When we fear people, we avoid them. But the only good way to reduce racism is by being in contact with those that hate our group so they can come to see us as human beings rather than as a stereotype. By staying away from them, we forego the chance of getting to know each other as human beings. We deny ourselves the opportunity to diminish the stereotypes and hatred.

Jews have often wanted to hide their identity to avoid discrimination or because they are embarrassed by being different. (I would be dishonest to say that I, myself, have been totally free of this). They have abandoned outward display of their Jewishness, and often changed their names to sound less Jewish. Ultimately, I don't think we can earn respect of the Gentile world by trying to disguise who we are, and it certainly does not raise our self-respect. I have great admiration for those Jews, particularly the Ultra-Orthodox, who retain their traditional dress and customs without concern that others will see them as strange or funny-looking.

When we fear others, we feel like victims, and victims tend to feel self-righteous. We believe we are the good ones and they are the bad ones. Some of the nastiest, most vindictive people I have come across are people who feel like self-righteous victims. They think they are allowed to say or do anything because they are on the side of right. Thus, we Jews may sometimes say some pretty hateful things about those we perceive as hating us, not even realizing that we are sometimes being meaner to them than they are to us. We are unaware that such actions makes us no better than those we are condemning.

The ultimate road to peace is not "hate your enemy," but "love your enemy." Unfortunately, many Jews reject this idea because it is attributed to Jesus, and we have come to shun the teachings of Jesus because of the almost-two-thousand-year history of persecution of Jews by Christiandom. I was recently informed by a Jewish scholar that the idea of "loving your enemy" is also found in Jewish mysticism. Let us not forget that Jesus was born a Jew and died a Jew, and his moral teachings were Jewish teachings. If you think about it, "love your enemy" is the ultimate expression of the Golden Rule: since we would want our enemies to love us (which would stop them from being our enemies), we have to love them, too. This is the only chance we have of turning them into friends.

Not all fear is unjustified. People should rightly fear those who have hurt them in the past, for the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Millions of Jews have been killed by those that have hated us over the millennia and, of course, the possibility of further atrocities is always there. But we have to be realistic. Most of the individuals who have hurt Jews in the past are already dead, and just because some people today hate Jews, we needn't treat them like individuals who have harmed Jews in the past. In most countries today - at least in the ones where Jewish populations are found - harming Jews is just as much of a crime as harming anyone else, and the legal system protects us, so we don't have to fear anti-Semites as thought they are about to kill us. But by fearing them, we are unwittingly increasing the likelihood that they might want to do so, for the reasons stated above. Our fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I have heard many people criticize Jews as paranoid, and there is certainly some truth to it. For a group that has produced a disproportionately high percentage of mental health professionals, we should learn to give up this unhealthy attitude. Most people, especially today in the democracies of the world, don't hate us as much as we may think they do. Christian leaders, in particular, have made great strides in accepting Jews and denouncing anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, many of us remain suspicious, and believe that their new friendliness is only a step towards their true goal of converting us to Christianity. The truth is that many of Christians do, indeed, befriend Jews with the hope of converting us. This doesn't mean that they hate us and want to do us harm. From their perspective, they are doing us a favor by trying to convert us. If our Jewish identity is not strong enough to counter Christians' attempts to convert us, is it their failing, or ours?