The Students of Cain

An ancient midrash describes a common attitude toward Jews today

As Zohran Mamdani prepares to become, in all likelihood, New York City’s next mayor, let’s look at his contention that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state - which, we know, is tantamount to saying that Jews never had a right to immigrate there in the first place.

“Cain spoke to his brother Abel. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” (Bereshit 4:8)

The above Biblical text, which we read on Shabbat two days ago, implies that Cain’s murder of Abel was precipitated by a conversation, but it gives no indication of what they were discussing.

One midrash¹ suggests that Cain and Abel - the only two human beings on earth,² apart from their parents - decided to divide the world between them, with Cain taking possession of the land, and Abel acquiring all property that was not attached to the ground.³ Cain then complained to Abel that he was standing on Cain’s land, while Abel argued that Cain’s clothing belonged to him. Abel insisted that Cain take off his clothes, and Cain demanded that Abel fly rather than stand on the ground. This argument escalated until Cain killed Abel.

Cain accepted Abel’s right to live, as long as Abel did not stand on the ground. Cain killed him because Abel presumably refused to accede to the impossible demand that he leave the land Cain claimed as his own - that is, the entire earth.

I used to think that this midrash was purely metaphorical. Now I think it’s prescient. Does it not reflect the views of the antisemitic masses today, who deny the Jewish people - and the Jewish people alone - the right to live on their own land, while also doing all that they can to make Jews uncomfortable in any other country in which they reside?

There is a fundamental contradiction in the viewpoint of those who deny Jews the right to their own land, while blaming Jews everywhere for the fact that Jews do, in fact, possess the Land of Israel. If Jews do not deserve a land, it is because they are not a people; yet the fact that Jews are verbally and physically attacked in the diaspora because of the supposedly perfidious actions of Israel demonstrates that they are, in fact, a single people. In actuality, those Jews who live outside of Israel are living exactly where the anti-Israel crowd demands that Jews live - yet this fact does not protect them, and never has.

Antisemites blame Jews who escaped or survived the Nazis and were expelled from almost all countries in the Arab world for moving to Israel, even though no other countries were willing to accept them. They could not stay where they were, and they also supposedly had no right to go to the one place that would take them in, the one spot on earth from which they originally came.

Jews were persecuted and murdered in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, yet they are ceaselessly and incessantly blamed for escaping to their native country rather than allow themselves to be tormented and worse in the countries in which they lived.

Quite literally, the antisemites of the world, like Cain of old, demand that Jews live neither in Israel nor anywhere else. They clearly believe that Jews should have stayed in Germany under the thumb of Nazi Germany, in the Soviet Union where they were forbidden from practicing Judaism, and in Muslim countries where they were a persecuted minority,⁴ rather than escape to the one place which would accept them.

I am not suggesting that antisemites will be persuaded by logic or reason, nor do I believe that they are people of good will. I am suggesting that the rest of us acknowledge that those who deny the Jewish people the right to live in Israel, while falsely (and knowingly) assuming that they could have remained in the countries which persecuted them,⁵ are not merely anti-Zionist. They are literally denying that Jews can be Jews anywhere. They are, sadly, the modern day students of Cain.

1. Bereshit Rabbah 22:7

2. Rashi suggests that Cain had a twin sister, and Abel was born with two triplet sisters.

3. This is presumably connected with their professions, where Cain was a farmer who worked the land, and Abel was a shepherd.

4. Once the State of Israel was founded, most Jews didn’t even have the right to stay in the Arab lands in which they were born, even as second class citizens; they were violently expelled.

5. Could Jews have moved to the United States during the lead up to World War II? Some did, but most could not because of immigration quotas. For example, in 1940, 27,355 Germans - many of them Jews fleeing the Nazis - immigrated to the United States, while over 300,000 remained on a waiting list. Obviously, almost all of them were murdered before they could get off the list. History shows that Jews who escaped to Israel had literally nowhere else to go.