Anti-Semitism, Jewish Interpersonal Aggressiveness, and Newton’s Third Law

Such a long history.  It began with the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities of the 15th and 6th centuries B.C., respectively.  It continued through the conquest in 720 B.C. of Galilee and Samaria (the northern and central parts of today’s Israel) by Assyrian gentiles.  As a result, the southernmost Jews, who remained safe in Judea, began to develop and systematically maintain a deep-seated reluctance to assimilate with the rest of the world.

To more fully understand this phenomenon, it is important to bear in mind that the Assyrian invasion led to the permanent scattering of ten of Israel’s twelve tribes.  Because of this, the consequent resolve on the part of the remaining Jews to dwell alone became all encompassing, and not just theologically.  It also became deeply embedded in their culture.  This, in turn, led to an enduring focus on ethnocentrism, of which their persistent endogamy is just one feature

Since the Roman Catholic Church is frequently blamed for having developed early on a skewed body of theology holding Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, it is tempting to lay the blame for the West’s anti-Semitism at the feet of the Church.  Although there is clearly some truth in this charge against the Church,¹ the problem with this perspective is that the anti-gentiles would have to wait a thousand years for the Church to fully develop and thus for any such theologically based anti-Semitism to extend itself throughout Europe.

For this reason, a more fundamental and timeless social-psychological explanation for this widespread cult of persecution is needed, perhaps one that at least partially does indeed “blame the victim.”  Although not referring to the Jewish/gentile dynamic at all, Jordan Peterson raises this point to a more general theoretical level with the following words:  “Over the millennia, animals who must cohabit with others in the same territory, have…learned many tricks to establish dominance while risking the least amount of possible damage.”²   [[Emphasis added].

In this regard, the people of the diaspora undoubtedly found themselves starting out at the bottom of whatever society they landed in.  Partly as a result, according to Benzion Netanyahu (the father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), by the time of the Spanish Inquisition there had already been about one thousand “pogroms” of the marginalized Ashkenazic Jews by the established populations of Europe.³  It will be the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that a corresponding  Jewish thirst for dominance and (in their view) the security that comes with it, continues to the present day.

An abrupt and stunning example of how this timeless behavioral norm can apply to confessionalist (inter-religious) struggles in general and to early Christian populations in particular is the 614 A.D. massacre, of as many as 60,000 Palestinian Christians by Palestinian Jews who allied themselves with the Sassanid Persians in their seizure of Jerusalem and the rest of Judea from the Byzantine Empire.⁴ Although estimates of the number of Christians who were massacred vary somewhat, the current massacre of the Palestinian Muslims in Gaza is probably no worse than the 614 A.D. massacre of Palestinian Christians 1,412 years ago..

This pre-European anti-gentilic brutality is a largely unknown precursor of what became a habit-forming response of Ashkenazi Jews to the almost reflexive anti-Semitism they encountered throughout European society and elsewhere. This pattern of security through dominance is documented not only by Douglas Reed in his classic  Controversy of Zion,  but also by Marshall Yeats in the first chapter of his highly auspicious developing work on Jewish history.  For example, Yeats explains why this behavioral modality was able to work so well for Ashkenazi Jews by pointing out that their unique geographical, ethnic and religious profile made them the natural providers of the wealth of Asia to their European neighbors.

The supply chain was at times direct, as with the ancient Silk Road which was actually a web of trails to Henan Province in China, where the mulberry tree grows in abundance.  Usually, however, the supply chain, which involved obtaining whatever goods (both material and cultural) the Levant and the rest of Asia had to offer, was more indirect.   It is well known, for instance, that the state of Kerala on India’s southwest coast, has had a Jewish presence since the time of Solomon.  Their original purpose was apparently to supply locally grown sandalwood for the 100th room of the Jewish temple, the inner sanctum.

Later, however, they would take advantage of the semi-annual monsoons to ship a wide variety of spices and other from Kerala’s Malabar Coast across the Arabian Sea and then up the Red Sea to Sinai.  Still other Jewish traders could obtain a steady supply of goods from their fellow Semites, the eventually Muslim populations of Baghdad and Damascus.

This strategic position of Jews was further enhanced by the fact that Christianity, like Islam, is built on Judaism.  Thus, it was only natural and even logical that Jewish merchants would morph into becoming the bankers of their known world.  This process was augmented by the fact that Christians, both Catholics and early Protestants, were until relatively recently, prohibited from charging interest on loans, (as are Muslims to the present day).   In the case of Catholicism, opinions as to the propriety of charging interest actually went back and forth within the Church, with the Vatican itself at one point agreeing to pay interest…to the Rothchilds, of course!  It was not until the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law that the routine charging of interest was finally and officially allowed and Jews were no longer considered to be beyond the pale, for that reason at least.

It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that this seldom acknowledged but pervasive animus against the gentile world on the part of the children of Israel is roughly equal to the (largely historic) anti-Semitism of the West.  Newton’s Third Law of Motion, after all, posits that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  I will now seek to merge my own experiences and observations with the insights of MacDonald, Peterson, Yeats, Kant, Beck and others to explore the Jewish question while at the same time respectfully taking exception to the Yeatsian thesis that the children of the diaspora, at least Ashkenazic Jews, will always be an alien presence in their country of residence, with Israel itself being the only possible exception..

Humans are not inanimate particles, of course, with one result being that the anger, and resentment of the victimized, if not promptly expressed in the form of countervailing behavior, can turn into clinical depression.  I will argue that in the more secular West “push back” (to put it politely) on the part of Ashkenazic Jews has not only been routine, but almost canonized.  In the traditionally more authoritarian worlds of Italy, Spain. Portugal and Latin America, on the other hand, the Sephardim were forced by their respective authoritarian regimes to lead a cryptic and much less confrontational existence.

In time however,  they emerged from the shadows and found that they could make themselves useful to the elites with their business contacts and in their financial acumen.  In addition, in the world of academics. and more recently in politics, many individuals have been able to make notable advances.  Claudia Scheinbaum, the current President of Mexico, for instance, is Jewish; and the “Mexico Siglo XX” documentary television film series was created by Enrique Krauze with such great sensitivity to historical detail that it was even critical of Jews when necessary.

If the quest for individual recognition failed, however, little recourse remained except depression, which became a common response to the historically pervasive anti-Jewish sentiment and policies of their entorno.  For example, after living in Mexico for only a couple of years I began to notice that there was something different about people who carried the last name Sánchez.  They tended to be small shopkeepers and generally seemed to be morose. It was not until Cary Herz came out with his book, New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews,⁶ however, that I was able to discover the reason for this personality feature.

It goes back to the Jewish population of Spain being able prosper so much under the 700 hundred year rule of the Muslim Moors.  Both jealousy and a widespread suspicion of their (putative) collaboration with the Muslims led to the 1492 royal edict to either convert to Christianity or face expulsion from Spain.  Although Poland gave free land, a guarantee of employment and no taxes until the seventh generation to those expelled, many just wandered around France until a new dynasty would eventually allow them to return.   Although the standard French word for house is mansion, in southern France the term chez is commonly used.  This term was then frequently applied to the Jews without a stable home as les sans chez.  Finally, when allowed to return to Spain, many bore the name Sánchez with defiant pride.³

On a happier note, it is interesting to examine those who through guile or resourcefulness were able to remain in the (Semitic) Middle East, either in Palestine or elsewhere in the Muslim world. They are known as the Mizrahim, and historically they never experienced the degree of anti-Jewish sentiment and behavior that would oblige them to undergo the profound personality transformations of their co-religionists elsewhere.  As a result, their ethnic personality has largely remained indistinguishable from that of their surrounding population.  They were the happy Jews, and up until the Arabic outrage and Zionist jingoism surrounding the recreation of the State of Israel took them in its grip, the inoffensive ones, too.

For me, the most interesting question here is why the Ashkenazic Jews, especially, those from most parts of New York City, display such a heightened degree of interpersonal aggressive behavior that at first blush it appears to be part of their very nature.  It seems that this phenomenon arises when Ashkenazic Jews, having been raised with the carefully curated  belief that gentiles are out to get them, are also imbued with the Leninist dictum that the best defense is a good offense.  The notion is generally credited as having originated with the Chinee philosopher, Sun Tsu, who wrote that “Attack is the secret of defense.”⁷ Regardless, this response to the (perceived) antipathy of the world of gentiles appears to be both efficacious and even therapeutic.

In my particular case, I still suffer considerably from post-traumatic stress because more than half a century ago I went away to college and had as a roommate for one semester, a New York Jew who was admitted on an athletic scholarship and who felt so uncomfortable having a non-Jewish roommate (even one whose parents were decidedly pro-Jewish), that he used terror to maintain complete control over me.  For instance, he once lifted me off the floor by my neck when I turned the overhead light on when I entered the room while he was already in bed screaming that he would kill me if I ever did it again.  Another time he destroyed almost my entire record collection and bragged about it to me.  I felt that if I complained in a formal manner, I would simply not survive the semester.

Yet, most of the leadership in the dorm (which was almost entirely gentile) was well aware of what I was going through, with the result that on one occasion I was forced to dress as Jane and my roommate as Tarzan, and we had to walk around campus holding hands!  To this day I still suffer from post-traumatic stress, which was caused by the danger and humiliation I endured.  I think that this story of one person can give the reader a more complete understanding of the need for control on the part of Jews who have been inculcated with the long history of anti-Semitism.  More to the point, it may help to make clear the devastating impact that this insatiable thirst for dominance can have on the affected gentile population right up to the present day.

In reflecting on what I went through, the one thing that consistently amazes me is the reflexive, almost innate, nature of Askenazic inter-personal aggressiveness.  Even though it can have its benefits for the aggressor, as I have mentioned, the total energy expenditure seems to be so enormous as to render it impracticable on a daily basis.  Perhaps a partial explanation can be found in the Jewish expression, “Rush toward the problem; don’t rush from it.”  Interestingly, this cultural response to perceived aggression has now been transcended at a very high intellectual level by the renowned (and very Jewish) University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatry, Aaron Beck.  He died a few years ago at age 100, but during his lifetime, he completely changed the field of psychotherapy.

Freudianism has now been largely discredited and Beck’s cognitive-behavioral model has become the therapeutic standard.  Basically, it involves identifying a problem, and once it is shorn of its understandable (e.g., monster-under-the-bed) enhancements, the victim of trauma is encouraged to “rush toward the problem” by addressing it as it actually exists and not as it once was.  Current reality then provides the positive reinforcement that helps to extinguish the inflammation of the amygdalae that keeps the sufferer in PTSD’s grip.

Currently, I am a retired professor of sociology and am therefore acutely aware that my sample size, a grand total of one (1), is of course statistically meaningless.  Given the degree of the Jewish control of the media in the U.S. and elsewhere,⁸ however, I am sure that there are many stories like mine.  Further, the fact that this heightened interpersonal aggressiveness, so emblematic of New York Jews. can affect assimilated co-religionists as well as gentiles is attested to even by Jews who are from other places.

Once, for example, in a university cafeteria all of the tables were taken, so I asked a well dressed fellow student who was wearing a Star of David, if I could sit his table.  He graciously assented and not being able to ignore the fact that he identified so strongly with being Jewish, I recounted to him much of what I have written here.  “Look,” he exclaimed, “I’m from Los Angeles.  There are lots of New York Jews in my synagogue…and we can’t stand them!”  Then he sighed and said, “But what can we do, they’re Jewish.”

He and I then proceeded to have one of the most interesting conversations of my entire life.  Since we both, Jew and gentile, agreed fully on the obnoxious and intimidating aggressiveness so characteristic of so very many New York Jews, we could focus on analyzing why this is so.  What we concluded is that they came from the same place (northern Europe), to the same place (the recently constructed massive housing projects of the Bronx) and largely for the same reason (fleeing persecution, not just in Germany, but throughout war -torn Europe).

The 63 public housing projects of the Bronx constitute a community onto themselves.  Now occupied almost exclusively by blacks and some Puerto Ricans, in the 1930 and 1940s they were occupied almost entirely by displaced European Jews.  Thus, the critical mass (in the sense of what is required for an atomic explosion) was similarly present for an explosion of outrage and hatred for the world of gentiles.  Not even America was spared because the Jews who could escape to the U.S. had to come in under the regular quota of their country of origin. The liberals in Congress wanted to establish a special refugee category just for the victims of Nazi persecution, but the Southern Democrats prevented the measure from passing.

Now, of course, it is socially acceptable for non-New Yorkers to look suspiciously on all people from New York.  After all, consider Donald Trump: regardless of his politics, he is certainly as ego-centric and almost as overbearing as the one time denizens of the Bronx I have described.  This process is called  cultural diffusion and is well known to anthropologists   Basically, New York gentiles, once cast into the wrong circles, out of self-preservation had little choice but to develop the same armor and tentacles as their adversaries.

The Los Angeles student’s sensitivity to this issue, however, is understandable especially in light of the fact that in reaction to D.W. Griffith’s 1915 “Birth of Nation,” New York Jews immediately began to take over Hollywood.  As the Jewish writer, Michael Medved (1992) has pointed out, their presence in Hollywood is still very extensive.⁹  Related to this question, is The Library Book,  a study of the Los Angeles library system by the rather liberal writer, Susan Orlean.

She tells the incredible story of why the central Los Angeles library has anti-burglary bars on its second story windows   It turns out that when a studio sends its people to find whatever books are written about a screen play under consideration, rather than simply check them out, one person will go upstairs, find the relevant books and then force open a window in order to throw them out to his accomplice who is waiting outside.¹⁰  The books could so easily be checked out and presumably returned, of course, but there is no chutzpah in that.

This says it all, yet, it is important not to stereotype while otherwise making perfectly reasonable and empirically sound generalizations.  For instance, not only is the arrogant, obnoxious New York City archtype not representative of all, or possibly even most, New Yorkers, many acute observers of New York life will attest that there is one New York City borough that is most un-New Yorkish.  It is Brooklyn.   And the key to this transformation is integration.

Because of its relatively cheap rent, beginning in the early 1800s Brooklyn became known as “Manhatten’s Bedroom” and over the next two centuries it became a mozaic of races, religions and ethnicities.  This pattern has continued to the present day, especially with the ongoing arrival of so many penniless but idealistic college graduates.  Over time, shoulders rub shoulders, rough edges tend to gradually get rubbed off and something ressembling a common culture emerges.

It is for this reason that I would like to conclude by elaborating on my difference with the Yates perspective that Jews will never consider themselves to be true citizens of their “host” countries and will always consider themselves to be first and foremost Children of Israel.  Not only are there striking differences between Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Mizraic Jews, but even within these subgroups there are significant differences such as the differences between New York and non-New York Jews..  With this on mind, I would like to bring up an old saying, “Young man, do not remain too long on the Eastern Seaboard, for it will make you too hard; young man, do not linger too long on the West Coast; for it will make you too soft.”

I am bringing this up in part because of my experience back in the 1990s when I flew out (yes, to the West Coast) to confront my nemesis with what he had done to me.  Although I did find him to be largely in denial and still unapologetic, he was really in many ways a changed and even gracious individual and not at all the arrogant monster I had so painfully remembered.   A very prominent example of the West Coast’s potential softening effect is Andrew Breitbart.  Although his biological father was an Irish-American folk singer, he was adopted by a Jewish family when he was just a few weeks old and remained quite openly Jewish throughout his life.

Tragically, he died suddenly in 2012 of heart failure, but his news service is well known and is still widely respected by many conservatives.  Of particular note is his memorable evisceration of the Frankfort School for its shameless and specious attacks on the United States, the country that had saved them from a vastly different fate in Nazi Germany.  A similar figure is Ron Unz, also a California Jew, he is a force of nature and renowned conservative activist who has authored many California referenda.  Among his many other “firsts,” he has accused Jewish admissions officers at Harvard with “unconsciously” favoring Jewish applicants, and recently he had a major article published in the Fall 2025 issue of the Occidental Quarterly.

The main theoretical point here is that although Jewish ethnocentrism may indeed be theological and therefore political, it is mainly cultural.  So, what does this mean in practical terms?  Basically, what it means is that there is one weapon which potentially all gentiles possess against which Jews are utterly defenseless.  It is acceptance.  Yes, their ethnocentrism, aggressiveness, overweaning control of the media, fixation on sex and occasional bouts of dishonesty must be rigorously exposed, as for the most part I have tried to do here.  But this tactic is defensive; it merely involves repairing damage.  They remain the actors and with agency.

Acceptance, on the other hand, renders them (like anyone else) inert.  That is it in a nut shell.  Yes, they do indeed have many rough edges, which will unavoidably get rubbed smooth by abrading our sensibilities.  That however, is the price that we have to pay for our own confessionalism.  (Remember, just as with Jews, history will not hold us gentiles blameless either)!   Newton’s third law works in both directions, after all.  These reflections may induce many to see this article as sadly ending with a whimper rather than a bang and wide from the mark to boot, but I think further examination of my cultural hypothesis will bear me out.  Cultures are like glaciers; they most commonly change very slowly, but they do change.

To conclude, I would like to put my point on solid philosophical ground by mentioning Roger Devlin’s practical summation of Kant’s categorical imperative: “We should be willing to practice reciprocity with all who are willing to practice it with us [i.e., by treating everyone equally]….but when we encounter outsiders committed to the supposedly unique claims [of favoritism] to their in-group, we must counter with an unapologetic commitment to our own.”¹⁴  In other words, we should treat others (blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, Canadians and everyone else) the same way that we treat ourselves unless they claim special treatment for their own group.  In that case, with absolutely no guilt and with no apologies whatsoever, we should show the same preference to our own group.  We may need to do this for defensive reasons if for no other.  The pain of recovery and reconciliation will continue for quite some time, but when as a unified people we can finally reach the stars, we will do so as one planet at peace with itself.

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Footnotes

^{1After more than a millennium of thunderous silence, the Vatican in its 1965 Nostra Aetate declaration absolved the Jewish people of any guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus.  Then, in 1998 it apologized for not having anything to help the Jewish population of Europe during World War II.  Finally, in 2000 Pope John Paul II asked God to forgive those Christians who have persecuted Jews.}

²Jordan Peterson. Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.  Random House; p. 4.

³ Benzion Netanyahu.  Los Orígenes de la Inquisición en España del Siglo XV.  Nagrela Editores, 2015.

⁴ MacDonald, Kevin.  Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence and Anti-Semitism.  Atlanta: Occidental Press, 2007).

⁵Douglas Reed. The Controversy of Zion T.  GSG , 2013

⁶Marshall Yeats.  “The Jewish Question.”  Pre-Print in the Occidental Quarterly, Vol 24, No. 1 (Spring 2024); pp. 3-29.

7Carey Hertz.  New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews.  UNM, 2009

⁸Kevin MacDonald. ”On the Possibility of a New Elite.” Electronic Posting. February 9, 2025),

⁹V.I. Lenin, who was one-quarter Jewish, was very studious and being from Kazan, a heavily Oriental part of Russia, he was undoubtedly well aware of Sun’s military writings and was most likely predisposed to them as well.  See Sun Tsu.  The Art of War.  512 B.C.

¹⁰ Medved, Michael.   Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values.   New York: Harper Collins. 1992.

¹¹Susan Orlean. The Library Book.  Simon and Schuster, 2018;  pp.  86-87. .

¹² Breitbart, Andrew.  2011.  Righteous Indignation: Excuse me While I Save the World.  Grand Central Publishing

 

¹³ Ron Unz.  “The True History of World War II.”  Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3. (Fall 2025), pp. 41-79.

¹⁴Roger Devlin.  . “Two Styles of Moral Reasoning: Reciprocity vs. the Unique Rightness of the In-Group.  Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 25, No..4. (Winter, 2025-2026); pp. 73-81.

Bibliography

Breitbart, Andrew.  2011.  Righteous Indignation: Excuse me While I Save the World.  Grand Central Publishing.

Devlin, F. Roger. “Two Styles of Moral Reasoning: Reciprocity vs. the Unique Rightness of the In-Group.  Occidental Quarterly, 25. (Winter, 2025-2026); pp. 73-81.

Herz, Carey.  2009.  New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews: Image and Memory.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

MacDonald, Kevin.  A People That Shall Dwell Alone  New York: Praeger, 2002.

MacDonald, Kevin.  Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence and Anti-Semitism.  Atlanta: Occidental Press, 2007).

Medved, Michael.  1992.  Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values.   New York: Harper Collins.

Netanyahu, Benzion.  2015.  Los Orígenes de la Inquisición en Espana del Siglo XV.  Madrid: Nagrela Editores

Orlean, Susan.  2018.  The Library Book.  New York: Simon and Schuster; pp. 86-87.

Peterson, Jordan B.  2018.  Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.  Toronto:  Random House; p. 4.

Reed, Douglas: The Controversy of Zion.  San Pedro, California:  GSG, 2013.

Unz, Ron.  “The True History of World War II.”  Occidental Quarterly, (Fall, 2025); pp. 41-79.

Yeats, Marshall.  “The Jewish Question.”  Pre-Print in The Occidental Quarterly, Vol 24, No. 1.