scapegoat | #TranslateHate
scapegoat
theme \ 'skāp-,gōt \
: one that bears the blame for others
WHEN IT’S ANTISEMITIC:
In the book of Leviticus in the Torah, the scapegoat was an actual goat upon which were conferred the collective sins of the entire Jewish people. The goat, translated from the Hebrew word ‘ăzāzêl, meaning “absolute removal,” was then pushed off of a cliff as a symbol of the casting aside of wrongdoing.
Antisemites have been using Jews as “scapegoats” for thousands of years, blaming them for deicide — the murder of Christ — and even the Bubonic plague in the Middle Ages (see deicide). Over the past several hundred years, antisemitism has slanderously assigned blame to Jews for world events such as Germany’s loss in World War I— giving rise to Hitler and the Holocaust—and even 9/11 and the financial crisis in 2008 due to the perceived control of financial institutions (see conspiracy theory, control).
Today, Jews continue to be scapegoated both as a people and as a collective nation as the State of Israel. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zionists, Jews, and Israelis were all blamed in relation to the virus, such as causing its spread or profiting off of the vaccine.
