In ancient Israel, when the temple was still standing and all rituals connected to it were performed, one of them was sacrificing animal for the Lord (universal practice of all religions at the time, quite many of others sacrificed people as well, which was never the practice in Judaism and was explicitly forbidden). But during the Atonement Day (Yom Kippur) the priest, in accordance with the text in Leviticus 16:1-34, two goats were chosen, one of them as a sacrifice and one of them chosen to take the sins and transgressions of the community upon itself. The very name "scapegoat" is connected to English translation of the Bible from 1520, and English translation of the Hebrew word 'ăzāzêl means "for entire removal" or, later, as a synonym of fallen angel (Satan) although this tradition is rather from the XVI century Christianity.
This sacrifice and sin bearing was thus referred to by Maimonides: “There is no doubt that sins cannot be carried like a burden, and taken off the shoulder of one being to be laid on that of another being. But these ceremonies are of a symbolic character, and serve to impress men with a certain idea, and to induce them to repent; as if to say, we have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible.”
Still, why two goats? Torah states: “On this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the L‑rd, you will be clean from all your sins.” This ritual, so specific for Yom Kippur, might mean that on top of atonement for acts, sought after with each and every offering, not only in Judaism, something else was at stake. Purification for persons, for community. Sins leave stains on the character of those who commit them, and these need to be cleansed before we can undergo catharsis and begin anew. A moral stain is not something physical. It exists in the mind, the emotions, the soul. It is hard to rid oneself of the feeling of defilement when you have committed a wrong, even when you know it has been forgiven. Some symbolic action seems necessary.
Why do I write about it? The psychological burden of - even atoned - sins and transgressions is universal for most, if not all, human cultures. It creates cleansing rituals for groups and individuals alike. There is nothing wrong with such rituals, they serve our deep psychological needs. However there are dangers that are or may be attached to some of those rituals. Some of them may be dangerous for people craving cleansing. Others may be hostile or dangerous for others.
Since at least Bar Kochba's uprising in 135 CE Jews were perceived as Others by Roman and subsequently Christian cultures. Christianity, trying to gain its own identity had to severe ties with Judaism. And trying to survive in the Roman world on 2nd century, extremely hostile to Jews, who after two uprisings (in 70 CE and 135 CE) were being murdered, exiled and sold as slaves, Christianity turned to Antisemitism. When Europe started turning into Christian continent in IV and V centuries Jews, keeping their own ancient religion, tradition and culture, were finally the last lasting, non-Christian element of European societies. And soon, due to long standing and constantly fed enmity of Christian authorities, and lack of trust and understanding on the part of majority of Christian Europeans, they were perceived as suspicious group of people. The law barring them from many occupations was additional problem.
Anti Judaism of Catholic church has many victims: Jews were accused of poisoning wells during Black Death epidemic, they were accused of using Christian babies blood for baking matzot (blood label) and of torturing communion wafers in Catholic church. They were banished from England in 1290 and from Spain and Portugal in 1492. There were places where they were relatively safe for long periods of time but almost always, even after years, the persecution was returning.
Since many people, even subconsciously, knew that such treatment was not deserved, not Christian-like or humanly and generally problematic, they were looking for reasons which could justify such approach. Not for the benefit of defense against law (persecution was fully lawful) or defense against persecuted Jews (they didn't need any) but for their own benefit. They needed reason to feel righteous even when treating Jews wrongly and sometimes horribly. And this is probably the source of many accusations. Chief among them was the accusation of killing Jesus. After all, killing God is such preposterous crime that any bad treatment of the culprit is deserved. The fact that Jesus (from Christian standpoint) agreed for his fate in order to become the savior, did nothing to prevent maltreatment of his compatriots. The fact that Jesus himself was a Jew didn't registered with people till late XIX century and is questioned even until this day, and the fact that crucifixion was a purely Roman punishment for political transgressions and no Jewish court could sentence anybody to such a penalty has never registered at all with majority of churchgoers.
During Enlightenment and XIX century Jews started to be persecuted for their race or nation, as religion was becoming less and less of the meaningful factor. This time they were accused of not wanting to assimilate (or assimilating and pretending not to be Jewish), of being wealthy (or poor, as majority of them were), of being capitalists (or communists), or of being internationalists not tied emotionally to any country of residence, though it was not a crime, and actually they were no Jews but aristocrats who were guilty of widespread internationalism.
When this approach led to Shoah, probably the worst case of genocide in history, the accusations ceased for some time. Yet it took solely some 20-30 years to start accusing Jews of Zionism. Therefore, internationalism (false accusation in itself as so many Jews were wonderful patriots in the countries where they lived) was bad, but apparently loving their own land (something called patriotism in all other countries and for centuries believed to be a virtue) was even worse. And at the time when Europe started turning towards internationalism herself, and even European patriotism was less welcome, Zionism became a super sin. Without any regards for facts or circumstances.
What have all these accusations in common? Jews were made into kind of scapegoats themselves by European civilization and cultures. Transgressions and bad characteristics that people saw in themselves and their neighbors were extrapolated to "others" (very human behavior) and one group - Jews - was always perceived as "others" in the worst meaning of this term. After centuries of this situation, probably partially from habit and partially because analysis would have to lead to confrontation with 20 centuries of constant persecution of innocent people by our whole Western civilization (which, no matter lip critic, most people living in it still believe to be superior to any other) it was and is easier to hold to the old bloody myths just changing the accusations. And they don't have to be consistent. After all if Jews can be blood sucking capitalists and communists at the same time they may be Western imperialists, racists and nationalists and anti-Western agents at the same time as well.
This is why extreme right and far left at this moment speak and write practically the same texts about Jews and Israel. The classic horseshoe theory implementation.
And for both these extremes (taking more and more of the overall political spectrum in today's troubling times) Jews (and Israelis specially) are scapegoat. They believe (or very well pretend to believe) that all Jews are responsible for transgressions of any one of them, that all Israelis (or at least Jewish Israelis) are responsible for any real and invented sins of Israel and her government, that all Jews have views this particular group of activists is condemning the most in any given moment. Obviously any other country or entity may have (sometimes very aggressive) international agenda or interests. EU may accept occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco and Morocco may occupy Western Sahara. Saudi Arabia and Iran may lead per proxi war in Yemen causing thousands of deaths and true famine. Iran may mess in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza (among others) keeping and using private armies and it is still politics. China may occupy Tibet, threaten Taiwan, not keep their promises towards Hong Kong and murder Ujgurs. USA may sink Venezuelan ships and threaten war in this country. France may arrest presumably Russian tanker with Chinese captain on international waters. India and Pakistan may from time to time exchange blows in Kashmir. Business as usual. God forbid if Israel sustains legal blockade, responds to attack, or not treat non-citizens as non-citizens. Suddenly this obvious, everyday actions are sins.
The blockade of Yemen engaging quite few countries is almost unknown, the blockade of Japan in 1945 is understood. The fact that UK lost in II world war some 300,000 citizens, mostly soldiers, of which some were killed by Japanese, and in British air raids over Germany some 2 million civilians perished does not make British defense against Nazi Germany genocide. The fact that non-citizens have not the same rights as citizens does not create apartheid anywhere but - apparently - in Israel. After all ALL citizens of Israel (Jews, Arab and Druze; Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Bahai, non-believers etc.) have exactly the same rights. Well, non-Jews don't have to serve in IDF, however many of them do and among Bedouins and Druze as many as among Jews). But suddenly different approach to non-citizens residing in West Bank makes Israel an apartheid state. Why?
These are not just double standards, which would have been bad enough. This is putting demands that no other states would ever be expected to apply and putting all realized and unrealized sins, transgressions and unfulfilled dreams of the world on Israel and than abandoning her to Azazel.
But Israel is not sacrificial goat. She is a wonderful country that tries to do more than the majority if not all other states. And transgressions are left with culpable parties (as always). This is not to say Israel is sinless. But she is a democratic country, trying for the best under extremely hard and hostile circumstances.
And scapegoats, in this and all other situations, do not lead to feeling of relief and cleanliness by individuals, groups, nations or countries trying to pass their sins to somebody else. Scapegoats create more anger, feeling of injustice, resentments and so on. Because in the heart of hearts we all know there is no such a thing as scapegoat and the more we try to believe in one and shout about one the harder the situation gets.
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