Wherein do the roots of Anit-semiticsm lie?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
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 .

A simple assertion proves nothing, Comrade.

[Az]

is it some kind of a concealed message that you actually want me to disprove it , again?! oh, no way, jose. unless , of course , you really insist.

[chequita guevara]

You could just point to the thread where you didn't previously.

[Az]

. search Abraham Leon on poly . I was discussing the topic of " Is Zionism = Jewish Nationalism" with KX . Leon claims that it's not . But to point out the quote , by KX , of Leon:

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.

in this quote , you can see that he refers to the jews as a people-class, disregarding the fact that jews in different parts of the world , and even europe itself acted in different occasions as nomadic traders , money lenders, craftsmen, peasants, and small rank miscellaneous jobs, and he refers to jews as only traders, and therefore, Antisemitism being caused by the struggle between the "local burgeoisie" and the jews, like in this quote:

In struggling against the Jews, the native traders were rising up against an outmoded economic function which appeared more and more as an intolerable exploitation of the country by foreigners.

I'd like also to point out that I am not taking this quote and claiming the falseness of the entire article, but I am taking this quote as an example of a point of view that repeats itself through the entire article.

[Zoid]

Az, I´d like to joust a bit but I´ve got to take a shower and then play some SMACX

Che, you wanna pick up the slack?

[chequita guevara]

I haven't read the article. I have no opinion on it right now, but I don't agree with the small portion you posted.

I always thought the Jewish Question was a false question, "What to do about the Jews?" indeed. Why do anything at all? Why is there a need to do something about the Jews. Even by the time Leon was writing this was a false question, though not when Bauer and Marx were writing about it.

I'll go read the article but I can't promise on which side I'll stand.

[Az]

I always thought the Jewish Question was a false question

rather interesting. Leon actually claims that the problem only arose recently due to the fact that Judaism lost it's role in society ( approx. meaning )

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel


rather interesting. Leon actually claims that the problem only arose recently due to the fact that Judaism lost it's role in society ( approx. meaning )

That might have been true in the 19th Century or Russia even into the 20th Century, but by time Leon is writing, the Jews were emancipated and integrated, more or less. The "Jewish Problem" like the "Black Problem" was in actuality a racist problem, i.e., the problem was with the racists, not the Jews or Blacks.

[Zoid]

I have never interpreted "The Jewish problem" as "a problem with the jews" rather like you said a racist/intolerance problem. And I think Léon interpreted it in the same way. It is a misleading choice of words IMO.

But what Léon means in the quote above is that when society went from feudalism to capitalism antisemitism begun ´cause now everyone could do what only the jews were allowed to do earlier, ie handle money, acting as private bankers and stuff. And since the jews had done this for several hundred years they were very good at it and the fledgling capitalists did everything to get rid of their competitors. And what better way to do it than accuse them of being gready bastards that sucked the life out of a defensless population. That should be the privilege of the new capitalist class...

Thus the jews were labeled as vermin, not by religious reasons (that was just a front) but by purely economic reasons.

[Heresson]

I believe that many Jews, also here, believe that prejudice towards Jews or disliking them is something very different than prejudice towards any other nation.

[muxec]

Propoganda: antisemitism is inferiority complex.

[Zoid]

So you consider jews a superior people?

Heresson, When you talk of the devil...

[Az]

But what Léon means in the quote above is that when society went from feudalism to capitalism antisemitism begun ´cause now everyone could do what only the jews were allowed to do earlier, ie handle money, acting as private bankers and stuff. And since the jews had done this for several hundred years they were very good at it and the fledgling capitalists did everything to get rid of their competitors. And what better way to do it than accuse them of being gready bastards that sucked the life out of a defensless population. That should be the privilege of the new capitalist class...

This still doesn't glue up. So he's explaining the rise of modern , non-religious antisemitism, which begun at the 19th century, with the fact that jews supposedly started to be pushed away by the local merchants that used the modern anti-semitism as a tool of taking them out, by the pretext of nationalism (i.e. "they're aliens" ) . The problem in that is that to create such a picture, you have to take as a precondition the supposed fact that jews held a unique trading niche that noone or almost noone other, before the industrial and national changes , held. This is wrong , of course. Not all jews took up this niche, and not all the people that took up this niche were jews.

I'd also , as a side note , would like to point out the falseness of arguments like this:

It is incorrect to state that a solution for the Jewish problem has been needed for two thousand years. The very fact that in the course of this long period such a solution was not found best demonstrates that it was not necessary.

Is the fact that a solution hasn't been found for two millenia a proof of the non-existance of the problem ?

All in all, you have to give this guy some credit. He wrote it during the Holocaust.

[Dr Strangelove]

In the pre-enlightenment era the cause of antisemeitism was religious. In the early 19th century judiaism experienced a degree of toleration unprecidented for more than a thousand years, but there appears to have been a resurgence of anti-semitism in the last few decades of the century, a trend which extended into the 20th century. Initially this trend seems to have been fostered by conservative religious figures who were aggitated over the loss of importance of religion in industrializing europe. The main reasons for their loss of prestige was of course urbanization, rising standards of education, the rapid expansion of scientific knowledge, and competing ideologies. Conservatives found themselves in the awkward position of profiting from, or more importantly being associated with thiose who profited from, the very things which threatened their way of life. There was only one solution to their dilemna - find a comfortable scapegoat.

I don't think that this process of "scapegoating" usually starts out with a conscious attempt to blame the innocent. Instead the aggitated mind of the bigot-to-be becomes hyper - sensitive and eventually focuses on an alternate object which irritates it for an unrelated reason, such as "those people", who dress funny. It then finds it convenient to invest inappropriate quantities of its hostility to the object, in effect shifting hostility which can not be resolved because the source is threatening or unassailable to the new scapegoat object. Once the hostility has been redirected the developing bigot invents reasons for his hostility, as a failure to do so would compel him to give up the scapegoat.

[Lars-E]

From a biblical-historical point of view it can be dated back to Isaac and Ishmael*). Some claim that Ishmael is the father of the Arabs. The Jews descend from Isaac. Ishmael and Isaac were halfbrothers and their mothers didn't get along. Ishmael teased Isac..

In the NT it is said that Ishmael represents the natural man while Isaac is the spiritual one. In christian theology there will always be tension between the two types. The natural man is said to persecute the spiritual one. This paragraph is my interpretation of Gal 4:21-31.

Egypt also plays a part, but did not really come into focus before the Jewish immigration. The Jews served as slaves for 400 years. In the beginning of their Egyptian exile the two people were on good terms. Then a pharaoh came along who didn't know how the Jewish immigration was sparked.

According to Goethe you have to have oversight over 6000 years of history to understand the present. People who don't know their history can be dangerous - we call them "historyless" in Europe.

Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites outta fear - the Jews had now grown to a few million and pharaoh claimed that the Egyptians were outnumbered and that the Israelites were stronger.

Later the Jews invaded Canaan and failed to wipe out all the inhabitants. Those remaining became a thorn in the side of the Israelites and some would say they still are. The largest (or the only? - don't feel like checking up on this now..) remaining group were the Philistines (today's Palestinians).

*) Some might claim that it even predates the two halfbrothers. Abraham and his wife had a few run-ins with both Philistines and Egyptians.

We can even stretch it further back to Canaan, grandson of Noah. He was cursed by Noah and it was prophecied that he would become a slave to Shem (semites). Later this prophecy was fulfilled. The Canaanites who survived the Jewish invasion were later enslaved. The father of Canaan, Ham, might be the father of the Egyptians and Philistines, among others.

I keep going back and back in history... Abel and Cain seem a bit like Isaac and Ishmael.. This might not be too relevant though since it predates the flood.

But anyhoo, Cain represents natural man..of course. Why not go back even further to the fall in the garden of Eden where sin came into the world... Or even back to the fall of Lucifer and when he was thrown outta heaven and fell down to earth... Ok, this is as far back as I'm gonna go