Antisemitism, Demystified: It Starts with an Instinct |
Antisemitism is often treated as a historical mystery or a uniquely irrational obsession. We explain it through theology, politics, economics, nationalism, or conspiracy thinking — and all of those matter.
But if we want to understand why antisemitism keeps returning, even in radically different societies and eras, we have to begin one level deeper.
Antisemitism starts with an instinct.
Human beings did not evolve for tolerance. We evolved for survival.
For most of human history, survival depended on rapid threat detection, tight group loyalty, and suspicion of outsiders. Under pressure — famine, plague, war, economic collapse, social upheaval — the human mind reliably regresses to this older wiring. We simplify. We polarize. We look for an enemy.
Fear alone, however, is unstable. To become socially useful, fear needs a story. It needs blame.
Blame transforms anxiety into action. It converts chaos into certainty and helplessness into direction. Complex explanations are unsatisfying; scapegoats are efficient.
This is the first layer of anti-Semitism: inherited survival psychology — fear, suspicion, and the need for a target.
But fear does not point naturally to Jews. That assignment is learned.
The survival instinct is content-neutral. It simply demands an “other.”
Anti-Semitism becomes durable because societies repeatedly learn — and transmit — the same assignment: when fear rises, blame the Jews. Once installed, this association becomes reusable across crises. Each generation inherits it ready-made.........