Imagine: Not being taught to hate Jews
After all the wishful aspirations expressed in John Lennon’s iconic song “Imagine,” envisioning a world with no wars, religion, or even possessions, the closing line extends the following invitation, “I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”
That naïve and childlike yearning is the stuff of fairy tales, whose momentary escapism does not exist in the real world, where strife and conflict run rampant in every society. Plagued with the same human malady, the sinister inclination to hate others is something we must reject.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine a world where we live as “one,” when a new generation of students is taught that Jews are vile creatures whom the world would be better served by eliminating. The elusiveness of peaceful coexistence can, in large part, be attributed to the global indoctrination of extremist Islam directed at the Jewish people.
Education undermining peace
When you consider the education received by innocent children, whose minds are being carefully shaped to believe that Jews are the cause of world suffering, it’s no wonder that they are categorized as adversaries whose powerful aggression is directed against the weak and disenfranchised.
Majority-Muslim countries, such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Jordan, Egypt, as well as the Palestinian territories, are so successful in replenishing young recruits to fight against Israel. Because from early childhood, they are the recipients of the antisemitic vitriol that perpetuates the never-ending cycle of Jew-hatred, keeping it alive and active.
Their textbooks detail the evils of Zionism, while interspersing Quranic texts, referring to Jews as “corrupt, dishonest characters, who believe that gentiles have satanic souls.” Jews are called “thieving conquerors” who “Arabs are obligated to fight.” Zionism is defined as a racist movement that aspires to Judaize Palestine by expelling its residents. It is depicted as more racist, extremist, and aggressive than other ideologies of the 20th century, threatening the security of the Arab homeland, only eradicated through the means of jihad. How do impressionable children counteract that message?
They don’t. Those accusations, followed by cries to battle, are drummed into the young until they become internalized and embedded into the heart and soul of each child. Bearing fruit, once the boys are old enough to go off to war, their mothers send them off gladly. The indoctrination became so deep-seated in the lives of those girls that they saw their patriotic duty as bearing children to be sacrificed for that cause.
In that sense, the education of hate not only produces devastating consequences for the Jewish people but also for the offspring of those who are on board with the repetitive process of scapegoating Israel and her citizens.
If they only had the openness and ability to analyze this devastating impact on their families, perhaps they’d understand how this education of hate is diminishing their numbers, as well as resulting in a never-ending victimhood for their people.
Man's destructive tendencies
What John Lennon’s song failed to take into account was that mankind is unable to help itself from its destructive propensity. Sadly, we are all too prone to adopt the evil that causes us to see others, in this case, the Jews as despicable characters, devoid of any redemption. It is this skewed way of looking at our fellow humans that points us to our desperate need for renewed vision and change of heart – attributes that can only come from a greater source.
Not wanting to acknowledge that, Lennon went off into his own humanistic imaginings of a gentler, kinder world, where hate is put to rest and our natural tendencies are somehow extinguished to the point of total disappearance. But that is not the reality of our world. People, no matter how civilized and cultured, still, sadly, retain their pettiness, jealousies, and impulse to blame others to exonerate their own foibles.
They don’t have to go too far to find the most suitable culprit, because Jews have filled that role for millennia. Even before the invention of textbooks, the angry cries of people were accomplishing the same task, pointing to those deemed to be different. Who can forget that assertion made by Haman to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered… different from all others” (Esther 3:8)?
It is this difference, aka, the way we were commanded to live, that has always set us apart from the nations, accounting for the great hatred against us for not conforming to everyone else. But why should that be the impetus for reviling – especially at a time in history when “diversity” is supposed to be society’s strength? Clearly, that respect eludes Jews, reserved only for the few whose differences are acceptable.
But here’s an honest reality check. The education of hatred has no positive endgame. Because once you are taught to despise others, an ideology whose goals lead to genocide, the remnants of that hatred will search for another home, as they must be fed to survive.
This is where new victims are found, including those who wage war against their enemies. Because, in the process, they, too, lose their lives. Toward the pursuit of putting an end to this grievous pattern of doom, imagining a different world, ushered by a new and improved population, is just not going to cut it.
Unfortunately, it is not in our DNA to get there alone. Lennon was wrong when it comes to the elimination of faith (defined by him as religion). Yes, religion has, undoubtedly, been the cause of too many wars, but there is a vast difference in man-made religious ideology and the heartfelt personal link between the Creator and His creation.
Without that divine connection, we are, regrettably, doomed to repeat the mistakes that we inherited from those who came before us, since we are all subject to the same rotten tendencies.
That is where true faith comes in – the kind that inspires us to do better, to forgive those who hate us, and to strive toward peace with one another. It rejects the education of hatred and causes us to constantly turn back to the source of goodness and mercy, exhibited by a loving God, without whom none of that is possible.
If anything is worth imagining – it’s how different our world would look if we’d all recognize that peace without our Maker is just not possible.
This article originally appeared on the Jerusalem Post and is reposted with permission.
A former Jerusalem elementary and middle-school principal who made Aliyah in 1993 and became a member of Kibbutz Reim but now lives in the center of the country with her husband. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, based on the principles from the book of Proverbs - available on Amazon.
