Semitism: The Whence and Whither - "how Dear Are Your Counsels"

Semitism is a human story of distinctive intimacy with a God, believed to belong with birth, sealed in history and homed in given territory. These three denominators of tribe, territory and remembered time belong to all human identities, understood as one creation in a single cosmos in the Bible and the Qur'an. Anti-Semitism is a tragic misprision of this long conviction of the Judaic mind, bringing endless suffering to the one, shame and guilt to the other. Its effect has been to make those counsels dearer still, whether in Zionist will to recover and rule territory or in a secular diaspora struggling to know itself. Semitism has overtaken itself with the barbarity of a dividing Wall - a scar across a land allegedly beloved above all, by both God and People.