"In the past few years, a relatively new phenomenon has arisen: the legitimacy of hatred.
Mutual hatred among Jews is no longer a thing that one is ashamed to express publicly.
On the contrary, it has become almost fashionable.
It cuts through all sectors—a simple, all-inclusive, fundamental hatred, a hatred that does not even need self-justification.
It does not need to say, ‘I am better, and therefore the others are worse.’
Rather, it is a hatred based on the others being, by definition, bad.
There is no longer a need to call each other bad names.
One’s very label is enough of an insult: ‘settler,’ ‘haredi,’ ‘leftist,’—are there dirtier words than these?
So the words themselves become foul, and the people become defiled and loathsome in one another’s eyes.
It is this that I am trying to fight.
Surely not on my own, but also not with much company.”
--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From "Is Ephraim a Dear Son to Me?" in A Dear Son to Me by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. Photo of Rabbi Steinsaltz by Michel Milman.
