Wherein do the roots of Anit-semiticsm lie?

[Dr Strangelove]

How do you explain the persecution of Jews by non-christian Europeans? The Nazis were quite public about their fondness for the old gods and considered christianity to be a religion for losers ( just like Ted Turner ).

[Sava]

It actually started in Ancient Egypt, was revived during Rome, continued during the infestation of Christianity, was a major part of Europe in the Middle Ages, and is alive and well today.

It all starts with ignorance.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Non assimialtion (also a big problem for the Romany) and "chosen people" help to create friction and tend to increase bigotry. Rejecting most of the doiminant ethnic group's or groups' common customs can appear to be arrogant, insluting, unneihborly, etc. The setting apart also makes a group a more obvious and easy target for scapegoating. In San Antonio, I have never observed anti-semitism, and rarely heard of any (and most of that 2 {3 for you guys}generations ago). The vast majority of the jewish population in San Antonio is not ulta orthadox or otherwise "different looking'. They do not dress differently, they do not talk differently, they do not set themselves apart in ways that could be interpreted, by thoses predisposed to, as 'in your face', we live in the same neighborhoods. They have not hsitation in integrating with gentiles in for business or social. Ther are no all jewish law firms, etc. My family has had 4 generations of close business association or partnerhips and social relations with two Jewish prominent Jewish families, and my generation in the family has multiple close social contacts with Jewish families . Gentile freinds go to Bar Mitzvas and events a Synagogs, Jewish freinds go to christenings and events at churches. The more the assimilation toward the 'average' of the non religious customs in an area the less the trigger points for those person vunerable to zenophobia and bigotry.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sava
It actually started in Ancient Egypt, was revived during Rome, continued during the infestation of Christianity, was a major part of Europe in the Middle Ages, and is alive and well today.

The Egyptians weren't anti-Semetic. They were just anti-non-Egyptians. Oppression fo the Jews for being Jews was started by the Christians. Even the Romans only persecuted Jews in Judea because they were revolting. Jews elsewhere in the Empire weren't oppressed until the Christians came to power.

[Tingkai]

In more general terms, the persecution of the jews can be traced to monotheism. If you believe in one god then anyone who believes in another god, or worships a god differently, is a threat. Religious leaders demonize other religions in order to protect their power base.

Religions with multiple gods tend to be more accepting of other beliefs.



Christianity can also be easily used to incite violence against others. A basic Christian belief is that if you don't accept Christ as your saviour then you are going to hell. This leads to the idea that if Jews are sinners for not believing in Christ and they are going to hell, then it is okay to kill them.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Let's put it this way. In their thousand year history, the Romans only banned two religions, the Druids (who practiced human sacrifice) and the Christians.

In the early years, Romans thought that Christians were cannibals after hearing stories about how Christians ate the body of their lord and drank his blood.

[Adalbertus]

I don't know all the history of antisemitism, but some details:
- In Roman times, there were persecutions of Jews as well as of Christians - before Christianity became a dominant religion in terms of numbers, Romans took Christianity simply as an odd sect of Judaism. The problem the Romans had (except that for some people it is fun to watch others dying) was that both refused to worship the emperor as a god. Thus they were traitors.
Of course, the Jewish uprising around 67BC was also a reason.
There were some cultural misunderstandings, like the visit of Pompeius in the temple in Jerusalem: He went into the sanctum of the temple and meant to give a special reverence to the God of Israel (not a problem for him as polytheist - important person meets important god). He didn't know that this area was to be entered by the priests only.
- Then, there is the simple fact that the Jews were the only to successfully resist the Christian mission in Europe, making them invariably special.
- I know from persecutions from the time of the crusades. ("When we fight against those who occupy Jerusalem, we also have to fight against those who killed Jesus"). As special details I know from York about a pogrom in the 13th century (can those York residents here just have a look, it's on a somewhat lonely tower not too far from Ouse ), and that Jews had to leave Cologne (and settled on the other bank of the Rhine in a smaller town).
- Before being expelled from Cologne, they inhabited the area of the Roman town hall, which later became the palace of a Frankish king (to be killed by his cousin Chlodwig/Clovis). So this was an area owned by the state, and the Jews were under special protection of the king/emperor. This protection hadn't been necessary if there wouldn't have been prosecutions. I can't date this too exactly, however, probably between 600 and 1200 BC .

[Eli]

Originally posted by axi
One thing I still cannot understand is how much attention the Jews are getting. If everybody stopped concerning themselves about the Jews, then there would be no antisemitism to begin with.

Ohhh.... You so hate to see everyone agree with the Jews, right?

[Sikander]

Che is correct about the persecutions of christians being in large part the result of propoganda at the time, and the resulting myth which has been enshrined now by over a thousand years of repetition. The truth is that the early christians were already in a position of power when they were banned, and courted martyrdom for the sake of destroying the de facto "don't ask don't tell" policy that allowed the empire to continue functioning without a major dislocation over the issue. In the end they got their way, and not only were allowed to practice their religion openly, but got the empire to destroy every other religion as well. History is written by the winners, which is why we are taught to feel sorry for the few early christians who committed state assisted suicide while not a tear is to be shed for the millions who were force-converted to christianity.

[Zoid]

I know I´ve posted this before but I can´t be arsed to find the thread

It´s written by the jewish socialist Abraham Léon during WWII.

The full text HERE

It is modern capitalism that has posed the Jewish problem. Not because the Jews today number close to twenty million people (the proportion of Jews to non-Jews has declined greatly since the Roman era) but because capitalism destroyed the secular basis for the existence of Judaism. Capitalism destroyed feudal society; and with it the function of the Jewish people-class. History doomed this people-class to disappearance; and thus the Jewish problem arose. The Jewish problem is the problem of adapting Judaism to modern society of liquidating the heritage bequeathed to humanity by feudalism.

[Heresson]

Up to the time that Christians got stronger it were the Jews that were persecuting Christians.
Romans didn't love Jews. All the things that they later accused Christians later were earlier pointed out against Jews.

[TheStinger]

The bible was written to absolve the romans and blame the jews for Christ's death. Pilot washes his hands and therby gave responsibility to the Jewish authorities.

Very convenient for early christians as they were having enough problems with the romans without having to blame them for Jesus's killing

EDIT: I meant the gospels not the bible

[Az]

I've already refuted lots of Leon's points ( not all of the article , it's probably impossible to refute a whole article ) , Kamrat , so there .

[Alexander's Horse]

I could write a thesis on this but I'll try and keep it brief.

If you go back to the ancient period the ancient Israelites were not much different from other minor semitic groups in the region and got along reasonably well with their neighbours. They always shared Palestine with a lot of other ethnic groups including the forerunners of the modern Palestinians and were rarely dominant or had their own independent state. This is why the Kingdoms of David and Soloman are revered by Jews. Those kingdoms were the exception rather than the rule.

They did occasionally annoy major powers like Egypt and Persia and paid the price for that. Their religious ideas were unusual but not unique - the "one God idea" was shared with the Persians and appears to have originated in Mesopotamia (Modern Iraq), from where Abraham came.

In the period leading up to Roman occupation there appears to have been an increase in nationalist religious fanaticism (sound familiar?) associated with messianic movements and consequently they were a prize pain the arse for the Romans - the Romans could never quite understand why. This was not a good idea to say the least and led eventually to their bloody expulsion from Palestine by Trajan (?), the so-called diaspora, in the first century AD.

In the early Christian period they were again a fairly innocuous group, sharing religious facilities with Christians. Christianity started out as a Jewish sect.........

Dang it I'm going to bed

Night!

[Sava]

This, coming from the troll with a burning Israeli flag. I guess it's good to know the past of the hobby you partake in right, AH?