Musings: The Crusader Effect
What do you know about the Crusades?
Perhaps you remember that they were campaigns by European Christendom to retake The Holy Land from “infidel” Muslim rule. There were several waves, including a children’s one.
Now, a fun fact about this time period is that there were no planes. Really! More than that, they had no cars, or even bikes. They could have sailed from Europe to the Holy Land, but most walked.
Along the way, they came across Jewish villages. And, apostate bird in the hand versus two in the bush, they often whetted their appetite for the Holy Conquering to Come by murdering and ransacking the Jews nearest them.
But this sort of casting about for the nearest Jew wasn’t limited to the Crusaders. The holy war fervor swept across Europe, and for those who didn’t want to march a thousand miles, well, they settled for their Jewish neighbor.
Let’s call this phenomenon “the Crusader effect” — when a mass obsession with a distant morality play prompts local reenactments. Never mind if the closest symbols of evil were just living their lives.
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
We are living in a modern-day Crusade over the Holy Land, where the world is once again desperate to participate directly and, in lieu of that, falling upon their local Jewish populace.
Not that the Crusader effect has to involve Israel or affect local Jews; it could be about any world conflict with ramifications for a perceived provincial equivalent. 9/11 would also qualify as a Crusader phenomenon, as rage-filled non-Muslim Americans expelled their anger upon their Muslim (or Sikh) neighbors. Even the coronavirus had a Crusader effect that affected Asian Americans.
No matter how the Crusader effect manifests, the result is the same: zealots get lazy and attack locally, and none of their efforts actually affect their distant concern.
Vandalizing your local Jewish business doesn’t free Palestine. Graffiti-ing your local synagogue doesn’t free Palestine. Telling Jewish students on campus to “go back to Poland” doesn’t free Palestine. Making your whole identity about freeing Palestine doesn’t free Palestine.
It just persecutes the Jews in your community. Realize this is what all of your activism has essentially amounted to and that your time could be much better spent.