In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day – the 'scientific study of race' and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel.
Science will explain how but not why. It talks about what is not what ought to be. Science is descriptive not prescriptive it can tell us about causes but it cannot tell us about purposes. Indeed science disavows purposes.
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Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life – on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state – must be cast in the language of human rights.
