How Dare You Ask Me for My DNA? |
Today, the 12th of Adar, is my birthday.
It is also the month of Purim — when Jews around the world read the Book of Esther and remember how a people were nearly destroyed because they were described in a certain way.
My name is Yaakov Moshe Levine.
Yaakov — the patriarch who wrestled through exile and became Israel. Moshe — who stood before Pharaoh and declared that power answers to a higher law. Levine — from Levi, a tribe dispersed among the people, entrusted with memory more than territory.
Your name, Tucker Carlson’s name, carries Scandinavian roots, migration, settlement, and colonisation in North America.
Mine carries Middle Eastern origin, Roman expulsion, dispersion across continents, survival under empires, and eventual return to my homeland
Both names tell stories.
Neither requires a DNA test to validate belonging.
The Route of the Megillah
The Book of Esther begins not with violence, but with a sentence:
“There is one people, scattered and dispersed among the nations, whose laws are different.”
Haman did not begin by calling Jews evil.
He began by calling them different.
The progression is precise:
Different → Separate. Separate → Disloyal. Disloyal → Dangerous. Dangerous → Eliminable.
Those words were not shouted in the streets.
They were spoken in the royal court.
They were not trending on X. They were not viral on TikTok.
They were policy language.
That is what makes the Megillah timeless. Evil rarely announces itself dramatically. It often begins in reasonable tones, in structured arguments, in language that sounds administrative.
History teaches Jews to recognize that route early.
Antisemitism is not criticism of Israeli policy.
Antisemitism is when Jews are:
Cast as inherently corrupt or malevolent.
Treated as uniquely illegitimate among nations.
Denied historical continuity granted to others.
Framed as fundamentally alien wherever they reside.
In medieval Europe, Jews were accused of ritual evil.
In racial Europe, Jews were classified biologically as contaminants.
In modern discourse, Jews are sometimes genealogically audited — told to prove their indigeneity through DNA, often via the Khazar narrative.
The impulse to question Jewish legitimacy remains.
When ancestry becomes a selective test applied uniquely to Jews, that is not neutral inquiry. It is delegitimization.
But we must be careful with the word evil.
Calling Jews evil is antisemitism.
Identifying real evil is something entirely different.
Real evil is eliminationist ideology.
Real evil is when a regime embeds into its doctrine the destruction of another people.
In a recent Times of Israel blog, Shimon Apisdorf, in “From Climate Change to Regime Change” (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-climate-change-to-regime-change/), argues that the Iranian regime’s ideology is not simply geopolitical rivalry but mission-driven doctrine. He describes it as a worldview in which the destruction of Israel is not strategic rhetoric but theological obligation.
One may debate policy responses.
But the core issue he raises is sobering:
When eradication becomes embedded in ideology, we are no longer dealing with normal political disagreement.
It is not about borders. It is not about settlements. It is not about sanctions.
It is about elimination.
Persia Then, Iran Now
Purim took place in ancient Persia — modern Iran.
Then, as now, Jewish existence was framed as a problem.
Haman did not seek reform. He sought annihilation.
The Iranian regime does not merely criticize Israel. It speaks of wiping it off the map.
And eliminationism does not begin with missiles.
It begins with narrative:
They are different. They do not belong. Their history is false. Their existence is negotiable.
The Megillah teaches that the route from “different” to “destroyed” begins quietly.
A Birthday Reflection in Adar
On the 12th of Adar, I reflect not on outrage, but on clarity.
My name carries origin, exile, survival, and return.
It carries prayer toward Jerusalem recited for two thousand years.
It carries resilience through empires.
Purim teaches Jews to recognize the route early — especially when the words sound reasonable.
Antisemitism calls Jews evil.
My argument is different.
Real evil is eliminationist intent — wherever it appears.
My name is Yaakov Moshe Levine.
It tells a story of continuity.
That story does not require genetic validation.
It requires memory — and the courage to recognize real evil when we see it.