Christianity and Judaism emerged in Roman occupied Judea as opposing views of the world. Thus, Christianity must by its very nature be anti-Jewish, and Judaism must be anti-Christian. Jews did not oppress Christians--simply because they lacked the power to do so. 

To distinguish themselves from their rivals, early Christians portrayed most Pharisees—the founders of Rabbinical Judaism—as rigid, hypocritical, and lacking in compassion and spiritual intuition.

However, the historical Jesus may have been a Pharisee.  Although the Romans crucified Jesus, the Church of Rome laid the blame on the Jews. Thus, all Jews have Jesus’ blood on their hands.

This became the fundamental justification for Christian persecution of Jews for nearly 2000 years. As more secular ideologies developed, the belief that Jews had corrupt blood or genes, from which they could never be cured, persisted. Purification required purging the world of Jews—a task which the Nazis committed themselves to completing.

Christianity focuses on the afterlife; Judaism does not. Some Rabbis taught the world to come will be here on earth—a more material, less spiritual image, than the ethereal Heaven of Christianity. Both the Church and Dietrich Eckart, Hitler’s mentor, took this as evidence that Jews lack spiritual understanding, that they were concerned purely with the material, and were deceitful, manipulative, money grabbers, out to destroy the pure and the holy.

Among Jews, the nature of the afterlife is a subject for debate, with some Rabbinical authorities suggesting the afterlife may simply not exist. Judaism uses the afterlife much less as incentive for doing good or avoiding evil than Christianity. Individuals are seldom rewarded or punished; rather, the community, the nation or the world will be rewarded.

Presumably, Jews and the rest of humanity will be rewarded with the coming of the Messiah, which in some images include the resurrection of the dead--but this is not universally agreed upon.

A dominant image is that the Messiah will come when the world deserves him and Elijah—the wandering Jew—is wandering the world in search of righteousness. When he finds enough righteousness, the Messiah will come. It is not clear if he is only looking for righteousness among Jews or among gentiles as well. There is a counter image that Messiah will come when he is most needed—when there is greater wickedness. Many orthodox Jews thought the Holocaust would bring the Messiah—a hope that may have encouraged a more passive response to the cataclysm.

Although the Nazis were convinced Jews were out for themselves with no concern for Volk or nation, the Jewish expectation of collective, rather than individual, reward or punishment does suggest there exists a strain within Judaism that sees the nation as more important than the individual. Judaism is contradictory—there is both distrust of authority and a requirement of obedience to Torah. Both free thinking and conformity to Talmudic law are virtues.

Christians have taken the limited concern with the afterlife as evidence that Jews do not understand the higher spiritual life and it appears that  Eckhart incorporated that image into one of the founding principles of Nazi ideology. Destroying the Jews was considered essential to create a better world.

This ideology, shared by both Nazism and some strains of Christianity, is an example of “immoral morality,” a theme of Morality Wars—a book  I wrote with Charles Derber. In order to spiritually purify the world, decadent heathens most be forced to see the light, perhaps through the fires at the stake of the Inquisition. If their decadence is inherent to their being, maybe in their genes in the more modern parlance that the Nazis would use, than extermination is the only solution.

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GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics, Yale R Magrass & Charles Derber

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction: Not Such A Wonderful Life

Chapter 1: An Irrational Cultural Divide: Cosmopolitans and Traditionalists Battling Over the Real and The Ideal

Chapter 2: The South Shall Rise Again: Finding Glory in the Defeat of an Indefensible Cause

Chapter 3: Stabbed in the Back: The Master Race Shall Be the Master

Chapter 4: America Becomes Exceptional But Europe Prospers

Chapter 5: Weimar America: Vietnam, the Left, the Right & Reagan

Chapter 6: Make America Great Again:  The Reagan in Trump and the Failures of Anti-Trumpism

Chapter 7: We Can’t Afford Glory: Turning Toward Equality and Human Survival

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 "Yale Magrass and Charles Derber’s study of 'glorious causes' is an in-depth discussion of why people act against their interests. They provide readers with a comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of a subject which has been frequently overlooked. Their chapters on the rise of the right, with popular support, and the failure of the left to come to terms with it, is particularly relevant to politics today. It is a book to be read and debated in classrooms and public meetings throughout the US and abroad."- James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Binghamton University.

"In an era of upheaval and political confusion, how can we understand the emerging world and still have hope for the future? Glorious Causes provides insightful answers. It not only explains the roots of America's deep trouble, but points to ways that we can re-imagine our country and make it once again a beacon for humanity." - Stephen Kinzer, Author of Overthrow, All the Shah's Men and Poisoner in Chief

"Another way of looking at history -- provocative, original, progressive." - Oliver Stone, Hollywood director of Platoon, JFK, and Born on the Fourth of July.

"Fascinating, provocative and very timely! I found it very hard to stop reading, and when I had to momentarily, I was eager to get back to it. On every page, there's something startling to be learned about the past that is crucial to understanding our vertigo-inducing present. Highly recommended!" - Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of The Doomsday Machine