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Jewish exceptionalism is the belief that Jews are historically, culturally, or racially "exceptional" in some way, and thus are exempt from the standards that would normally be applied to any other ethnic or religious group. It exists in two forms: Zionism and anti-Semitism. Zionists assert that Jews are not only distinct from but superior to other groups and thus have a right to colonise Palestine. Core to this belief is the idea that Jews are God's Chosen People, that the Holocaust was some special crime incomparable to any other which must be viewed in isolation rather than as part of a broader phenomenon of European colonialism and genocide, and that "Israel" acts as an outpost for "superior" Western civilisation in the Middle East. Anti-Semites by contrast hold to the view that Jews are uniquely evil, spinning tall tales about how Jews secretly control governments and finance and are responsible for society's problems.
Examples
Some examples of Jewish exceptionalism include but are not limited to:
- the claim that only Jews were victims of the Holocaust
- the justification of Israel on the basis of the existence of ancient Israel proving the existence of a Jewish nation
- the justification of Israel on the basis of historical Antisemitism
- the proclamation of Jews to be a superior peoples, such as what Victor Serge claimed in his works on Jewish people
It is important to note that Jews themselves are victims of Jewish exceptionalism, as it ultimately serves the interest of finance capital and imperialism in Palestine, leaving most Jews worse off as it associates them with the Genocidal fascist "state of Israel" and provides confirmation for Antisemitic conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazis.