What is it about the Jews and antisemitism?

A Semite (or Shemite) is one descended from Shem, a son of Noah. 'Shem' in Hebrew means 'name,' the line who would carry the Name and knowledge of God as a memorial throughout their generations, which would include Terah, Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Judah, David, the Prophets and Jesus and his apostles. The anti-Semite is one who opposes the Name and those who carry it.

Christianity, including the devout Reformer Martin Luther and such notables as St. Chrysostom, has been the perpetrator of antisemitism in the name of the Jew Jesus for much of twenty centuries with inquisitions, crusades, expulsions, exclusions, persecutions and pogroms, but it did not begin with them. The Romans and before them the Greeks and Babylonians and Assyrians and before them the Philistines and before them the Amalekites and before them the Egyptians, all tried to destroy Israel. But we are somehow still here, a mere 0.2% of humanity and back in our ancient land after 2000 years of dispersion, to the dismay of many, where again our enemies attempt to destroy us. They did not want us in Europe, and now they do not want us in the Land of our ancestors, Israel, though we gave the world the Bible and Moses and Jesus, and many gifts to the betterment of humanity. What is it about the Jews?

The Accuser's finger has regularly pointed squarely at the Jews, one of the smallest peoples on the Earth, for any perceived problem or failure of the world. Communism and Nazism were the cruelest. More specifically, now it can point at the Jewish nation of Israel, accusing it of "apartheid," the only nation in the Middle East where Jews and Arabs of every color dwell together daily as equal citizens in all walks of life. And accuse Israel of "genocide" when it defends itself against the attacks of enemies who openly seek the genocide of the Jews and their nation. And accuse the Jews of "colonizing" and stealing land not theirs, though every rock and city and hill and archaeological find and ancient biblical scrolls discovered speak of thousands of years of Jewish presence, including the city King David, Jerusalem.

The Jews may be the only people whose own holy book, the Bible, honestly describes and confesses and condemns their own foibles and failures, the stumblings of their leaders and heroes, including King David, Samson, and even Peter (Shimon) the apostle, for all to see. The hater of the Jew has often used this vulnerability as his very weapon to declare the Jews rejected by God and replaced by Christianity, which is also the boast of the latecomer religion, Islam, today's most virulent opponent.

There are some today who even claim the Jews of today are not the Jews of the Bible, having come to Israel from Europe or America. But that could have been said of the Jews dispersed to Babylon, whose children  later returned to the Land of Israel.  But many Jews carry their genealogies in their Hebrew names given at circumcision, the covenant of Abraham. Some descended from the priesthood bear the names Levi or Cohen or Katz. No, these are the same dry bones risen from the Nazi death camps to take on flesh and blood and to form a great army of brave warriors to defend the reborn nation of Israel. They have returned to the promise, "And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem  the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn" (Zechariah 12:10), and " And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob." (Romans 11)

Chosen? Yes, chosen to sing once again the songs of David written 3000 years ago- in the same ancient Hebrew tongue reborn, at this very place restored by the people who gave the world the knowledge of One Creator, 'the people who are called by His name.' The word "Jew" arises from the Hebrew Yehuda  יְהוּדָה  (Judah) the word containing in full the name of YHVH, and the land containing Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron of the Land of Judah, the Tribe of David and Yeshua (Jesus), "the King of the Jews," who said, "Salvation is of the Jews," the people called 'the Witnesses of Yahovah' (Isaiah 43:10-12).