ABSTRACT
The concept of Israel as God’s ‘chosen people’ has been a constant feature of Jewish thought from biblical times to the present. As the Book of Deuteronomy relates: ‘For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.’
There is an argument between the rabbi and the philosopher whether being the chosen people, or believing to be chosen by God, shows Jews to believe they are superior and in some way special. There are, then, implications for how they are to behave compared with the non-Jewish others. That leads to reflections on the extent to which beliefs and differences should be respected. It would seem understandable that if a people think of themselves as specially chosen by God, then others would judge that as a claim of superiority – thus leading to controversies of how antisemitism should be understood.
