fulfilled needs — psychological, theological, national, and social — that have multiplied and mutated:

The need to find an explanation for a variety of misfortunes. What better and more coherent explanation is there than a conspiracy? And what more logical conspiracy is there — depending on the place and century — than the existence of a small group that, plotting in secret, poisons wells or manipulates money or controls governments or causes wars and all manner of other catastrophes and difficulties?
The need to condemn a minority whose members obstinately refuse to accept the majority’s religion, or whose role in that religion’s narrative is evil.
The need to distrust and ostracize a minority whose members act differently, don’t assimilate fully into the larger culture, and have their own customs and practices.
The need to unify the majority group by identifying a common enemy, especially an enemy within.
The need to explain a minority’s material or national success, especially by a majority whose members feel that that success has come at their expense.
The need for some members of other minority groups to find a reason for the difficulties they experience, such as poverty and oppression.

Why were Jews the group that was most regularly identified, in the lands and communities they’ve inhabited, as fulfilling one or more of these needs? The most likely reasons are historical and psychological: When Jews were first identified as fulfilling some of these needs, they were branded as villains. Over time, that branding was repeatedly reinforced so that Jews became the usual suspects — the group that immediately came to mind when a new need arose to find explanatory villains.”

— The Brookings Institute