I don't get anti-semitism

[Keisaku Hakurei]

One of the reasons I've seen for it is that the Jews killed Jesus.

But they as a people didn't. If I recall correctly, the Romans had him executed at the insistence of a crowd of Jews who had been hyped up by corrupt ancient religious leaders who didn't like Jesus pointing out how they had corrupted or neglected the Mosaic Law, among other examples of their hypocrisy.

But that's no reason to hate Jews, those Jews died centuries ago and, besides, those Jews had been influenced by the mob mentality.

I'm Christian, and I don't see the point of hating Jews because of one event. That's like hating all Japanese people because some Japanese people bombed Pearl Harbor a long time ago.

Then there's the "those greedy bastards" angle... wealth and/or frugality is no reason to hate someone.

I guess people just like to hate.  

[Noble Legolas]

Perhaps you can imagine it is a hard thing for the police to solve a murdercase from 25 years ago, imagine 2000 years and a really poor administration system?

The truth is.. we don't have any clue of what went on back then, assuming an event had occured as was written in the Christian manual, at least 1500 years after the event.

The hatred on jews was fed by stories like this, by people who had something to gain from that. I don't know what that might be and I don't really care to be honest. Whatever it was, it will never justify the holocaust in any way.

The jews just came into our society and did very well for themselves. Or perhaps some of them didn't, but the fact remained that they came uninvited.
As always, bad stuff happened. People needed to point at something, or rather.. someone! Ah jews! And voila: second world war is a fact.
All the hatred against jews from before that was maybe some shot in the same dark direction?

Anyway it's ridiculous. But interesting as a topic, I agree.





(edit: and I love the boots on your avi btw, what are those? biggrin )  

[archbaker]

The history of antisemitism is one of conspiracy theories.

There are a couple of different reasons people look for phantoms: wanting someone to blame for their problems, wanting to live in a more exciting world, wanting to feel like they know something others don't, wanting to define their own culture in opposition to a different one.

Whatever the reason, the desire exists, and it manifests in very many forms. But as Plugabugz suggested, it is most often directed at the outsider. And Jews, who were first made outsiders in their own country and then had to live as outsiders in the rest of the world, have been a very convenient target for this desire.

There is also a state-sponsored antisemitism, which I think is partly to please the people and partly to create a more homogeneous state that is easier to rule: The Romans hated that the Jews were not polytheists, the Russian czar hated them for being a different race (not technically true), as did Hitler, Stalin feared that religious Jews plotted against him.
In all these examples, the rulers of a totalitarian state were able to make their people happy and silence dissenters with one stroke.

Jews are not the only people who get fingered by conspiracy theorists, but I there is a kind of snowball effect going on. As an example: When the Black Death hit Europe, the Christians somehow came to believe that it had been caused by Jews poisoning the wells. This story was reinvented when the czarist secret police wanted to make up allegations against Russian Jews. Then WW1 came and went, and many German officers could not understand how they had lost they lost; but then somebody who had heard all these old conspiracy tales came to suspect that many of the Jews who fought in the German army had betrayed their own country, and this became a widespread belief in Germany and helped the rise of the Nazi party.

Once there is one bad rumor about you, another may follow, and then the snowball gets rolling. And suddenly you are history's favorite victim.  

[Noble Legolas]

I'm sure, with all due respect, we can all sum up a lot of historic events that include anti-semitism. But what I wonder about right now.. does anti-semitism still exsists today? Is the snowball which archbaker referred to still rolling?  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

They're cowboy boots from the MTV shop (Sunset Croture?).

How did people come up with the idea that Jews were poisoning the drinking water? Wouldn't Jews be affected by that too?  

[archbaker]

I suppose I didn't bring much new to the table with my post. I hope that's okay.

And yeah I've met some antisemites.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

One thing I want to point out in regards to WWII, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't just the Jews that were targeted. Catholics were also put into the concentration camps, as well as people who were caught working against or disagreeing with the Nazi party.

As far as the topic goes, my thoughts have pretty much already been said. It is basically a blame game. People like having someone or something else to put all their problems on. For Jews to have been used as such in the past makes them a convenient and "believable" {not really, but some people think so} scapegoat.  

[archbaker]

I'm sure many Catholics ended up in the camps, but Hitler could not really target them as a group because Germany is a predominantly Catholic country. Not to mention that his alliances with Spain and Italy would have been severely harmed had he adopted an anti-Catholic policy.

Other groups that were targeted include communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses, "decadent" artists, and police officers from occupied territories.  

[Keisaku Hakurei]

Jehovah's Witnesses actually had an easy way out, the Nazi government offered Witnesses the opportunity to sign a little card renouncing their faith in God.

Few took it, choosing persecution and faith in God rather than the easy way out.  

[Ringlefinch]

Plugabugz

I'm sure, with all due respect, we can all sum up a lot of historic events that include anti-semitism. But what I wonder about right now.. does anti-semitism still exsists today? Is the snowball which archbaker referred to still rolling?

LOL ever heard heard of Mel Gibson?

One ethnic group not mentioned here were the Gypsies as well as a lot of blacks.

If I remember correctly from my history class a lot of the hate that was targeted against the Jews preceding the 2nd world war stemmed from the deep economic recession Germany was in that seamed to effect the Jews less than others due to there fiscal abilities and keeping there money in Jewish banks.
The Germans resented them for this and held them responsible for there own poverty.  

[archbaker]

I feel pretty bad about forgetting those groups.

Bad times, then.  

[lunaci]

Some of the Anti-Semitic feelings that I witnessed from various people are somewhat legitimate. My grandmother witnessed people losing their houses to fires started by Jews. Why? Because they wanted to buy the property for cheap and make a profit. While my Grandmother does not hate them, she would not ever trust one.

Then there is my friend who lives in a building owned by Jews. The do not like helping people who have section 8 (her included) and also hired people who are not only incompetent, but lazy (it does not take 5 days to fix a sink).

I do not believe that it is all Jews who are bad (It's not my experience), I have strong opinions against the ones who do the evil things that I mentioned above (among other things). It gives way for people to breed hatred for all Jews. However, I can understand why some people would harbor hatred for them.  

[Ringlefinch]

lunaci

Some of the Anti-Semitic feelings that I witnessed from various people are somewhat legitimate. My grandmother witnessed people losing their houses to fires started by Jews. Why? Because they wanted to buy the property for cheap and make a profit. While my Grandmother does not hate them, she would not ever trust one.

Then there is my friend who lives in a building owned by Jews. The do not like helping people who have section 8 (her included) and also hired people who are not only incompetent, but lazy (it does not take 5 days to fix a sink).

I do not believe that it is all Jews who are bad (It's not my experience), I have strong opinions against the ones who do the evil things that I mentioned above (among other things). It gives way for people to breed hatred for all Jews. However, I can understand why some people would harbor hatred for them.

These are crimes that shouldn't be attributed towards a race rather than the individuals themselves.
They are not traits of a race in particular. I know of of Indian landlords who neglect there properties and would cut any corner to maximize profits and I know of Caucasian landlords who are exactly the same.

There are bad apples in every batch. If we allow these people to turn our views of the entire race they are from, then we ourselves are behaving bigoted.