A video clip sent to me by a British acquaintance of mine showing an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic group outburst at the National University of Ireland, Galway -- one of several incidents that have become the norm -- brought to mind my official visit a few years ago to the southern Indian state of Kerala. During a TV interview there, the young presenter asked me: "Why do the Israelis love our country-" When I answered, "I think because anti-Semitism never really existed in your country," he responded: "Anti-Semitism? What's anti-Semitism-" I was so excited to have heard that sort of question, I hugged the interviewer and told him, "Because of that question, we love you." As I traveled back to New Delhi, I thought to myself, what TV presenter in any Christian or Muslim country would ever ask such a question? Even the most amateur interviewer would know anti-Semitism is alive in Europe, kicking among all the liberal principles that were supposed to mold the post-World War II and Holocaust world. Let's go back the clip my acquaintance sent me: The man, Alan Johnson, is an editor at a British, pro-Israel, level-headed Zionist journal, the kind that doesn't eschew criticizing certain aspects of Israeli diplomacy. On March 5, he tried to explain his worldview to students at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He had just opened his mouth when the student body started heckling and cursing, banging their tables and roaring verbal abuse. The onslaught was part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which supports a boycott against Israel and whose activists, among them Jews and Israelis, practice violence against the onstage appearance of any Israeli. In an article he published in Times of Israel, Johnson explained why that specific incident was not anti-Israel, but a part of the anti-Semitic wave sweeping across campuses in the U.K., Ireland and the rest of Europe. Indeed, whoever bothers to watch the clip immediately understands that what transpired falls outside the realm of political protest. Rather, it was manifest hatred -- the oldest form of hatred the world has ever known, the hatred which brought about the extinction of an entire civilization in Europe in World War II. That Israel is demonized instead of described as a nation capable of transgression, and Palestinians are compared to victims of Nazi brutality while BDS activists totally ignore what's happening in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Venezuela or Crimea, proves that this phenomenon is not rational, just like the incitement to anti-Semitism that started flourishing at the end of the 19th century with just one target in mind: the satanic Jews. The truth is, anti-Semitic demonstrations -- the ones in Paris were particularly harrowing -- are not the crux of the issue. Actually, there are positive signs as well: The number of anti-Semitic incidents in France went down last year (perhaps because of the macabre Toulouse killing spree and the French government's and president's forceful response); Pope Francis declared that a real Christian could not be anti-Semitic (a revolutionary declaration that put the kibosh on the vilification of Jews practiced by the Roman Catholic Church for hundreds of years); both sides in the Ukraine crisis accused the other of anti-Semitism, indicating that hatred of Jews in Russia and the Ukraine is not in fashion. On the other hand, for the first time since World War II, many Jews are feeling as though they need to hide their identities, which should alarm any educated person. A survey conducted by the new European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reinforces our suspicions: anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head in Europe. The agency removed from its website the definition of anti-Semitism, which also included rejecting the existence of a Jewish state. That definition, which drew the ire of Arabs and raised eyebrows among several anti-Zionist Israeli academics, bolstered the Israeli-Zionist argument. Its disappearance from the website, explained by the new agency as part of a larger process archiving outdated material, is certainly disturbing, and the EU must re-adopt the definition, at haste. Now, back to Kerala. Anti-Semitism never gained currency in India or in China. In fact, the Chinese-Jewish community, which dates back to the mid-19th century, fully integrated into Chinese society. As I compared the hate-filled hecklers in Galway to that Indian interviewer I could not escape the thought that maybe anti-Semitism had something to do with monotheism. True, anti-Semitism predates Christianity, as the late historian Zvi Yavetz proved, but its demonic and murderous dimensions were only manifested in areas that had a predominant monotheistic religion: Christianity or Islam. While those two religions accepted Judaism as the source of monotheistic religions, they turned hostile towards it because the Jews refused to accept their interpretation of monotheistic principles. The new monotheistic faiths couldn't tolerate the competition posed by the Jews. Some Christian theologians, unlike their Islamic counterparts, went a step further and demonized the Jews. They blamed them for killing the Son of God and said the Jews must have been created by the devil. The Jews would survive persecution and various decrees, but their mere existence was anathema to the way Christian and Muslim clerics tried to portray their almighty God. India, on the other hand, allowed religious pluralism, and its religious landscape included many gods. It is there where Jews could carve out their own niche and live peacefully. They would never be associated with innate traits and would ultimately become interwoven with this multifaith society. Perhaps I got it wrong. Perhaps nothing can explain why the anti-Jewish volcano is still active, and why, as in the case of Hungary, it is about to erupt with new hate-filled lava. But we should keep in mind two things. Nowhere these days can you find a government that is officially pursuing an anti-Semitic agenda. Second, we have a luxury that the Jews of the 1930s were denied: We can tell the BDS activists -- including the Israeli members -- that they should go to hell, because we have a safe-haven for the Jews and Israelis. True, this home has many cracks, but when anti-Semitism is on full display, Jews have no other place but this home. Professor Amnon Rubinstein is a faculty member at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and served as education minister. He is the 2006 Israel Prize laureate in law.
