1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:09,000 Shalom. We are here with Charles Asher Small, Professor Charles Asher Small. 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:18,000 He is doing great work about antisemitism in one institute and the others. 3 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:23,000 Would you please introduce yourself what you are doing about your work? 4 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,000 My name is Charles Asher Small. I'm the director of ISGAP. 5 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:32,000 ISGAP is the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. 6 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,000 And we do high caliber academic research at top tier universities in North America, 7 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:41,000 in the United States, Canada, Europe and beyond. 8 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:47,000 And we try to also train professors on trying to create, we help them create courses 9 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:52,000 in our summer program at Oxford University on contemporary antisemitism 10 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,000 because contemporary antisemitism has not really been part of the university system. 11 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000 So we're training professors to teach courses for credits in their home university. 12 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:06,000 So there is the problem of antisemitism. What's the cause of it? 13 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:11,000 So I think it's perhaps the longest hatred in history. 14 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,000 So it's a very complicated subject of study. 15 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:22,000 But I would say if I can sort of brutalize history, I can give you the history of antisemitism in 90 seconds, 16 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 which will be very simple. So forgive me. 17 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000 But I think there are three phases of antisemitism or antisemitism with an S. 18 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,000 The first phase is the religious phase. 19 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:38,000 I think when the dominant way in the world of seeing reality is through the lens of religion, 20 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:44,000 particularly in Europe and with Christianity, they perceive Jews as being blinded by evil 21 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,000 because they did not accept the Christian notion of the Messiah. 22 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:54,000 And Christians, the church thought that not only was the individual Jew unable to have redemption 23 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,000 without accepting the Christian way, but that they were holding up world redemption. 24 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:05,000 And until the Jews accepted the Christian notion of the Messiah, the world will have no redemption. 25 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:11,000 And this is where the genocidal tendency is because if you believe a group of people are stopping redemption of the world, 26 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,000 it's a very strong antagonism. 27 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:20,000 And I think when the world reality, when the perception of the world shifted from religion to science and technology 28 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,000 and to notions of nation and race, the Jews were seen as the quintessential other, 29 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,000 particularly in the Middle East and in Europe. 30 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:36,000 And the Nazis and racist ideology, eugenics and science that created these notions of race, 31 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:43,000 the Jews were an impure race, poisoning, so they were taught the purity of the white Aryan race. 32 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:49,000 And unlike during the Christian phase of anti-Semitism, the Jews couldn't convert out of their religion 33 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:54,000 because race and national, we were taught, was innate. 34 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:58,000 It was characteristics innate in us that you can't convert or change. 35 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:04,000 And I think this form of anti-Semitism culminated in the Holocaust 36 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:07,000 because the white Aryan race believed they had to purify themselves 37 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,000 and eliminate the impurity of the Jewish race. 38 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,000 And this results in the Holocaust. 39 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:18,000 I think to a large extent those anti-Semitism in the West anyways are a thing of the past. 40 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:24,000 But today the dominant form of anti-Semitism is an attack on Jewish peoplehood, 41 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,000 who Jews are as a people. 42 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,000 And the Jewish people have an ancient connection to the land of Israel. 43 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,000 Our notions of freedom in our culture, in our way of life, 44 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:39,000 is connected to the land of Israel, to Jerusalem and the holy cities in the land of Israel. 45 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:45,000 And now the attack is on Jewish peoplehood, not the racist anti-Semitism or the Christian anti-Semitism, 46 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:53,000 but we see the rise of political Islam and political Islam, not Muslims, not Islam, but political Islam, 47 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 they took their ideas from the Nazis. 48 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000 The Muslim Brotherhood worked with the Nazis against British colonialism 49 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:08,000 and they took some of their ideas and they took some of the most pernicious forms of anti-Semitism ever as a core belief. 50 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:15,000 If you read the Hamas charter, if you read Yosef Kawadawi, they're using Nazi ideas, European Nazi ideas. 51 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:21,000 So they're taking European foreign ideas to purify Islam, which is amazing. 52 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,000 So they take Nazi ideology and views of the Jew. 53 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000 It's in the center, the core of the ideology. 54 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:35,000 And they're using it now for many generations, two, three generations of poisoning the minds of people in the region, 55 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 about the Zionists, about the Israelis and about the Jews. 56 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:47,000 And Kawadawi and the Muslim Brotherhood and the founders of Al-Bana and Qutub call for the annihilation of the Jewish people. 57 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,000 Kawadawi says that the believers need to finish the work of Hitler. 58 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:59,000 So imagine a Muslim spiritual leader, a very important spiritual leader, quoting Hitler to exterminate people. 59 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:00,000 It's amazing. 60 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:05,000 So on the one hand you have political Islam and they've become very influential in the region. 61 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:12,000 And I think on the other hand in the West we have this sort of post-modern moment where the West has acquiesced. 62 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:19,000 The West has not stood up for democratic values and has done a lot of business with the Muslim Brotherhood, 63 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:24,000 with the Iranian revolutionary regime and other forces, even in Turkey, 64 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:32,000 who are political Islamists trying to impose a very reactionary view of society on its people. 65 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,000 And the Jews are the best scapegoat. 66 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:44,000 Elie Wiesel, Professor Elie Wiesel, always taught that anti-Semitism begins with Jews, but it never ends with Jews. 67 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:52,000 And we can see, tragically, the demonization of Israel, of Zionists, of Jews for a generation, for two generations in the region. 68 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,000 As long as Israel is being demonized, it's okay. 69 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:00,000 But we now see the enemies of Israel are killing their own people. 70 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,000 Muslims are killing Muslims. 71 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:08,000 Syria, 600,000 dead people, 15 million refugees, but it's the Zionists, it's the Jews. 72 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:11,000 And this is the tragedy of anti-Semitism. 73 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:18,000 We focus on the Jews and the reactionary forces are taking over society and poisoning the mind of the youth 74 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 and killing their own fellow brothers and sisters. 75 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,000 It's a very serious problem. 76 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:25,000 So I agree with you. 77 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:31,000 I think anti-Semitism was brought into the Middle East or into the Islamic world, if you can say this. 78 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:33,000 I'd say roughly a hundred years ago. 79 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:45,000 Professor Bassam Tibi writes very well on these issues and how anti-Semitism was exported by Europeans, by the British, by the Germans into the Middle East. 80 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:46,000 So that's very important. 81 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:55,000 I think there was a history of discrimination of Jews in the Arab world or in the Muslim world, not at the level of Europe. 82 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:56,000 It's very different. 83 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:04,000 I think anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that's inherently genocidal and that did not exist in the Islamic world. 84 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:09,000 But Jews were, to me, Jews were not equal citizens with equality. 85 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:20,000 So there was discrimination, there were moments of violence, but in general, the condition of the Jew in the Muslim world was much better than in the Christian world. 86 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:34,000 But as you say, roughly a hundred years ago, the exportation of anti-Semitism, this genocidal form of hatred, was brought to the Middle East, to the Arab world, to the Islamic world. 87 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:41,000 And this new phenomenon has taken hold, and it dehumanizes people. 88 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:47,000 You know, in Judaism, we believe that we're all created in the image of God. 89 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:49,000 Every human being is created in the image of God. 90 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:54,000 That means everybody has a truth, a part of God within us. 91 00:07:54,000 --> 00:08:04,000 And in our teachings, the only way I can become wise, the only way I can learn anything, is to respect the other. 92 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:12,000 And there's a very famous philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, who brought Jewish ethics to the university in France, in Europe. 93 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:19,000 And he said, which is based on Jewish ethics, the moment we see our face in the face of the other. 94 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:23,000 The moment we see our face in the face of the other, this is the instant we become human. 95 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:30,000 And if we don't recognize the other, if we don't see the other as human, we lose our ability to gain wisdom. 96 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:38,000 Because if I respect you with humility, and I know you're created in the image of God, and I'm open to you, I can learn, I can become more wise. 97 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:49,000 If I'm racist against people from Turkey, or Muslims, if I hate Muslims, I eliminate over one billion opportunities for me to become wise. 98 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:52,000 So I hurt myself, I live in ignorance, I live in darkness. 99 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:56,000 So we have to, with humility, respect each other and be human. 100 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:06,000 And when political movements say that a group of people emanate from the urine of donkeys, or they descend from apes and pigs, 101 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:14,000 and we attribute problems and diseases and animal-like behavior to human beings, we hurt ourselves. 102 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:20,000 We destroy our culture, we destroy our religion, we destroy our families, we destroy our societies. 103 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:24,000 And this is the tragedy what's happening in our region and around the world. 104 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:32,000 And I think, you know, this is a moment when people who are truly connected to something higher, in their own way, 105 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:39,000 through Judaism, through Christianity, through Islam, and many other religions, people of good faith, we must come together. 106 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:42,000 Because this is a moment of catastrophe. 107 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:46,000 And if we don't stop it, if we don't stop it, it's just going to accelerate. 108 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,000 And we see it accelerating. 109 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 And this is why, tragically, this conference is important. 110 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:56,000 We started with 30 people 18 years ago, and now there's almost 2,000 people here. 111 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:01,000 Because people realize we're living in a moment where we must stop the hate. 112 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:02,000 OK. 113 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:03,000 That's it. 114 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:04,000 Well, she's changing diseases. 115 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:05,000 Thank you, Joven said. 116 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:06,000 You have not fought us such as myths as Christians Hanех Ramirez. 117 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:07,000 Good thing. 118 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:08,000 I know. 119 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:09,000 Well done. 120 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:10,000 This is true. 121 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:12,000 How about Standardweise powerfully they're going to inspire us? 122 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,000 You have to have an international level of MAF. 123 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:15,000 Viewer. 124 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:16,000 Go underneath. 125 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:17,000 Lucrate. 126 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:18,000 President forwarders. 127 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:20,000 Has an international dieserвержds media and Eggman Brothers. 128 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:21,000 That's a great question. 129 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:22,000 That's it. 130 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 The great question. 131 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:27,000 The great question is where to show up real things. 132 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:28,000 Without a way of a time they're done without journaling keeping minute factories. 133 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:29,000 At this point .