The Peace FAQ:

Chosenness, The Chosen People, Superiority

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Do Jews think they are God's favorite race?
• What does 'chosen' mean then?
• Do Jews have a superiority complex? Do they disregard everyone else?
• Are Jews unique in seeing themselves as special, even superior in certain ways?
• How do the antisemites interpret the notion of Jewish Chosenness?

Do Jews think they are God's favorite race?

• "Does Judaism believe that chosenness endows Jews with special rights in the way racist ideologies endow those born into the 'right race'? Not at all. The most famous verse in the Bible on the subject of chosenness says the precise opposite: 'You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all your iniquities' (Amos 3:2)."

  - Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in Jewish Literacy. The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History (New York: Morrow 1991)

 

What does 'chosen' mean then?

• Chosen People

  The Jews' belief that they are the Chosen People has often provoked antagonism from non­Jews. In the 1930s, as the Nazis were tightening the noose around the necks of German Jews, George Bernard Shaw remarked that if the Nazis would only realize how Jewish their notion of Aryan superiority was, they would drop it immediately. In 1973, in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Yakov Malik, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, said: "The Zionists have come forward with the theory of the Chosen People, an absurd ideology. That is religious racism." Indeed, the most damaging antisemitic document in history, the forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is based on the idea of an international conspiracy to rule the world by the "Chosen People."

  In light of these attacks, it is not surprising that some Jews have wanted to do away with the belief in Jewish chosenness. The most noted effort to do so was undertaken by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the small but influential Reconstructionist movement. Kaplan advocated dropping chosenness for two reasons: to undercut accusations of the sort made by Shaw that the Chosen People idea was the model for racist ideologies, and because it went against modern thinking to see the Jews as a divinely chosen people.

  But does it? After all, how did the notion of one God become known to the world? Through the Jews. And according to Jewish sources, that is the meaning of chosenness: to make God known to the world. As Rabbi Louis Jacobs has written: "We are not discussing a dogma incapable of verification, but the recognition of sober historical fact. The world owes to Israel the idea of the one God of righteousness and holiness. This is how God became known to mankind."

  Does Judaism believe that chosenness endows Jews with special rights in the way racist ideologies endow those born into the "right race"? Not at all. The most famous verse in the Bible on the subject of chosenness says the precise opposite: "You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). Chosenness is so unconnected to any notion of race that Jews believe that the Messiah himself will descend from Ruth, a non­Jewish woman who converted to Judaism.

  Why were the Jews chosen? Because they are descendants of Abraham. And why were Abraham and his descendants given the task of making God known to the world? The Torah never tells us. What God does say in Deuteronomy, is that "it is not because you are numerous that God chose you, indeed you are the smallest of people" (7:7). Because of the Jews' small numbers, any success they would have in making God known to the world would presumably reflect upon the power of the idea of God. Had the Jews been a large nation with an outstanding army, their successes in making God known would have been attributed to their might and not to the truth of their ideas. After all, non­Muslims living in the Arab world were hardly impressed by the large numbers of people brought to Islam through the sword.

  The Chosen People idea is so powerful that other groups have appropriated it. Both Catholicism and Protestantism believe that God chose the Jews, but that two thousand years ago a new covenant was made with Christianity. During most of Christian history, and among Evangelical Christians to the present day, Christian chosenness meant that only Christians go to heaven while the non­chosen are either placed in limbo or are damned.

  Mohammed, likewise, didn't deny Abraham's chosenness. He simply claimed that Abraham was a Muslim, and he traced Islam's descent through the Jewish Patriarch.

  Nations, as well as religions, see themselves as special. When I visited China, I learned that the Chinese word for China means "center of the universe." Nineteenth­century and early twentieth­century Americans had a belief in their "manifest destiny" to rule the North American continent.

  Nonetheless, perhaps out of fear of sounding self­righteous or provoking antisemitism, Jews rarely speak about chosenness, and Maimonides did not list it as one of the Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith.

  from JSOURCE, referencing Joseph Telushkin. Jewish Literacy. NY: William Morrow and Co., 1991

• Whatever he may do - close his ears, swear that he hears nothing - the words: "I Am That I Am" remain imprinted on his soul. He has received a message. He can do what he likes with it. But he is a Jew by virtue of that message and of what he intends to do with it.

  - Francois Fejto, Dieu et son Juif ("God and His Jew"), Grasset, Paris

 

Do Jews have a superiority complex? Do they disregard everyone else?

• Under Construction

 

Are Jews unique in seeing themselves as special, even superior in certain ways?

• Civilizations like those of Rome and China, to say nothing of smaller-scale societies like those of the Hebrews, the Navaho and the Kwakiutl, felt that their communities and cultures were superior to all others.

  - from THE MODERNITY OF ETHNIC IDENTITY AND CONFLICT, by Fred W. Riggs, professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii.

• The nationhood of such people [Arabs] is founded on racial superiority because unless they feel exalted over other people, they cannot pronounce and enforce the superiority of their Prophet over other nations - the sole purpose of this exercise... Hoisting the flag of racial superiority for igniting the undying flame of national bigotry, hatred and jealousy is a favourite, fruitful and frightening tool of prophethood.

  - from ISLAM: The Arab Imperialism, by Anwar Shaikh

 

How do the antisemites interpret the notion of Jewish Chosenness?

"The idea of a chosen people is politically criminal, for it has always sanctified aggression, expansion and domination. The idea of a chosen people is theologically intolerable, for if some are 'chosen' that means that others are 'rejected'."

- Excerpt from an article on the official PA Information Ministry website, written by Roger Garoudy, a Muslim writer currently on trial in France for Holocaust denial. (http://www.pna.org/mininfo/)

 

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• RELATED SECTIONS:

  Judaism, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Racism, Zionism-is-Racism, Socialism, Galut Mentality

• WWW RESOURCES:

  THE CHOSEN PEOPLE, by Prof Paul Eidelberg

  THE CHOSEN PEOPLE, by Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb

  Sacred Place, Chosen People: Land and National Identity in Welsh Spirituality

• BOOKS & PRINTED MATERIAL:
  • Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, by Joseph Telushkin [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, by Dennis Prager, Joseph Telushkin [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, by Dennis Prager, Joseph Telushkin [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • Jews, God and History, by Max I. Dimont [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • The Israelites, by B. S. J. Isserlin [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • Israel and the Nations: The History of Israel from the Exodus to the Fall of the Second Temple, by Frederick Fyvie Bruce, David F. Payne [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • The Jewish Contribution to the Modern World, by Joe King [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • The Jewish Contribution to the 20th Century, by Alan Symons [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • Jewish Contributions to Civilization: An Estimate, by Joseph Jacobs [VIEW BOOK HERE]

  • A History of the Jews, by Paul M. Johnson [VIEW BOOK HERE]

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