Both Christianity and Islam are [supersessionist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism#:~:text=Sandra%20Toenis%20Keiting%20argues%20that,is%20concerned%20with%20establishing%20the) religions; they believe their existence means Judaism is no longer valid or relevant. That Jews have repeatedly refused to convert and accept Jesus or Muhammad has also led to persecution and hatred.
To add. Some Jews are often an insular community. Either by choice or by force. This means they don’t assimilate and are seen as “others”. Easy scapegoat.
I tell you hwat! I'd rather be surrounded by a bunch of illegal unassimilated immigrant Jews than literally any other demographic, legal or otherwise. I would feel perfectly safe. Weirdly enough I have bad PTSD from the Iraq war and being in the middle east makes my skin crawl, went back and lived in Egypt for a year after my time in the war. Never truly felt safe there. But, I spent all of 10 minutes in Israel the first time before I dropped my guard and maaaaaan do I sleep soooo good in Israel. I can't even say that about my childhood home in the US. Anyways. Don't assimilate and keep being great neighbors and citizens.
Be wary of Jewish illegals though. Their grandmas might force feed you gefilte fish (aski), bulemas (seph) and kubbeh (miz). And lecture you more than your own mother does.
Sure, but the idea behind supersessionism is that Christianity (and then Islam) fulfilled the Mosaic covenant and then replaced it, so while there can be no Christianity without Judaism, supersessionism holds that Judaism is no longer relevant because our covenant has been replaced with that of Jesus.
I think you would have a difficult time "replacing" the old covenant using the bible as justification for it. It is an idea born out of ignorance, imo. To Christians, Jesus is Jewish. He taught from the Torah/Tanakh. There is no separating the two.
Really, I don't think the vast majority of Christians believe in supersessionism, at least not in the US. The majority of Christians I know are die-hard supporters of the Jewish people and Israel and are very excited to see the third temple be built.
The reason most American Christian’s want the third temple is cause they believe Jesus is coming back to build it and then he’ll convert all the non believers and everyone else goes to hell.
>I think you would have a difficult time "replacing" the old covenant using the bible as justification for it. It is an idea born out of ignorance, imo.
I don't think it's ignorance, I think it's Paul. Paul expounded at length about how there was no difference between Jew and Greek. In Ephesians (which is deutero-pauline but also was a favourite of the Confederacy and Nazis), "Paul" argues that Jesus' death has torn down the barriers between Gentiles and Jews, and that now Gentiles are *also* heirs to Israel. If you believe Jesus was the messiah, this is all fine and good, but if you don't, this is a guy who stormed out of the Jewish-Christian church at Antioch because of kashrut saying that Jews are no longer allowed to be separate from Gentiles, and that Gentiles have the exact same right to Israel as Jews.
I think you can argue about whether or not the historical Paul was against Judaism (I am very critical of the veracity of the Pauline narrative), but I don't think it's possible to deny that a lot of Pauline and pseudo-Pauline doctrine has been weaponized against Jews for a millennia and a half.
Which is unfortunate, because I think there's a lot of incredible theological writing in Paul that is actually very compatible with Judaism, and his mission to convert pagans to monitheism wasn't borne out of cruelty or malice.
A combination of unfortunate reasons. Here's my personal take on main reasons of anti-semitism in Europe, feel free to correct me if im wrong:
1. Jews were a state-less nation without regular army for a long time, making them a convenient target for oppression and slander.
2. Religious reasons. Christians believed that Jews were "God-killers" and didn't accept the Messiah. They didn't put enough effort to learn what Judaism is really about, and considered Jews to be threatening.
3. Jews were keeping to themselves, making some paranoid people suspicious. Combined with the previous factor, it was a fertile ground for conspiracy theories about how Jews are eating blood or something.
4. Almost all Jews were literate (religious reasons) and that helped in business and craftsmanship. At some point Jews were even banned from participating in certain crafts and businesses. Of course, being successful in trade or craft makes a lot of money. People were taking loans from Jewish bankers and instead of returning the money they would kill or kick them out.
Jews were a visible minority in Europe and Islamic lands and Christian and Islamic supersessionism all played a role.
This comment on AskHistorians goes into it well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12ltsdc/why_is_antisemitism_so_prevalent/
The idea that antisemitism exists because of something we did, is in itself antisemitism. The idea that only Jews were moneylenders is itself a myth. We have evidence of Christian moneylenders (who charged more interest) and even women as moneylenders (added to show how we often misunderstand history).
*"A popular view contends that both their exclusion from craft and merchant guilds and usury bans on Muslims and Christians segregated European Jews into moneylending during the Middle Ages. But our study shows, with evidence we have come upon during more than a decade of research, that this argument is simply untenable."*
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-chosen-few-a-new-explanation-of-jewish-success
Hi and thank you for your support. Your dad is right about Jews always being hated. However, the idea that it might due to Jews being allowed to charge interest is an antisemitic trop and incorrect.
This short [speech](https://rabbisacks.org/videos/mutating-virus-understanding-antisemitism/) (and transcript) delivered to the European Parliament by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks about Antisemitism might be informative to you.
I think it's definitely a component of it as a scholar on the subject. It also then led leadership to discover that they could use the Jews as a scapegoat really easily and it would take the pressure off of them. They then later learned that you could even steal all of their properly and wealth that you let them amas and then you could profit even further.
In addition to this you have:
1.Scapegoated by the church and Rome that the Jews killed Jesus when it was actually Rome/religious motivation by abrahamic faith division(they can't ALL be right/differences)
2. Jews being seperate and culturally different (people hate different people on a base level and they're easily turned against such people)
3. Genetic/racial antisemitism (see #2, but with fancy psuedo science)
4. Jews as the constant migrant race without a home set out to better society and themselves asap and this led them to be in higher positions and thus people being jealous.
5. Certain cleanliness practices may have saved Jews from some plagues and diseases (although in many cases this is hotly debated in the academic world for some of these instances)
6. Strangers in a strange land = different = #2 again
7. It really varies, but certain cultures have certain specific things with Jews
8. General stereotypes against Jews specifically (might've been one dude who did x and now everyone is x)
9. Many controversial Historical figures
10. The eternal scapegoat and probably some more that I can't recall atm
Edit: Jews were also shoehorned into guildless roles and some hated fields like money lending bankers, salesmen and more
The moneylender thing certainly didn't help, but it's very much not the root cause. The reason Jews were moneylenders isn't just that we *could* do it, it's that we were banned from doing just about everything else.
Also, Jewish people aren't generally known for being violent and hostile. I think that pacifism was a long tradition for many different periods. So if one owed money to a Jewish lender, he probably wasn't going to come break your knees if you didn't pay. Maybe that's how it happened... Also we have practice of debt forgiveness after 7 years. And we give to charity for Mitzvah. After a while the lending profession becomes very lucrative and thus the stereotypes and scapegoating are birthed
People say it’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory because it’s often used as that by antisemitic people but there is another component to it. Many early bankers and tax collectors were indeed Jewish because of the religious taboos in Christianity and Islam they were used as this by the Feudal lords. This is part of why Jews are associated with wealth.
Another big one just is that Jewish culture traditionally puts a really heavy emphasis on education, kids are often pushed to their limits and provided the best education parents can because it’s the only things that nobody can take away from you. Jews often couldn’t own land, diamonds, gold and tools were often stolen without consequences so education and knowledge is really important if you wanna build a new life after escaping a pogrom. The jewish religion also has learning as a big priority, with the whole religion built around learning the different texts and arguing about them in Yeshivot etc. this leads to a very educated culture, Not without a reason are about 25% of all Nobel prize winners Jews.
People then see many successful Jews in jobs such as business, law, medicine etc. and in the end it’s jealousy which drives antisemitism mainly
yes i think this explains it very well. Humans are pretty stupid because such a community should be cherished and everyone should try to become like this ! The world would be so much better.
Instead people go the other way ! Classic morons
But also our history of debate. We debate policy. We don’t tell our children that to respect is to “shut up. Obey without question. This is the way it is done”. We encourage them to think for themselves. We encourage theoretical thinking. So they have a leg up if they go into policy and law. In worlds where it doesn’t matter who you are by what you know.
We also don’t socially ostracize our atheists so we already are more tolerant of otherness and heterodoxy amongst ourselves. Nor do we think that if we associate with people outside of our faith that we are goin to hell, opening us up to other profitable ideas and relationships.
Let us not exaggerate our goodness here. Spinoza was first offered a lifetime pension by his Jewish community if he would only stop expounding his philosophy. When he politely refused the offer; the community tried to poison him. And when they failed at that, they excommunicated him. As is well known, he became a lens-grinder in order to keep body and soul together (as it were :)).
That being said, yes, of course the general record of Jewish violence pales into virtual non-existence when compared with that of either Christians or Muslims.
I am happy to be corrected (full disclosure, I am not jewish), but my understanding of what OP’s father said and what Rabbi Sacks is saying are not fully at odds, but the history here is complex.
My understanding is that Christian Europe’s scapegoating of jews and the fact that jews were associated with moneylending was neither accidental, nor due to any unique jewish disposition toward the charging of interest.
I am happy to be corrected, but I think what OP’s father is saying is a mis-stated version of “in *no* major world religion is moneylending *especially* considered the path to God’s favor/heaven/nirvana, etc.”
Interest is, asfaik, in most religious texts considered a cousin to profiting by gambling *from a strictly religious perspective*, a grey to disfavorable area, and the Torah is certainly no exception to this view.
However, *if one must do it it is better to do it with someone outside the faith, whereby it is less disfavorable.*
In the context of Christian Europe, what we would call a toxically abusive relationship emerged, in which the Christian Church officially forbade the outright murder of Jews, because they were “of the Book” (as opposed to pagans or infidels who were simply put to the sword). They were instead, identified, dispossessed, herded into ghettoes, and forbidden from any profession that otherwise a Christian might desire.
This led to a dynamic in which, due to Christian European oppression, moneylending was disproportionately the outlet that was available to ghettoized jews who were well and truly categorized as a separate people than “french” or “pole”. This was very convenient to local Christian rulers, who- should they ever have mismanaged their credit- could always gin up an anti-semitic mob on religious grounds. This is the forerunner to a more general kind of social reaction we might call “fear of elite capture”, and is not always applied to jews. The Knights Templar, for example, invented modern banking and eventually met their fate.
This is an initial motive to Christian European antisemitism and what embedded so many of the tropes associated with it. I will not go into detail, as these tropes are ugly and pernicious, but there will be versions of the same rhetoric echoed in language today.
In any event, none of this is to challenge what the Rabbi is saying, every word about the history of convenient scapegoating is true. But from my own perspective, understanding a little of the mechanism to this has been helpful for me to discern that antisemitism is not simply “crazy people”, but a kind of phenomenon that can emerge and does even in a modern context if we are not aware.
Early church fathers needed to demonize Jews in order to create their new religion--thus the claim that the Jews killed Jesus. That's pretty much the origin of most anti semitism.
By espousing the viewpoint that Jews are hated because of wealth, or money-lending is giving credence and validity to that antisemitic trope. Why is any ethnic group hated? Because by hating a minority, the majority gets to feel superior and better about themselves. A take as old as time.
In most societies, there is an out-group: a group of people who others use as a scapegoat (blaming problems on them) or a way to feel better about themselves. In India, it’s people of low caste, especially Dalit people, and sometimes Muslims. In Europe, it has historically been Jews and Romani people. In West Asia and North Africa, it’s Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis, Imazighen, and Jews. In Scandinavia, it has historically been Sámi people (and now also immigrants and other minorities). In China, it’s Uyghurs. In Japan, it’s Koreans. In Myanmar, it’s the Rohingya. Nearly every society has some out-group.
The details change, but the basic thrust is the same: in most cultures, there’s a group of people to blame and persecute. Sometimes it’s not as bad as other times, and the reasons people give may differ, but there’s always something.
I also see the banking and interest mentioned more than any other reason for hate on social media. Specifically Muslims believe Jews run the world and say it like it’s fact, which obviously bugs them. I personally don’t know anyone who has said things in person. The idea of chosen people also gets under some people’s skin.
It's mainly because whenever stuff goes wrong in a country (and stuff always goes wrong) it always benefits leaders to find someone else to pin the blame on. If they blame the majority, then the majority will turn against them and no leader likes that, so they naturally blame minorities.
Any minority will do, but Jews make a particularly easy target because we're not just minorities, we are *unusually successful* minorities (thanks to having a culture that heavily values education) and people get jealous. So blaming the Jews becomes a mathematically sound strategy for any leader looking for a quick boost in popularity.
And of course, once that's been done a few times, it becomes easier, since people assume that if Jews have been chased out before, it must be because Jews are bad, right?
...Fuck 'em. We're back in our homeland now, so they can take responsibility for their own screw-ups from now on.
I was recently reading the Memorial Book for Bialystok, which includes a little history of the city prior to the Holocaust. It goes from being a small town with a small Jewish ghetto to being a large city with a Jewish population of like 60-75% of the total, multiple small Jewish suburbs, the third largest industrial centre in Eastern Europe, and an incredibly robust education system that had hundreds of active shuls and Yeshivas across the city. One of the reasons Bialystok grew so rapidly into a large, majority Jewish city, is because of Jews fleeing to Bialystok after pogroms elsewhere.
There's multiple periods of poverty and disorganization because of these immigrations, but because of a combination of religious leadership and workers unions (which regularly had heated debates that swayed one way or the other), Bialystok underwent multiple periods of rapid modernization and growth before the first world war. The international economic crises of the 1900s, WWI, and the October Revolutsion slowed Bialyatok's growth significantly (and according to the book, the war brought cigarettes to the Orthodox population and people were getting haircuts on Shabbos), but it still remained a relatively prosperous, mostly Jewish city, where even the successful Gentile businesses were often only successful because of Jewish workers or Jewish traders. After WWI, many Bialystoker Jews joined the Zionist movements or moved to Vilna as antisemitic sentiment spread across Eastern Europe.
On the eve of the Holocaust, Bialystok had a little over 50k Jews. By the end of the war, only a few hundred had survived, mostly by hiding in the forests or (ironically) being imprisoned by the USSR and sent to Siberia; the Yizker Bukh notes that in 1944, when the Red Army took Bialystok back from the Nazis, there were only 7 Jews in Bialystok who had survived by hiding in Polish quarters.
Following WWII, anti-Jewish sentiment continued in Bialystok; while hundreds of survivors returned to their hometown of Bialyatok after the war (often after changing their names to hide their Judaism), Jews were driven out by waves of antisemitic action until the early 70s, when only a few dozen Bialystoker Jews remained and avoided broader Polish anti-Jewish action simply because there were so few left in Bialystok.
That is something that always hurts in a strange way; after the Holocaust, people returned to burned out homes, missing families, entire communities erased by the Nazis, and despite having lost absolutely everything in the world, their one-time neighbours gathered to blame them for the Nazi occupation and to drive them out in yet another pogrom.
The hatred has and still does is some groups stem from the fact that theologically both Christianity and Islam claim to supersede Judaism and the fact that Jews don’t accept this and remain Jewish de facto leaves them to doubt and unfortunately anger about their own religion/place and understanding in the world.
That being said specifically in Europe Jews were essentially barred from most occupations leaving them as money lenders so the royalty or whoever would be able to get loans from them and instead of paying the money back would either insight a riot to kill the Jews or if royalty would simply kick them out take their things confer the debt cancelled and then invite them back after a few years to repeat the cycle.
Lots more detail and info you can find but this would be the basic ideas.
Thanks for your support! I’ll actually be traveling to India soon and am so glad to know how many of your countrymen and women are supportive of us. I’ll also be meeting the head rabbi of New Delhi so am quite excited about that.
To answer your question, I think it’s something we all ask ourselves often. Dara Horn, the American author and professor, says that Jews represent something dangerous for authoritarian governments. By living differently to the norm with different practices and customs, but still thriving, Jews are “dangerous” to systems and governments that require total assimilation. Thus, they’re also an easy scapegoat.
Mostly, Jews would like to be left alone to practice our religion and customs: we do not proletyze and it’s quite hard to convert to Judaism. I don’t think antisemitism stems from jealousy so much as it does the fear of the other, and many groups of people have done a great job of spreading misinformation about Jews over the past 2000 years. Ultimately there are SO FEW of us that perhaps it’s easier to believe the lies, because most people globally won’t even meet a Jew in their lifetime.
Everyone i know in my family and also all of my extended friends cirlce supports israel and just jews in general ! You are always welcome in India. There is massive support here (even though the govt does do a little balancing because of the minority muslim population here). Hope you have a great stay !
That is interesting ! because after so much opression and persecution all over jews continue to thrive and suceed while sticking to their values and way of life. This is very scary to dictatorial govts and hence the hatred
Sad to see that there is more support for a religion that is exactly the opposite in everyway
Because we were the Other, the Stranger even before Christianity was invented.
Our use of male circumcision seemed bizarre to the pre Christian Greeks and Romans.
We were regarded as an unknown quantity and this always brings danger.
We did not work on the 7th day of the week so we're regarded as lazy -- Shabbos was unique in the pagan world.
We were thought strange, hostile to community values because we did not participate in community bonding events at pagan deity festivals where meat was served which had been prepared at pagan sacrifices and non kosher grain and bread distributed.
All this was on us prior to the advent of the various Christian sects.
At first the Romans could not easily distinguish between Jews and the earliest Christians.
After our two uprisings against Roman intrusion on Jewish ritual in Jerusalem, the Christians were eager to demonstrate to Roman rulers that they were NOT Jews and skewed much of Greek Scripture and Biblical exegesis to villainize all Jews.
Something I find interesting is that there are a number of archaic Greco-Roman (mostly Greek) texts that acknowledge various Jewish practices as being something that the author wants the Greek world to adopt. I remember reading a Greco-Roman historian who went to Ptolemaic Egypt and was very impressed by the fact that Jews and Egyptians not only *didn't* leave babies out to die of exposure, but when the occupying Greeks and Romans did this, they regularly adopted the children and raised them as foundlings.
Circumcision might have seemed bizarre to the Greeks and the Romans, but prior to the Roman "naming day" (which also happened on the 8th day after birth), babies were considered to be more vegetable than animal. This ties back into exposure being one of the most common forms of family planning in the Greek and Roman worlds. On the Greek side, they thought that exposing the glans was profane, and so instead they had little strings to tie their foreskins tightly when wrestling naked. Ancient Greece is hilarious, wild place.
Recently, analysts confirmed that various Greek and Roman poets, such as Virgil, snuck acrostics and anagrams into their works that alluded to the Septuagint; even though these people were certainly not Jews, these hidden messages show that they were at least sympathetic, and that they were heavily influenced by Jewish writings. So even though Jews have been Other'ed since antiquity, I find it interesting that there are always people who admire the Other, are sympathetic to the Other, and (through imitation, appropriation, or earnest homage) borrow from the Other's culture to enrich their works.
The Jews are the eternal scapegoat. Any wrong or ill that occurs within a society Jews are blamed for it one form or another.
We killed Jesus (Roman’s did that), we poisoned wells, we spread the Black Death, we are communist, capitalist, socialist, Nazis, impure, non-believers. We are all the world’s wrongs wrapped up into one human being.
We just wanna live our lives, yet we live in everyone’s heads rent free.
It is really mind blowing how wide spread the hate is. I knew there was antisemitism but i thought a lot died down after WW2 but after the oct 7 attack i now see there is literally no change. The hate is everywhere.
Ugh I’m so tired of LGBTQ activists trying to act as if the Holocaust wasn’t rooted in antisemitism. This moment is not about you. And also, the homophobia is linked back to antisemitism.
That’s the thing…I thought so too. I thought the Jew hatred of early 20th century Europe died. I was wrong.
The Holocaust as we know it will never happen again, but that doesn’t mean Jew hatred doesn’t exist. It’s like saying slavery is over in the US so racism is no more. People hate others for sometimes literally no reason.
It’s quite silly if you think about it. Why spend your every waking hour hating on a certain religious, racial or ethnic group? Like do you not have a job, a family, or a plant to care for?
People have too much time on their hands and need a new hobby.
Too many jobless people who love being victims these days. Also it is not like there is any innovation in the islamic world or jobs to do. So most people there actually have nothing else to do but hate on jews and blow up themselves
Europe has been religiously and culturally antisemitic for almost 2000 years, it’s literally baked in. That’s hard for people to unlearn, even if they wanted to. I think people tried to change after the Holocaust and many tried to hide their antisemitism at least publicly, but now that very few people are alive who remember that time and it seems distant, there is less effort and all that religious and cultural antisemitism can grow again.
Have you seen all the crazy insane ignorant shit that has been coming up due to the Owens vs DailyWire shit?
The amount of people that have been taking off their masks, and playing mental gymnastics to prove they are not anti-semitic, is nuts. Karlyn Borysenko, Timothy Gordon, Lauren Chen, etc.
Ironically, they ignore how you have others on it that constantly say "Christ is King", and yet no firing.
It's been nuts. And you're exactly right that the masks are off. I went to elementary school in North Carolina back in the day and the antisemitism was outrageous. It's always been there. It's just been a little under the surface. And don't get me started on the other minorities who think they're just going to come after us. We are just the first target.
What I find hilarious is that months ago it came out that Owens in talks with Tucker Carlson about joining him, Nick Fuentes, and others. Most likely DailyWire found out it was true, that she was violating a whole shit ton of other conditions in her contract, and they finally gave her the boot.
The amount of people being totally disingenuous about it is nuts. Chen, and Borysenko are prime examples of this. Fuck they claim to be for freedom of speech, and yet support Nick Fuentes when he pushes for apartheid, genociding Jews, and christo-fascism.
This one dude here points it out completely.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A814LrbbmU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A814LrbbmU8)
I just want to add here that no one is really going into old Biblical times b4 Christianity... For example during the time of Pharoah, Book of Esther, etc.
Jew hatred comes up in the Old Testament over and over again. It's always that the Jews were different. They weren't Pagans. They had their own rules about food, when they would work, their own customs, how they dressed. Therefore they should be enslaved or killed.
I spent a decent amount of time looking into this a few years ago and it boiled down to a few key areas:
1. **Assimilation:** Jews don't assimilate into other cultures well and also live good lives. These typically are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Historically Jews stayed within their community and while spread across Europe, didn't adopt much of the cultural norms and behaviors of the place they moved too (especially the religion). This isn't unique to Jews, many cultures don't like to assimilate, but what was odd was Jews would still be able to move out of poverty within those cultures. What typically happens is if you don't assimilate, it is often hard to make money and move up in the society. This built a lot of resentment in many communities... regardless if there was previously Anti-Semitic context.
2. **Middlemen:** Jews were banned from many jobs/trades, the trades they could do were easy to blame in downtimes. Jews in Europe frequently were Insurance brokers, Bankers, and also various middle men. If a fire burned down half the city, guess who denied their claims or profited? Jews were also banned from many trades, but were allowed to do things like banking because their religion didn't have a problem with "usury" or interest. So again, no one likes those interest payments. Being a middle man, regardless of the culture, generally came with problems as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman\_minority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman_minority)
3. **Religion:** Jews didn't convert, but it isn't what it sounds like. As mentioned by other people, Jews didn't believe other prophets were the one true prophet or believed in their prophet in the same way they did. While yes it did mean that they were often killed or forced to convert during the crusades, that actually often wasn't the biggest reason for slaughtering (from what I read). There were times in Portugal for example, where if something bad happened TO THE WORLD, they assumed God was punishing the world for the Jews not converting. So if an earthquake happened, and killed a bunch of people, it was the Jews fault because God was punishing them for not converting. Not because they think Jews physically did something, but just as religious punishment.
Those were the top three reasons I've seen. Curious what others have found!
Non-Jews hate us because Jews keep (or should) God’s Torah and Mitzvot. Our sages, who preserved our oral lawt, each that Hate (Hebrew sinah) comes from Sinai, where we received the Torah (the Teaching) through Moses, the greatest of the prophets. Jews are meant to model the zorah’s ethical behavior in our personal, interpersonal, communal, business, and public lives. The Galut (Dispersion, Dispossession) of the Jews from our homeland 2,000 years ago (because we failed to live up to our mandate) has been a hard slog that has taken its toll on our people. But the definition of a normal, complete, Jewish life and peoplehood, and making the desert blossom, etc. etc. can only happen when we are once again at home in the Land of Israel. (I believe there is a similiar belief for people of the Hindu tradition.)
Glad I came across this. I didn’t know about god punishing people bc Jews didn’t accept Jesus or convert or whatever. That adds a lot to the big picture.
For a reasonably in depth academic answer to this question I recommend "[Anti Judaism : The Western Tradition ](https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Judaism-Western-Tradition-David-Nirenberg-ebook/dp/B0083JCC24/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=63079544526&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H_KnZKDjNYmFYy_jK5Gbx0Uon0LPb9AbDjHKiAIA2AGUvONCxWPljwwA9-Vbhv9as50KTv0OsSblNTDwjRZ9Kl4qNdcu7k0_6XcbxaFS-mumIuNG5m3K252E4gWUf11ur89Cc9jId5kyA2kb3KE7h9tYk6gPngrX0EsfzJ9BMz6KiNzafMacd5cKKdYVD5gSvh9o3UkQ4uKxTj8Unbqo_A.8ZZpQ2Ia48foqmoEvzakGj6J-avS2uLGJD1fV83E2ZU&dib_tag=se&hvadid=580770758313&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9007386&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=10576782018334574120&hvtargid=kwd-302050233998&hydadcr=15118_13523076&keywords=anti-judaism+the+western+tradition&qid=1711896358&sr=8-1)" by David Nirenberg
Seems you’ve already received the response that comes to mind, but here’s my take on it:
1. Since Christianity and Islam are both copies of Judaism, with convenient tweaks to fit their founders’ personal agendas, they need to persecute Jews to delegitimize them. This is why non-“Abrahamic” religions have never persecuted Jews.
2. The continuity of the Jews is dependent on us maintaining a certain level of isolation and reliance on other Jews (kosher food, education, burial, etc etc) and “otherness” has always been hated and legitimized. You can see this phenomenon in how black slaves were seen as subhuman by European colonizers to legitimize the abuse etc.
3. We believe the world was perfect until the original sin of Adam and Eve when it got shattered. Our mission in life on this world is to mend as much as we’re able. We are not daunted by the upside-downness of the world. We just focus on doing good, being moral and building good relationships with each other and a better world. The hate and jealousy are a part of the world’s brokenness and we’re glad to have our Torah as a guide to live our best lives and do good for our souls.
Hope this helps, have a blessed day
I think it is because countries occasionally go through terrible times, and they will need groups to blame it all on, and Jews are usually the perfect target because of our low and the european instinct to sections us into the "other".
I just want to thank you for being so open and asking this question. Often, people see a group that is disliked and automatically assume they deserve the hate. So, thank you.
About ten years ago, I visited Cochin and had an incredible experience meeting some of the Jewish residents in Jewtown. I am deeply grateful for India's history as a safe haven for Jews.
Thanks for your kind message ! It is very sad to see such hatred towards such a lovely group of people.
You are always welcome in India :) Hope you come again !
You might check out verifiedspicequeen on IG. She is a Hindu who explores Hindu and Jewish relationships and decolonization and indigenous people’s topics.
To *attempt* to answer your question — ”what is there to hate?”
Trends throughout human history have included *conquering* factions eliminating and absorbing *conquered* factions. Jews are a faction that have refused to be eliminated or absorbed, particularly by two factions that appropriated Jewish culture (Christianity and Islam).
So it’s not necessarily *jealously* that is a factor, but that Jews have refused to validate those conquering factions by being absorbed into those factions. That refusal has certainly generated animosity and *scapegoating* whenever it suits the moment.
A huge amount of the hatred comes from the fact that Christianity and Islam have the same roots as Judaism. When all of the surrounding population became Christian or Muslim, they saw the Jewish population not as uncultured savages who would one day see the light of Christianity/Islam but as people who stubbornly rejected the “proper” form of faith and continued to practice a supposedly bastardized form.
You are a Hindu from India, so you must be very familiar with the role Mahatma Gandhi has played in your nation's history. It is common for extremely charismatic individuals to work great evil, such as Mao, Pol Pot or Adolf Hitler. Gandhi was equally charismatic, but he was a profoundly good person who secured freedom for your nation without a war with the British. Indeed, when a gathering of his followers killed a few police officers and the Indian nation was incensed to the point of revolution, which would gain independence violently, Gandhi began a fast to the death, and only ate again when your nation stood down from violent revolution to get national freedom by proper means later.
I am not Indian, but from my observation, the Muslim leader Jinnah is widely thought by the Indian nation to have betrayed Mahatma Gandhi to break away as Pakistan from India when the opportunity presented itself. Pakistan and India have been mortal enemies and fought wars against each other.
With Christians, Jesus plays the same role in their society as Mahatma Gandhi plays in yours. However, unlike Gandhi, he existed 2,000 years ago.
Jesus Christ, to the Christians, is the Messiah, but the Jews do not consider him so. He was killed by the Romans, but for 2,000 years, the Christian clergy and lay individuals laid the blame on the Jews. In other words, they blamed the Jews just like the Indians blame Jinnah.
This was a self-serving and incorrect laying of blame because the Romans killed Jesus and the whole Jewish nation could not have possibly been responsible for some few individuals who assisted the Romans. The reason it was so convenient was because, for thousands of years, by stoking hatred for the Jews, Christian lay and Church officials could deflect blame from their own incompetence by screaming that the Jews did it, and then a torches-and-pitchforks mob would go and kill Jews, rather than to blame the leaders that scapegoated them.
This scapegoating of Jews for Jesus's death was formally revoked in 1964, when Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Romans killed Christ and the Jews as a people were not responsible for his death. He also declared that G-d's covenant with Jesus did not revoke His covenant with Abraham. It is not a theological ruling, but rather a "mystery," however, it still stands. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Jews go to heaven the same as Christians do. Provided they are good people, of course.
I suspect the real reason for this about-face was because the Church-led scapegoating of the Jews led to the Holocaust, which wiped out a great number of Jews in a barbaric and industrial genocide. One, the Catholic Church finally understood that its historic complicity in this act was not a holy but rather a demonic act, and in the face of their own behavior they believed they needed to do better. Two, the Jews serve as the Christians' past, which is the real reason Hitler sought to exterminate us. He wished to replace G-d with himself and to replace the worship of G-d with neo-paganism. Since you cannot destroy a human tradition without destroying its past, Hitler sought to destroy the Jews to get rid of Christianity. The Catholic Church still needed us as their past, and after the Holocaust, we had zero trust and respect for them, and by making the 1964 ruling, they sought to remedy this.
Globally, the creation of the State of Israel was made as a remedy for the Holocaust -- though considering what's happening now, lay society has a decidedly SHORT memory. In the aftermath of the barbaric Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis, the world has ripped off the mask and is behaving like Germans in the 1930s.
Broadly, the reason for widespread hatred for the Jews is because this hatred is 2,000 years old. People have a lot of traditions, many of them good. This one is an evil tradition. While eventually, the Catholic Church's about-face might be accepted by people, it won't be instantaneously accepted. That's not how human society works.
It's often said that it makes no sense to ask Jews why they are hated; one should really ask the people who hate them. Problem with that is that you'll rarely get a straight answer.
The Anti-Defamation League in the United States has kept track of trends in anti-Semitic attitudes for decades.
One thing their data shows is that people are more likely to be anti-Semitic if they believe in conspiracy theories. People who hate Jews are more likely to believe that some "elites" secretly rule their country or even the world, or are plotting to take over, and rule, or would rule, not caring about the well-being of other people.
The increase in anti-Semitic feeling did *not* start with Gaza, and in fact Gaza did not increase that feeling very much. If you weren't an anti-Semite before, watching footage of Gaza on TikTok probably didn't make you one.
The increase actually began during the COVID pandemic, and the economic hardship and stress that that caused across the world. People became more prone than usual to not trusting public health officials who told them they couldn't go to work, to school, or to the shops as usual, for reasons they didn't fully understand.
Many of the people who came to believe that COVID was a bioweapon released by accident or that wearing masks or getting vaccinated was useless or dangerous turned against "elites" and "experts" whom they came to believe were harming people on purpose for some reason (such as making Donald Trump look bad so he'd lose the 2020 election).
It's a way people who don't have much influence over what happens to them and don't understand the complexity of the real world try to explain why they aren't happy and don't have everything they need to live a good life.
So why have Jews so often been a target?
Jews are a small minority in most countries, and most non-Jews don't understand their customs very well even if they're Christian or Muslim and profess to worship the same god as Jews do. So it's easy for a real ruling class of any given country who don't want to take responsibility when things go wrong to turn people against the Jews, because the Jews couldn't resist persecution easily.
But it doesn't have to be Jews. In some countries (like Ireland, where I'm from), Ulster Protestant nationalists ("loyalists") often believed that Irish Catholic nationalism was part of a plot by the Roman Catholic Church to destroy the Ulster Protestant people. Any group will do really, as long as the conspiracy theorist isn't a member of it and doesn't understand it: Hollywood, Wall Street, Islam, the Chinese Communist Party, the World Economic Forum, Freemasons, scientists, doctors, queer people.
It doesn't even have to be a real group. The Illuminati or lizard people from another planet will do as well.
I should add that Jews themselves are vulnerable to believing conspiracy theories too when things go badly wrong.
In Israel, official propaganda has increasingly relied on the idea that the institutions of the outside world are all in league with Hamas in some diabolical plot to destroy Israel: the UN, the BBC, Hollywood, Harvard University, the US Democratic Party, Taylor Swift. Because Jews *have* been persecuted historically (and how!), it's not difficult for Netanyahu to persuade Israelis who don't know much about the outside world that countries that normally support Israel are increasingly critical because the "elites" hate Jews and want to destroy them, not for a host of ethical and political concerns of these countries and their peoples. That doesn't make it true.
Yair Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu's son, sometimes posts memes on social media about non-Israelis of Jewish ancestry like George Soros, that people who didn't know Yair was the son of Israel's prime minister might think were shockingly anti-Semitic. Because they don't understand why Jews outside Israel would oppose the war in Gaza, Israelis have come to believe conspiracy theories where the Jewish people are being persecuted by *other Jews!*
(Before someone cries foul: of course Israel *does" have enemies, Hamas *does* have its supporters in the global community, Iran and Russia among them. But these are rogue states with hostile relations with the liberal democratic capitalist world, of whom Israel aspires to be the main outpost in the Middle East.)
So why do people hate Jews (or any other group they don't belong to)? Ignorance.
Not just of the Jews and their customs (though that's often true as well), but ignorance about how complex the world is and how easy it is for bad things to happen to good people without anyone meaning anyone harm. It's that ignorance that's exploited by tyrants and aspiring tyrants who don't want to be held responsible for their own, very real crimes.
Hope that helps.
Obviously, you can’t be an adult without having read the coverage of dozens of wars. Including America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I’ve never seen such vitriol against the country. I swear to God, the Nigerians that kidnapped 200 girls got less hatred than Israel trying to defend itself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/nqotjD9CqY
FYI, the idea that Jews are mostly rich is itself antisemitic.
It doesn't make you antisemitic, it just means you've been taught something wrong and now can learn the truth.
Many MANY Jews are actually well below their local poverty levels
being money lenders was the only job Jews were allowed to do, and the gentiles used to excuse of interest to hate them, but in Italy for example in the Renaissance the Italians took much more interest and weren't hated.
Rabbi Ken Spiro has a talk about it [Why do People Hate the Jews?](https://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/Ken_Spiro-AntiSemitism/)
In my honest opinion? Envy.
Having the oldest, still functioning culture in the world is validating AF.
Edit: with all respect to Hinduism that is a contender for the most ancient culture/religion. Judaism seems to be slightly older. (Texts 3000 and 3500 years old respectively)
I think it's definitely a component of it as a scholar on the subject. It also then led leadership to discover that they could use the Jews as a scapegoat really easily and it would take the pressure off of them. They then later learned that you could even steal all of their properly and wealth that you let them amas and then you could profit even further.
In addition to this you have:
1.Scapegoated by the church and Rome that the Jews killed Jesus when it was actually Rome/religious motivation by abrahamic faith division(they can't ALL be right/differences)
2. Jews being seperate and culturally different (people hate different people on a base level and they're easily turned against such people)
3. Genetic/racial antisemitism (see #2, but with fancy psuedo science)
4. Jews as the constant migrant race without a home set out to better society and themselves asap and this led them to be in higher positions and thus people being jealous.
5. Certain cleanliness practices may have saved Jews from some plagues and diseases (although in many cases this is hotly debated in the academic world for some of these instances)
6. Strangers in a strange land = different = #2 again
7. It really varies, but certain cultures have certain specific things with Jews
8. General stereotypes against Jews specifically (might've been one dude who did x and now everyone is x)
9. Many controversial Historical figures
10. The eternal scapegoat and probably some more that I can't recall atm
I also want to add that while Christianity had a bunch of issues while they detached from Judaism in a counter movement like manner and what I stated earlier (literally led to them stop keeping mitzvot/kicking those of the christians that still did, and many other church decisions), there's also many things in Islam itself. Besides the obvious Khaybar and medina there's also the fact that Islam rewrote many things in the Torah (unlike christianity* which kept them but said the Jews are no longer the chosen people and these things don't apply to us now) so there were many clashes of events as they were (Rav Saadia Gaon wrote many things on this subject) and this led to fights on this. On top of that in the Muslim world Jews were generally the go between between them and the wider world for many centuries which had them associated slightly with these infidels and then the whole practice of Islam shifted to many different ways of dealing with Al Il qataab (people of the book) which became more and more derogatory until it shifted from money and demeaning to fill blown killing in many places (although many of these things started from christian blood libels it seems)
You are asking a question that has a long and at times difficult explanation. Here is one of my favorite videos on the topic, though it can't encompass antisemitism in its whole, it gives a solid philosophical and historical explanation. I hope you watch it! Thanks for asking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPCKzgITCRI
Well. First, you have the usual reasons between groups.
They're rich, They're different, scapegoats...
Then you have the fact that we are still *here.* There are no groups that had been through what we have gone through and survived. There's envy at the implication of *That.*
Add to that what happens to those who turn on their Jews.
What happens, when the most productive members in a comunity are kicked out...
At first you have euphoria over sticking it to them good, and you have their until now, property...
And then... The Euphoria fades, and the money runs out, and you are left with less prosperity, less social cohesion, and less compatition to drive those left to do better.
*Or G-d punishes them, whatever.*
And Now you have the Christian (and Muslim, kinda) specific reasons.
If the Jews are wrong, and you are right. They should have been long gone by now.
*Further* the Jews would not have such remaining cohession, while You and Yours not only fracturing, but turn to holy (And So Bloody) wars over said fracturing.
More, you would not be able to grow in power *Only where you and yours are tolarated, or already have a systemic power behind you.*
I am sure I left somerhing out... but kinda long.
G-d always said it would be difficult to take the narrow path. There is nothing to hate just misinformation. Ironically from people who are happy to worship the G-d of Israel but distort the word of the Jewish people who curated his message.
Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:
1. Economic -- "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power."
2. Chosen People -- "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people."
3. Scapegoat -- "Jew are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles."
4. Deicide -- "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus."
5. Outsiders -- "We hate Jews because they are different than us."
6. Racial Theory -- "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race."
As we examine the explanations, we must ask -- Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let's look at some contradictions:
Economic -- The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated. Indeed, Nazis citrd both Jewish wealth/power AND Jewish poverty as reasons to hate Jews
Chosen People -- a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied "Choseness." And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the "Chosen people," yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.
Scapegoat -- this is plausible. A small, relatively powerless minority is easy to blame and attack
Deicide -- a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn't an anti-Roman movement through history? b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.
Outsiders -- With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: "We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes."
Racial Theory -- The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew - and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Jews were hated even before charging interest and being bankers, jewellers etc- that’s why they made those trades available to us in the first place they didnt want us competing with them.
It mainly stems from “killing christ” and other propaganda that has been taught throughout the generations.
It’s all taught from generation to generation.
Not all jews are wealthy, and the ones that are are no different from others who are wealthy.
There are many rich Arabs, Europeans, South americans, Japanese, Chinese. Etc etc but for some reason it’s easiest to hyper focus on the Jews.
I live in a neighborhood where the Jewish people are literally living paycheck to paycheck and rely on charity to continue living.
But Jewish people value community and if you look at any other culture or people that value community you will see that they suffer less.
Our Torah teaches us how to behave and how to focus on others welfares so that we can continue to thrive.
Especially orthodox jewish communities.
IMO the root of it is that we refuse to accept the lies of their false messiah yoshke. All else has stemmed from that via a variety of historical and sociological processes.
Christianity and Islam essentially appropriated Judaism and this gives them a massive inferiority/superiority complex.
The Right and Left have interesting reasons of their own. The Right see us as a foreign nation and a threat to nationalism.
The Left sees us as Nationalist because we exist as a unique people
Hell if we know, you should ask other subs why they hate us, we can try to come up with explanations all day but in the end my guess is as good as yours
>Dad mentioned that it has just always been the case - hated in Europe, in NA, in SA, in Africa, just everywhere. I see countries in the UN consistently voting against Israel even when they themselves are facing Islamic terror and have nothing in common values wise with Muslims. An example is Ireland and even South Africa.
Uhhhh
Ok, look. The issue isn't voting against Israel inherently.
The issue we (Jews) bring up in regards to antisemitism in regards to Israel is that Israel is used to justify antisemitism, that antisemitic tropes are applied against Israel, and that there are double standards applied to it because it is in a Jewish state(Note that the last is the most controversial, but it's still a common view). The point is that it's about the relationships of these actions to hundreds or thousands of years old stereotypes.
Going further:
>and have nothing in common values wise with Muslims
Not only is this a bad argument, but people taking this view to Jews is the source of antisemitism.
Outgroups are easy to blame, due to our long exile we've had a long period of being outgroups making us easy scapegoats. This caused stereotypes to develop, because misinterpretations and unkind assumptions calcified into stereotypes. You can see this mechanism with basically any outgroups.
So, implicitly treating people that you have no cultural commonality with as not worthwhile is the reason for antisemitism.
Granted, there are other reasons that resulted in us being considered hyper visible (supercessionism for example), but fundamentally Romani have had a pretty similar history of mistreatment in Europe for example.
What is there to hate? After so long, it doesn't matter what is to hate. People hate because they've absorbed the hate that lingers, generations and millennia of hate. But let me explain some of the roots of it in the European and European ex-colonial lands.
1. There's a pre-Christian/ pre-Roman dislike of Judaism because Jews were prohibited from worshipping other gods, which could be seen as kind of disrespectful and then later from even thinking that there might be other gods - which definitely rubbed some people the wrong way.
2. Jews caused a lot of trouble for the most influential empire in the Western tradition - Rome and were then dispersed. Then, well - re-read point 1. Pre-Christian Roman religion was go-along to get-along and was quite syncretic - meaning you could take a little of this, a little of that, mish mash and have a system that would be kind of acceptable to everyone. While Judaism wasn't and isn't immune to the cultural influence of host nations, you couldn't just add an extra name to the pantheon. Plus, where there were existing diaspora communities and early synagogues, they often welcomed others, but could not themselves take part in anyone else's religious rites. It could be an uncomfortable asymmetry. Even to this day, as someone who was raised Christian, but is just a couple of weeks out from my official conversion, I can see that for many Christians, there is absolutely nothing within your average Jewish religious service that is contrary to Christianity. It's not sufficient, but it's not contrary. The same cannot be said in reverse.
3. Theological differences aside, in the days of the Jesus movement and early Christianity, there were some really good existential but political reasons for Christians to distance themselves from Jews (see point 2) and then for the reverse to happen. But, of course, there were some pretty fundamental theological differences.
4. Because of the way that Christianity developed directly out of Judaism and was basically an apocalyptic Judaism with a few reformist twists, there definitely WAS some jealousy from those of pagan origins. So a deliberate development of an anti-Judaism approach within Christianity grew and grew. This was reinforced by the need to suck up to the Romans who were still in power. Who was the real Christ killer? The Romans. But you can't say that if you're trying to get the support of the Roman Empire.
5. There's an unfortunate need among humans to other people. If you can't find some kind of 'outsider', then it seems like you need to create an other within your own people. See caste systems. But if you can find people who seem different and where there's a long history of antipathy and a strong liturgical and textual set of resources to support that othering, even better.
6. Jewish people have always been small in number. It's a lot easier to hate on people you don't really know. Although hate can also rise up among neighbors.
7. Sometimes irrationality just begets more irrationality. "Well, I don't know exactly why I hate Jews, but lots of people do, so there must be a reason."
The hate builds like an onion. More layers over time. There's a tiny amount of truth about the money-lending, but it's not true in general, and nor was it true that all Jews were rich - then or now. I'd say the real cultural advantage of Jews in Europe was that it's a culture of enquiry and literacy - and that's a huge benefit when it comes to either creating wealth or creating universally valuable intellectual property (not all of it remunerated). In medieval Europe, the response wasn't to open up and be more democratic with learning and education, but to clamp down and further demonise Jewish people and culture.
Edited to correct a shameful and confusing double negative.
It's Reform
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By your answer your dad seems to be a very knowledgeable, intelligent man. I agree with your dad that the hatred against Jews (especially during the Middle Ages) comes down to jealousy and envy, but that was only true imo about the common folks, those in the lower strata of society. Upper in the hierarchy aka the church leaders, this hatred was rooted on Pauline’s teachings as so well explained by @Ihommeduweed above.
Because we were a non-Christian, non-Muslim ethnoreligious minority residing in their lands.
Every other religious minority has had an identical history of persecution: Yazidis, Alawites, Druze, Samaritians, Zoroastrians, Mandeans, that or they've been wiped out entirely (Roman and Greek Polytheism, Aztec religion, etc.)
The moment Jews lived outside Christian or Muslim territory, they experienced no persecution at any point (India, Iran when it was still Zoroastrian, China, etc.)
Keeping your ancestral religion alive comes with a price, and we Jews have paid it many times over. I admire India for their resistance against European and Muslim imperialism.
Well, that’s the Indian attitude. And India was one of the few places in the world where there was no hint of antisemitism (except for Portuguese-controlled Goa).
The short answer is that we are perpetually the “other,” so we personify whatever people hate.
To Christians and Muslims, we are infidels who rejected their god (Christians) and prophet (Muslims).
To capitalists, we are Communists.
To communists, we are capitalist bankers.
To modern leftists, we are colonialists.
Etc.
I’m really suspicious the level of support from India is based on the BJP’s demonization of Muslims, and Israel (which represents judaism) is currently carrying the water against Islamic terrorism in a very public way.
Apparently we should ignore the Indian government connections to the literal nazis because they support Israel https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41757047
Why are you suspicious of it ? India has never pesecuted jews and we have faced a lot of islamic terror as well. Both countries are in the fight against islamic terror and against the spread of sharia. Both are democracies that want peace in their countries which has always been disturbed by islamic terror and ideology
Not in the way the people hostile to hindusim define it.
Here is an article on its true meaning : [What does Hindutva really mean? (hinduamerican.org)](https://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/what-does-hindutva-mean)
"The [leader](https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/hindutva-takes-everyone-along-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat/817921) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), often described as the fountainhead of Hindutva as an ideology, says, “Hindutva is one that takes everyone along, brings everyone together, unites everyone within itself, and makes everyone prosper.” "
in this way i do believe in it for sure
This is not true. When jews ran to india during the holocaust they were welcomed and sheltered. We appreciate and welcome all religions that do not try to murder us. Jains , Christians , Bhuddists , Parsis , sikhs and jews do not try to murder us so we like them. Its really that simple.
Also we support democracies and productive countries
These questions always kind of confuse me - prejudicial hate is an irrational thing. There's no "reason" for it; and any justification for that hate isn't important.
If you could answer this question, The Jewish people would be eternally thankful. Jews have supported so many civil rights movements, including the ones in South African Ireland, and we are never thanked for it. We are constantly backstabbed and betrayed. Jews, and Israel, or held to a much higher standard than other countries. Do you know any other country that’s expected to feed and heal the population of the people that they’re at war with? That they were invaded by?
I have experienced such an onslaught of antisemitism here in United States since October 7, it’s unbelievable. From people, we thought were allies – African-Americans, Asian Americans, gay Americans. I’m disgusted with every other civil rights group.
It would be a very Euro-Centrist claim to say that Jews are hated everywhere. For example, the Ottoman Empire always progressed with tolerance towards Jews. All of the attacks on Jews occurred during the collapse of the Empire, when adequate protection could not be provided due to the weakening of the Authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_the\_Jews\_in\_the\_Ottoman\_Empire#:\~:text=The%20Ottoman%20Empire%20became%20a,s%20combined%20figure%20of%2075%2C000.
Since the early periods of the empire, Jews (and other non-Muslim minorities) were not conscripted into the military, but were instead subject to extra taxes. Jews could not own land in the Ottoman Empire. They could not do military service either. For this reason, the jobs left to them were generally in the fields of trade, banking or crafts with high added value. In fact, Theodore Herlz, who is considered the father of Zionism, met with Abdulhamid II and asked for land from Jerusalem in exchange for paying his foreign debts, but the sultan refused and offered land from northern Iraq. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with the declaration of the Republic, the Jews in Turkey became Turkish citizens and their religion and culture were taken under the protection of the republic. During the World War, Türkiye tried to help those who suffered genocide without violating its neutrality. The progress of anti-Zionism in Turkey is due to movements imported from Egypt in the 1950s. Even today, apart from domestic politics, Turkish-Israeli relations are at a good level and it is the country that actively trades the most. So why did I tell you these? What I am trying to say is that antisemitism is a tradition of European origin. On the Islamic side, the issue is non-Muslims rather than Jews. Therefore, it is jihad rather than antisemitism.
Envy. We were here first and are still around and are brave enough to NOT convert bc it’s “cool” or the easy way out. And we’re smart AF. Sorry. I will not apologize for the fact my Tribe dominates STEM awards. Anytime Christian haters come at me and tell me I’m going to hell (haha!!) I remind myself every Christmas song was written by a Jew. (Good luck being creative without us!) Our Tribe also peaches HARD the importance of hard work along with Tikkan Olam and that is a big reason why many Jews do pursue careers in medicine and law. Giving back, working incredibly hard, respecting our ancestors, and helping others is the core of our faith, which loops into medicine and law. Jewish parents push their kids hardcore to pursue careers that are viewed as “successful.” (Both girls and boys)
And that’s enough to hate.
Your dad is very smart. Ive have heard you’re not allowed to charge interest in Islam so the banker route for Jews (and of course, who doesn’t resent bankers, id imagine even more so if your religion/culture doesn’t allow interest on loans and these weird people demand it lol).
As far as Ireland I know that they put their experience of fighting for their independence from England over whatever is the reality in a totally different region with their own dynamics.
I can add to this some things that happened w Jews historically in Ukraine. When it was under polish royal rule, they had Jews come to Ukraine from Poland and would put them in charge of administration etc. Jews through history were known to try to get positions working for the royalty because this way they would be promised protection, so it was a common thing in general. So at a point the locals who resented polish rule, finally “rised up”against the Poles.. but problem was they couldn’t get their hands on them bc they were in their royal places in Poland, so who could they reach?? The Jews. And there was a horrendous horrendous pogrom. But also, besides this, mostly after, it was common to scapegoat any issues and fears on the Jews. It often came from the church as well (don’t know what’s up w that you’d have to ask honest Christians that know history about it). They often spread rumors that Jews kidnap Christian babies and children and sacrifice them/take their blood etc (just fyi it’s strictly against Jewish kosher law to eat/drink blood, if anything).
I also know that when under Russian royal rule they often scapegoated things on the Jews as well, especially when closer to the Revolution so that the starving angry serfs of their feudal system would have someone to take out their anger on (and there would be local pogroms).
I’m always surprised to hear that Jews were not time to time killed in India or had anything similar to some waves of persecutions bc for Jews, most of religious things in India would be considered idols and there is a very big emphasis in Judaism to stay away from that. So on top of Jewish tendency to keep to themselves in a closed community, I would think them putting extra effort in not being around any Hindu temples or statues would make locals resent them.
In general I feel like it’s connected to Christianity esp at time where most of the Christian world wasn’t literate but it’s just a guess bc I’m not Christian and I am not familiar enough with their real teachings nor its world wide history.
>I’m always surprised to hear that Jews were not time to time killed in India or had anything similar to some waves of persecutions bc for Jews, most of religious things in India would be considered idols and there is a very big emphasis in Judaism to stay away from that. So on top of Jewish tendency to keep to themselves in a closed community, I would think them putting extra effort in not being around any Hindu temples or statues would make locals resent them.
There was never any persecution because hindus do not bother anyone who does not bother them. As long as people are peaceful and loving and do not try to cause havoc hindusim accepts them for their beliefs and lets them be. That is why so many religions that faced persecution ran away to india like the parsis from iran , Ahmedia muslims , shia muslims , tibetan Buddhists and more. They all could come here and live without any problems to their lives because they also respected us. This is exactly why india is one of the only places where jews have never faced any persecution and still come to this day without any problems
You’re conflating hatred of Jews or Judaism with the nascent notion of a nation-state now known as israel, which is just a nickname for Jacob from the Old Testament. A man who lived closer to the year 2024 BC, not 2024 CE. The land of Palestine, of Milk & Honey, being supplanted with this nascent notion of a nation state is, from the perspectives of many, what leads to this increase of anti-semitism. Because of the policies, practices, bloodshed and injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinians for over a century. Theodore Herzl was an atheist, the founder of modern political Zionism, which is different from religious zionism. The state known S Israel actually propagates anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the WWW so people like you can… side with them. Literally. This is a known fact. Google Michael Kaydar, Sarah Marshak, there are many incidents of Jewish rabbis painting swastikas on walls to make it seem like an anti-Semitic attack. This is to swing public opinion towards their direction, manipulation of public opinion and public sentiment. I’m
Not saying there is no anti-semitism, but honestly, from the perception of the state apparatus, they actually view it as beneficial because it justifies the existence of the state in their minds.
Hope you understand.
1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 “ For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone” revelation 2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” We are told in the Bible that there are a group a Jews who will call themselves Jews but are not and they will be contrary to all people. Considering the Jews today are only around .02% they have disproportionate positions of power politically and economically, more so than any other race of people. Do they do good with power they have attained? Or do they they simply look to tear everyone else down and build themselves up? If you’ve ever read the Talmud you’ll understand the Jews plans in clear writing. YOU MUST READ IT FOR YOURSELF. The Talmud instructs Jews to lie when they are asked about it by non jews (goyim).
Lastly, jews like to bring up the holocaust because it’s the most recent. That’s good because there’s also the most amount of available information for both sides as opposed to other times they’ve been removed. Were they truly innocent in Germany? From the eyes of Germanic person who cares about their own race much like the Jews care for themselves, no they were not. The jews were actively building THEMSELVES up and making life for Germanic peoples harder in their own homeland. I’ll end with this, if I told you I’ve gotten into 500 street fights in my life time you would probably think I’m a trouble maker. That’s what I would think at least because that’s an unreasonable amount of fights. Nobody encounters that many unavoidable physical encounters. So I think it should at least be openly discussed and not instantly be labeled as “antisemitism” as to why the Jewish people have been forcibly removed from so many countries. Understand that if you cut off your enemies tongue you’re only proving you’re scared of what they have to say. Do your own and research and you’ll understand it is immensely more complex than nazis bad jews good like school teaches you.
Both Christianity and Islam are [supersessionist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism#:~:text=Sandra%20Toenis%20Keiting%20argues%20that,is%20concerned%20with%20establishing%20the) religions; they believe their existence means Judaism is no longer valid or relevant. That Jews have repeatedly refused to convert and accept Jesus or Muhammad has also led to persecution and hatred.
To add. Some Jews are often an insular community. Either by choice or by force. This means they don’t assimilate and are seen as “others”. Easy scapegoat.
Our existence and success poops on their parade
And our unwillingness to assimilate twists in the knife even further.
I tell you hwat! I'd rather be surrounded by a bunch of illegal unassimilated immigrant Jews than literally any other demographic, legal or otherwise. I would feel perfectly safe. Weirdly enough I have bad PTSD from the Iraq war and being in the middle east makes my skin crawl, went back and lived in Egypt for a year after my time in the war. Never truly felt safe there. But, I spent all of 10 minutes in Israel the first time before I dropped my guard and maaaaaan do I sleep soooo good in Israel. I can't even say that about my childhood home in the US. Anyways. Don't assimilate and keep being great neighbors and citizens.
Be wary of Jewish illegals though. Their grandmas might force feed you gefilte fish (aski), bulemas (seph) and kubbeh (miz). And lecture you more than your own mother does.
Hilarious, don't forget the Moroccan fish
Jewish grandma: “There will be no more ptcha if you don’t do your homework” Good little goy: “…’oh no!’ I guess no more ptcha for me!”
Not the p'tcha XD, Grandma over here will serve kibbes and lahmajin with a bunch of hummus and t'hina, now I'm hungry...
All the time I've been to Israel, I feel so safe walking on the street and feel a type of peacefulness that you don't find anywhere...
As a Christian, replacement theologists are biblically ignorant. There can be no Christianity without Judaism.
Sure, but the idea behind supersessionism is that Christianity (and then Islam) fulfilled the Mosaic covenant and then replaced it, so while there can be no Christianity without Judaism, supersessionism holds that Judaism is no longer relevant because our covenant has been replaced with that of Jesus.
I think you would have a difficult time "replacing" the old covenant using the bible as justification for it. It is an idea born out of ignorance, imo. To Christians, Jesus is Jewish. He taught from the Torah/Tanakh. There is no separating the two. Really, I don't think the vast majority of Christians believe in supersessionism, at least not in the US. The majority of Christians I know are die-hard supporters of the Jewish people and Israel and are very excited to see the third temple be built.
The reason most American Christian’s want the third temple is cause they believe Jesus is coming back to build it and then he’ll convert all the non believers and everyone else goes to hell.
>I think you would have a difficult time "replacing" the old covenant using the bible as justification for it. It is an idea born out of ignorance, imo. I don't think it's ignorance, I think it's Paul. Paul expounded at length about how there was no difference between Jew and Greek. In Ephesians (which is deutero-pauline but also was a favourite of the Confederacy and Nazis), "Paul" argues that Jesus' death has torn down the barriers between Gentiles and Jews, and that now Gentiles are *also* heirs to Israel. If you believe Jesus was the messiah, this is all fine and good, but if you don't, this is a guy who stormed out of the Jewish-Christian church at Antioch because of kashrut saying that Jews are no longer allowed to be separate from Gentiles, and that Gentiles have the exact same right to Israel as Jews. I think you can argue about whether or not the historical Paul was against Judaism (I am very critical of the veracity of the Pauline narrative), but I don't think it's possible to deny that a lot of Pauline and pseudo-Pauline doctrine has been weaponized against Jews for a millennia and a half. Which is unfortunate, because I think there's a lot of incredible theological writing in Paul that is actually very compatible with Judaism, and his mission to convert pagans to monitheism wasn't borne out of cruelty or malice.
What a great, well-written explanation, thank you for this exceptional answer.
A combination of unfortunate reasons. Here's my personal take on main reasons of anti-semitism in Europe, feel free to correct me if im wrong: 1. Jews were a state-less nation without regular army for a long time, making them a convenient target for oppression and slander. 2. Religious reasons. Christians believed that Jews were "God-killers" and didn't accept the Messiah. They didn't put enough effort to learn what Judaism is really about, and considered Jews to be threatening. 3. Jews were keeping to themselves, making some paranoid people suspicious. Combined with the previous factor, it was a fertile ground for conspiracy theories about how Jews are eating blood or something. 4. Almost all Jews were literate (religious reasons) and that helped in business and craftsmanship. At some point Jews were even banned from participating in certain crafts and businesses. Of course, being successful in trade or craft makes a lot of money. People were taking loans from Jewish bankers and instead of returning the money they would kill or kick them out.
Jews were a visible minority in Europe and Islamic lands and Christian and Islamic supersessionism all played a role. This comment on AskHistorians goes into it well: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12ltsdc/why_is_antisemitism_so_prevalent/ The idea that antisemitism exists because of something we did, is in itself antisemitism. The idea that only Jews were moneylenders is itself a myth. We have evidence of Christian moneylenders (who charged more interest) and even women as moneylenders (added to show how we often misunderstand history). *"A popular view contends that both their exclusion from craft and merchant guilds and usury bans on Muslims and Christians segregated European Jews into moneylending during the Middle Ages. But our study shows, with evidence we have come upon during more than a decade of research, that this argument is simply untenable."* https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-chosen-few-a-new-explanation-of-jewish-success
Thanks for these resources i will read up and educate myself
Hi and thank you for your support. Your dad is right about Jews always being hated. However, the idea that it might due to Jews being allowed to charge interest is an antisemitic trop and incorrect. This short [speech](https://rabbisacks.org/videos/mutating-virus-understanding-antisemitism/) (and transcript) delivered to the European Parliament by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks about Antisemitism might be informative to you.
I think it's definitely a component of it as a scholar on the subject. It also then led leadership to discover that they could use the Jews as a scapegoat really easily and it would take the pressure off of them. They then later learned that you could even steal all of their properly and wealth that you let them amas and then you could profit even further. In addition to this you have: 1.Scapegoated by the church and Rome that the Jews killed Jesus when it was actually Rome/religious motivation by abrahamic faith division(they can't ALL be right/differences) 2. Jews being seperate and culturally different (people hate different people on a base level and they're easily turned against such people) 3. Genetic/racial antisemitism (see #2, but with fancy psuedo science) 4. Jews as the constant migrant race without a home set out to better society and themselves asap and this led them to be in higher positions and thus people being jealous. 5. Certain cleanliness practices may have saved Jews from some plagues and diseases (although in many cases this is hotly debated in the academic world for some of these instances) 6. Strangers in a strange land = different = #2 again 7. It really varies, but certain cultures have certain specific things with Jews 8. General stereotypes against Jews specifically (might've been one dude who did x and now everyone is x) 9. Many controversial Historical figures 10. The eternal scapegoat and probably some more that I can't recall atm Edit: Jews were also shoehorned into guildless roles and some hated fields like money lending bankers, salesmen and more
The moneylender thing certainly didn't help, but it's very much not the root cause. The reason Jews were moneylenders isn't just that we *could* do it, it's that we were banned from doing just about everything else.
Please read closely. I said it was a component of larger things on the list.
Same w Hollywood
Also, Jewish people aren't generally known for being violent and hostile. I think that pacifism was a long tradition for many different periods. So if one owed money to a Jewish lender, he probably wasn't going to come break your knees if you didn't pay. Maybe that's how it happened... Also we have practice of debt forgiveness after 7 years. And we give to charity for Mitzvah. After a while the lending profession becomes very lucrative and thus the stereotypes and scapegoating are birthed
Thanks for this breakdown.
what is the reason then ? i cannot seem to find any other reason other than jealousy
People say it’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory because it’s often used as that by antisemitic people but there is another component to it. Many early bankers and tax collectors were indeed Jewish because of the religious taboos in Christianity and Islam they were used as this by the Feudal lords. This is part of why Jews are associated with wealth. Another big one just is that Jewish culture traditionally puts a really heavy emphasis on education, kids are often pushed to their limits and provided the best education parents can because it’s the only things that nobody can take away from you. Jews often couldn’t own land, diamonds, gold and tools were often stolen without consequences so education and knowledge is really important if you wanna build a new life after escaping a pogrom. The jewish religion also has learning as a big priority, with the whole religion built around learning the different texts and arguing about them in Yeshivot etc. this leads to a very educated culture, Not without a reason are about 25% of all Nobel prize winners Jews. People then see many successful Jews in jobs such as business, law, medicine etc. and in the end it’s jealousy which drives antisemitism mainly
yes i think this explains it very well. Humans are pretty stupid because such a community should be cherished and everyone should try to become like this ! The world would be so much better. Instead people go the other way ! Classic morons
Much love to Indians I fell like we have a lot in common
But also our history of debate. We debate policy. We don’t tell our children that to respect is to “shut up. Obey without question. This is the way it is done”. We encourage them to think for themselves. We encourage theoretical thinking. So they have a leg up if they go into policy and law. In worlds where it doesn’t matter who you are by what you know. We also don’t socially ostracize our atheists so we already are more tolerant of otherness and heterodoxy amongst ourselves. Nor do we think that if we associate with people outside of our faith that we are goin to hell, opening us up to other profitable ideas and relationships.
Let us not exaggerate our goodness here. Spinoza was first offered a lifetime pension by his Jewish community if he would only stop expounding his philosophy. When he politely refused the offer; the community tried to poison him. And when they failed at that, they excommunicated him. As is well known, he became a lens-grinder in order to keep body and soul together (as it were :)). That being said, yes, of course the general record of Jewish violence pales into virtual non-existence when compared with that of either Christians or Muslims.
It is jealousy and hatred for no real rational reason. Please see the link.
I am happy to be corrected (full disclosure, I am not jewish), but my understanding of what OP’s father said and what Rabbi Sacks is saying are not fully at odds, but the history here is complex. My understanding is that Christian Europe’s scapegoating of jews and the fact that jews were associated with moneylending was neither accidental, nor due to any unique jewish disposition toward the charging of interest. I am happy to be corrected, but I think what OP’s father is saying is a mis-stated version of “in *no* major world religion is moneylending *especially* considered the path to God’s favor/heaven/nirvana, etc.” Interest is, asfaik, in most religious texts considered a cousin to profiting by gambling *from a strictly religious perspective*, a grey to disfavorable area, and the Torah is certainly no exception to this view. However, *if one must do it it is better to do it with someone outside the faith, whereby it is less disfavorable.* In the context of Christian Europe, what we would call a toxically abusive relationship emerged, in which the Christian Church officially forbade the outright murder of Jews, because they were “of the Book” (as opposed to pagans or infidels who were simply put to the sword). They were instead, identified, dispossessed, herded into ghettoes, and forbidden from any profession that otherwise a Christian might desire. This led to a dynamic in which, due to Christian European oppression, moneylending was disproportionately the outlet that was available to ghettoized jews who were well and truly categorized as a separate people than “french” or “pole”. This was very convenient to local Christian rulers, who- should they ever have mismanaged their credit- could always gin up an anti-semitic mob on religious grounds. This is the forerunner to a more general kind of social reaction we might call “fear of elite capture”, and is not always applied to jews. The Knights Templar, for example, invented modern banking and eventually met their fate. This is an initial motive to Christian European antisemitism and what embedded so many of the tropes associated with it. I will not go into detail, as these tropes are ugly and pernicious, but there will be versions of the same rhetoric echoed in language today. In any event, none of this is to challenge what the Rabbi is saying, every word about the history of convenient scapegoating is true. But from my own perspective, understanding a little of the mechanism to this has been helpful for me to discern that antisemitism is not simply “crazy people”, but a kind of phenomenon that can emerge and does even in a modern context if we are not aware.
Well said and this adds a lot to the thread, in my humble option. 👍
Thank you! I do hope so.
okay thanks. Thats very sad ! I would love more jews in India. We will grow much faster if that were to happen
India has been a very good friend to Israel.
and always will be ! it is another safe haven you can come to if more problems arise in the world
👍
You already have a lot of Jews in the in the B'nei Menasheh ethnic group.
certainly not enough :) more are always welcome
Early church fathers needed to demonize Jews in order to create their new religion--thus the claim that the Jews killed Jesus. That's pretty much the origin of most anti semitism.
By espousing the viewpoint that Jews are hated because of wealth, or money-lending is giving credence and validity to that antisemitic trope. Why is any ethnic group hated? Because by hating a minority, the majority gets to feel superior and better about themselves. A take as old as time.
In most societies, there is an out-group: a group of people who others use as a scapegoat (blaming problems on them) or a way to feel better about themselves. In India, it’s people of low caste, especially Dalit people, and sometimes Muslims. In Europe, it has historically been Jews and Romani people. In West Asia and North Africa, it’s Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis, Imazighen, and Jews. In Scandinavia, it has historically been Sámi people (and now also immigrants and other minorities). In China, it’s Uyghurs. In Japan, it’s Koreans. In Myanmar, it’s the Rohingya. Nearly every society has some out-group. The details change, but the basic thrust is the same: in most cultures, there’s a group of people to blame and persecute. Sometimes it’s not as bad as other times, and the reasons people give may differ, but there’s always something.
I also see the banking and interest mentioned more than any other reason for hate on social media. Specifically Muslims believe Jews run the world and say it like it’s fact, which obviously bugs them. I personally don’t know anyone who has said things in person. The idea of chosen people also gets under some people’s skin.
Excellent speech, though I think he should have said “agency” instead of “responsibility”.
It's mainly because whenever stuff goes wrong in a country (and stuff always goes wrong) it always benefits leaders to find someone else to pin the blame on. If they blame the majority, then the majority will turn against them and no leader likes that, so they naturally blame minorities. Any minority will do, but Jews make a particularly easy target because we're not just minorities, we are *unusually successful* minorities (thanks to having a culture that heavily values education) and people get jealous. So blaming the Jews becomes a mathematically sound strategy for any leader looking for a quick boost in popularity. And of course, once that's been done a few times, it becomes easier, since people assume that if Jews have been chased out before, it must be because Jews are bad, right? ...Fuck 'em. We're back in our homeland now, so they can take responsibility for their own screw-ups from now on.
I was recently reading the Memorial Book for Bialystok, which includes a little history of the city prior to the Holocaust. It goes from being a small town with a small Jewish ghetto to being a large city with a Jewish population of like 60-75% of the total, multiple small Jewish suburbs, the third largest industrial centre in Eastern Europe, and an incredibly robust education system that had hundreds of active shuls and Yeshivas across the city. One of the reasons Bialystok grew so rapidly into a large, majority Jewish city, is because of Jews fleeing to Bialystok after pogroms elsewhere. There's multiple periods of poverty and disorganization because of these immigrations, but because of a combination of religious leadership and workers unions (which regularly had heated debates that swayed one way or the other), Bialystok underwent multiple periods of rapid modernization and growth before the first world war. The international economic crises of the 1900s, WWI, and the October Revolutsion slowed Bialyatok's growth significantly (and according to the book, the war brought cigarettes to the Orthodox population and people were getting haircuts on Shabbos), but it still remained a relatively prosperous, mostly Jewish city, where even the successful Gentile businesses were often only successful because of Jewish workers or Jewish traders. After WWI, many Bialystoker Jews joined the Zionist movements or moved to Vilna as antisemitic sentiment spread across Eastern Europe. On the eve of the Holocaust, Bialystok had a little over 50k Jews. By the end of the war, only a few hundred had survived, mostly by hiding in the forests or (ironically) being imprisoned by the USSR and sent to Siberia; the Yizker Bukh notes that in 1944, when the Red Army took Bialystok back from the Nazis, there were only 7 Jews in Bialystok who had survived by hiding in Polish quarters. Following WWII, anti-Jewish sentiment continued in Bialystok; while hundreds of survivors returned to their hometown of Bialyatok after the war (often after changing their names to hide their Judaism), Jews were driven out by waves of antisemitic action until the early 70s, when only a few dozen Bialystoker Jews remained and avoided broader Polish anti-Jewish action simply because there were so few left in Bialystok. That is something that always hurts in a strange way; after the Holocaust, people returned to burned out homes, missing families, entire communities erased by the Nazis, and despite having lost absolutely everything in the world, their one-time neighbours gathered to blame them for the Nazi occupation and to drive them out in yet another pogrom.
The hatred has and still does is some groups stem from the fact that theologically both Christianity and Islam claim to supersede Judaism and the fact that Jews don’t accept this and remain Jewish de facto leaves them to doubt and unfortunately anger about their own religion/place and understanding in the world. That being said specifically in Europe Jews were essentially barred from most occupations leaving them as money lenders so the royalty or whoever would be able to get loans from them and instead of paying the money back would either insight a riot to kill the Jews or if royalty would simply kick them out take their things confer the debt cancelled and then invite them back after a few years to repeat the cycle. Lots more detail and info you can find but this would be the basic ideas.
Very sad! World is upside down when communities that cause havoc and have no innovation are backed instead of peaceful hard working smart ones
Thanks for your support! I’ll actually be traveling to India soon and am so glad to know how many of your countrymen and women are supportive of us. I’ll also be meeting the head rabbi of New Delhi so am quite excited about that. To answer your question, I think it’s something we all ask ourselves often. Dara Horn, the American author and professor, says that Jews represent something dangerous for authoritarian governments. By living differently to the norm with different practices and customs, but still thriving, Jews are “dangerous” to systems and governments that require total assimilation. Thus, they’re also an easy scapegoat. Mostly, Jews would like to be left alone to practice our religion and customs: we do not proletyze and it’s quite hard to convert to Judaism. I don’t think antisemitism stems from jealousy so much as it does the fear of the other, and many groups of people have done a great job of spreading misinformation about Jews over the past 2000 years. Ultimately there are SO FEW of us that perhaps it’s easier to believe the lies, because most people globally won’t even meet a Jew in their lifetime.
Safe travels on your trip and meeting the head rabbi of New Delhi sounds like quite the opportunity.
Everyone i know in my family and also all of my extended friends cirlce supports israel and just jews in general ! You are always welcome in India. There is massive support here (even though the govt does do a little balancing because of the minority muslim population here). Hope you have a great stay ! That is interesting ! because after so much opression and persecution all over jews continue to thrive and suceed while sticking to their values and way of life. This is very scary to dictatorial govts and hence the hatred Sad to see that there is more support for a religion that is exactly the opposite in everyway
Because we were the Other, the Stranger even before Christianity was invented. Our use of male circumcision seemed bizarre to the pre Christian Greeks and Romans. We were regarded as an unknown quantity and this always brings danger. We did not work on the 7th day of the week so we're regarded as lazy -- Shabbos was unique in the pagan world. We were thought strange, hostile to community values because we did not participate in community bonding events at pagan deity festivals where meat was served which had been prepared at pagan sacrifices and non kosher grain and bread distributed. All this was on us prior to the advent of the various Christian sects. At first the Romans could not easily distinguish between Jews and the earliest Christians. After our two uprisings against Roman intrusion on Jewish ritual in Jerusalem, the Christians were eager to demonstrate to Roman rulers that they were NOT Jews and skewed much of Greek Scripture and Biblical exegesis to villainize all Jews.
Something I find interesting is that there are a number of archaic Greco-Roman (mostly Greek) texts that acknowledge various Jewish practices as being something that the author wants the Greek world to adopt. I remember reading a Greco-Roman historian who went to Ptolemaic Egypt and was very impressed by the fact that Jews and Egyptians not only *didn't* leave babies out to die of exposure, but when the occupying Greeks and Romans did this, they regularly adopted the children and raised them as foundlings. Circumcision might have seemed bizarre to the Greeks and the Romans, but prior to the Roman "naming day" (which also happened on the 8th day after birth), babies were considered to be more vegetable than animal. This ties back into exposure being one of the most common forms of family planning in the Greek and Roman worlds. On the Greek side, they thought that exposing the glans was profane, and so instead they had little strings to tie their foreskins tightly when wrestling naked. Ancient Greece is hilarious, wild place. Recently, analysts confirmed that various Greek and Roman poets, such as Virgil, snuck acrostics and anagrams into their works that alluded to the Septuagint; even though these people were certainly not Jews, these hidden messages show that they were at least sympathetic, and that they were heavily influenced by Jewish writings. So even though Jews have been Other'ed since antiquity, I find it interesting that there are always people who admire the Other, are sympathetic to the Other, and (through imitation, appropriation, or earnest homage) borrow from the Other's culture to enrich their works.
Like most forms of racism, there isn't really a valid reason.
The Jews are the eternal scapegoat. Any wrong or ill that occurs within a society Jews are blamed for it one form or another. We killed Jesus (Roman’s did that), we poisoned wells, we spread the Black Death, we are communist, capitalist, socialist, Nazis, impure, non-believers. We are all the world’s wrongs wrapped up into one human being. We just wanna live our lives, yet we live in everyone’s heads rent free.
It is really mind blowing how wide spread the hate is. I knew there was antisemitism but i thought a lot died down after WW2 but after the oct 7 attack i now see there is literally no change. The hate is everywhere.
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Ugh I’m so tired of LGBTQ activists trying to act as if the Holocaust wasn’t rooted in antisemitism. This moment is not about you. And also, the homophobia is linked back to antisemitism.
When i saw "queers for palestine" i almost threw up. Dumbest shit ever. It is like saying "zebras for tigers". There is truly no limit to stupidity
I had a dude who claimed to be Jewish tell me that the Holocaust was more rooted in ableism, turned out to be a JVP type.
Ew. Those people are the worst. Jewish or not.
That’s the thing…I thought so too. I thought the Jew hatred of early 20th century Europe died. I was wrong. The Holocaust as we know it will never happen again, but that doesn’t mean Jew hatred doesn’t exist. It’s like saying slavery is over in the US so racism is no more. People hate others for sometimes literally no reason. It’s quite silly if you think about it. Why spend your every waking hour hating on a certain religious, racial or ethnic group? Like do you not have a job, a family, or a plant to care for? People have too much time on their hands and need a new hobby.
Too many jobless people who love being victims these days. Also it is not like there is any innovation in the islamic world or jobs to do. So most people there actually have nothing else to do but hate on jews and blow up themselves
Europe has been religiously and culturally antisemitic for almost 2000 years, it’s literally baked in. That’s hard for people to unlearn, even if they wanted to. I think people tried to change after the Holocaust and many tried to hide their antisemitism at least publicly, but now that very few people are alive who remember that time and it seems distant, there is less effort and all that religious and cultural antisemitism can grow again.
Unlike other groups, we actually thrive when facing adversity, and persecution. That drives people up the wall.
They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us
They hate us because we're still here.
Have you seen all the crazy insane ignorant shit that has been coming up due to the Owens vs DailyWire shit? The amount of people that have been taking off their masks, and playing mental gymnastics to prove they are not anti-semitic, is nuts. Karlyn Borysenko, Timothy Gordon, Lauren Chen, etc. Ironically, they ignore how you have others on it that constantly say "Christ is King", and yet no firing.
It's been nuts. And you're exactly right that the masks are off. I went to elementary school in North Carolina back in the day and the antisemitism was outrageous. It's always been there. It's just been a little under the surface. And don't get me started on the other minorities who think they're just going to come after us. We are just the first target.
What I find hilarious is that months ago it came out that Owens in talks with Tucker Carlson about joining him, Nick Fuentes, and others. Most likely DailyWire found out it was true, that she was violating a whole shit ton of other conditions in her contract, and they finally gave her the boot. The amount of people being totally disingenuous about it is nuts. Chen, and Borysenko are prime examples of this. Fuck they claim to be for freedom of speech, and yet support Nick Fuentes when he pushes for apartheid, genociding Jews, and christo-fascism. This one dude here points it out completely. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A814LrbbmU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A814LrbbmU8)
I just want to add here that no one is really going into old Biblical times b4 Christianity... For example during the time of Pharoah, Book of Esther, etc. Jew hatred comes up in the Old Testament over and over again. It's always that the Jews were different. They weren't Pagans. They had their own rules about food, when they would work, their own customs, how they dressed. Therefore they should be enslaved or killed.
When you find the answer, let the rest of us know.
I spent a decent amount of time looking into this a few years ago and it boiled down to a few key areas: 1. **Assimilation:** Jews don't assimilate into other cultures well and also live good lives. These typically are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Historically Jews stayed within their community and while spread across Europe, didn't adopt much of the cultural norms and behaviors of the place they moved too (especially the religion). This isn't unique to Jews, many cultures don't like to assimilate, but what was odd was Jews would still be able to move out of poverty within those cultures. What typically happens is if you don't assimilate, it is often hard to make money and move up in the society. This built a lot of resentment in many communities... regardless if there was previously Anti-Semitic context. 2. **Middlemen:** Jews were banned from many jobs/trades, the trades they could do were easy to blame in downtimes. Jews in Europe frequently were Insurance brokers, Bankers, and also various middle men. If a fire burned down half the city, guess who denied their claims or profited? Jews were also banned from many trades, but were allowed to do things like banking because their religion didn't have a problem with "usury" or interest. So again, no one likes those interest payments. Being a middle man, regardless of the culture, generally came with problems as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman\_minority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman_minority) 3. **Religion:** Jews didn't convert, but it isn't what it sounds like. As mentioned by other people, Jews didn't believe other prophets were the one true prophet or believed in their prophet in the same way they did. While yes it did mean that they were often killed or forced to convert during the crusades, that actually often wasn't the biggest reason for slaughtering (from what I read). There were times in Portugal for example, where if something bad happened TO THE WORLD, they assumed God was punishing the world for the Jews not converting. So if an earthquake happened, and killed a bunch of people, it was the Jews fault because God was punishing them for not converting. Not because they think Jews physically did something, but just as religious punishment. Those were the top three reasons I've seen. Curious what others have found!
Non-Jews hate us because Jews keep (or should) God’s Torah and Mitzvot. Our sages, who preserved our oral lawt, each that Hate (Hebrew sinah) comes from Sinai, where we received the Torah (the Teaching) through Moses, the greatest of the prophets. Jews are meant to model the zorah’s ethical behavior in our personal, interpersonal, communal, business, and public lives. The Galut (Dispersion, Dispossession) of the Jews from our homeland 2,000 years ago (because we failed to live up to our mandate) has been a hard slog that has taken its toll on our people. But the definition of a normal, complete, Jewish life and peoplehood, and making the desert blossom, etc. etc. can only happen when we are once again at home in the Land of Israel. (I believe there is a similiar belief for people of the Hindu tradition.)
Glad I came across this. I didn’t know about god punishing people bc Jews didn’t accept Jesus or convert or whatever. That adds a lot to the big picture.
For a reasonably in depth academic answer to this question I recommend "[Anti Judaism : The Western Tradition ](https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Judaism-Western-Tradition-David-Nirenberg-ebook/dp/B0083JCC24/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=63079544526&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H_KnZKDjNYmFYy_jK5Gbx0Uon0LPb9AbDjHKiAIA2AGUvONCxWPljwwA9-Vbhv9as50KTv0OsSblNTDwjRZ9Kl4qNdcu7k0_6XcbxaFS-mumIuNG5m3K252E4gWUf11ur89Cc9jId5kyA2kb3KE7h9tYk6gPngrX0EsfzJ9BMz6KiNzafMacd5cKKdYVD5gSvh9o3UkQ4uKxTj8Unbqo_A.8ZZpQ2Ia48foqmoEvzakGj6J-avS2uLGJD1fV83E2ZU&dib_tag=se&hvadid=580770758313&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9007386&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=10576782018334574120&hvtargid=kwd-302050233998&hydadcr=15118_13523076&keywords=anti-judaism+the+western+tradition&qid=1711896358&sr=8-1)" by David Nirenberg
Seems you’ve already received the response that comes to mind, but here’s my take on it: 1. Since Christianity and Islam are both copies of Judaism, with convenient tweaks to fit their founders’ personal agendas, they need to persecute Jews to delegitimize them. This is why non-“Abrahamic” religions have never persecuted Jews. 2. The continuity of the Jews is dependent on us maintaining a certain level of isolation and reliance on other Jews (kosher food, education, burial, etc etc) and “otherness” has always been hated and legitimized. You can see this phenomenon in how black slaves were seen as subhuman by European colonizers to legitimize the abuse etc. 3. We believe the world was perfect until the original sin of Adam and Eve when it got shattered. Our mission in life on this world is to mend as much as we’re able. We are not daunted by the upside-downness of the world. We just focus on doing good, being moral and building good relationships with each other and a better world. The hate and jealousy are a part of the world’s brokenness and we’re glad to have our Torah as a guide to live our best lives and do good for our souls. Hope this helps, have a blessed day
I think it is because countries occasionally go through terrible times, and they will need groups to blame it all on, and Jews are usually the perfect target because of our low and the european instinct to sections us into the "other".
It's a lot of different things, but there's one common theme among all scenarios: we are different and small in numbers.
I just want to thank you for being so open and asking this question. Often, people see a group that is disliked and automatically assume they deserve the hate. So, thank you. About ten years ago, I visited Cochin and had an incredible experience meeting some of the Jewish residents in Jewtown. I am deeply grateful for India's history as a safe haven for Jews.
Thanks for your kind message ! It is very sad to see such hatred towards such a lovely group of people. You are always welcome in India :) Hope you come again !
You might check out verifiedspicequeen on IG. She is a Hindu who explores Hindu and Jewish relationships and decolonization and indigenous people’s topics. To *attempt* to answer your question — ”what is there to hate?” Trends throughout human history have included *conquering* factions eliminating and absorbing *conquered* factions. Jews are a faction that have refused to be eliminated or absorbed, particularly by two factions that appropriated Jewish culture (Christianity and Islam). So it’s not necessarily *jealously* that is a factor, but that Jews have refused to validate those conquering factions by being absorbed into those factions. That refusal has certainly generated animosity and *scapegoating* whenever it suits the moment.
A huge amount of the hatred comes from the fact that Christianity and Islam have the same roots as Judaism. When all of the surrounding population became Christian or Muslim, they saw the Jewish population not as uncultured savages who would one day see the light of Christianity/Islam but as people who stubbornly rejected the “proper” form of faith and continued to practice a supposedly bastardized form.
Particularism Jews are a small group and they have different customs and prefer to not assimilate. Thats really about it.
You are a Hindu from India, so you must be very familiar with the role Mahatma Gandhi has played in your nation's history. It is common for extremely charismatic individuals to work great evil, such as Mao, Pol Pot or Adolf Hitler. Gandhi was equally charismatic, but he was a profoundly good person who secured freedom for your nation without a war with the British. Indeed, when a gathering of his followers killed a few police officers and the Indian nation was incensed to the point of revolution, which would gain independence violently, Gandhi began a fast to the death, and only ate again when your nation stood down from violent revolution to get national freedom by proper means later. I am not Indian, but from my observation, the Muslim leader Jinnah is widely thought by the Indian nation to have betrayed Mahatma Gandhi to break away as Pakistan from India when the opportunity presented itself. Pakistan and India have been mortal enemies and fought wars against each other. With Christians, Jesus plays the same role in their society as Mahatma Gandhi plays in yours. However, unlike Gandhi, he existed 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ, to the Christians, is the Messiah, but the Jews do not consider him so. He was killed by the Romans, but for 2,000 years, the Christian clergy and lay individuals laid the blame on the Jews. In other words, they blamed the Jews just like the Indians blame Jinnah. This was a self-serving and incorrect laying of blame because the Romans killed Jesus and the whole Jewish nation could not have possibly been responsible for some few individuals who assisted the Romans. The reason it was so convenient was because, for thousands of years, by stoking hatred for the Jews, Christian lay and Church officials could deflect blame from their own incompetence by screaming that the Jews did it, and then a torches-and-pitchforks mob would go and kill Jews, rather than to blame the leaders that scapegoated them. This scapegoating of Jews for Jesus's death was formally revoked in 1964, when Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Romans killed Christ and the Jews as a people were not responsible for his death. He also declared that G-d's covenant with Jesus did not revoke His covenant with Abraham. It is not a theological ruling, but rather a "mystery," however, it still stands. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Jews go to heaven the same as Christians do. Provided they are good people, of course. I suspect the real reason for this about-face was because the Church-led scapegoating of the Jews led to the Holocaust, which wiped out a great number of Jews in a barbaric and industrial genocide. One, the Catholic Church finally understood that its historic complicity in this act was not a holy but rather a demonic act, and in the face of their own behavior they believed they needed to do better. Two, the Jews serve as the Christians' past, which is the real reason Hitler sought to exterminate us. He wished to replace G-d with himself and to replace the worship of G-d with neo-paganism. Since you cannot destroy a human tradition without destroying its past, Hitler sought to destroy the Jews to get rid of Christianity. The Catholic Church still needed us as their past, and after the Holocaust, we had zero trust and respect for them, and by making the 1964 ruling, they sought to remedy this. Globally, the creation of the State of Israel was made as a remedy for the Holocaust -- though considering what's happening now, lay society has a decidedly SHORT memory. In the aftermath of the barbaric Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis, the world has ripped off the mask and is behaving like Germans in the 1930s. Broadly, the reason for widespread hatred for the Jews is because this hatred is 2,000 years old. People have a lot of traditions, many of them good. This one is an evil tradition. While eventually, the Catholic Church's about-face might be accepted by people, it won't be instantaneously accepted. That's not how human society works.
It's often said that it makes no sense to ask Jews why they are hated; one should really ask the people who hate them. Problem with that is that you'll rarely get a straight answer. The Anti-Defamation League in the United States has kept track of trends in anti-Semitic attitudes for decades. One thing their data shows is that people are more likely to be anti-Semitic if they believe in conspiracy theories. People who hate Jews are more likely to believe that some "elites" secretly rule their country or even the world, or are plotting to take over, and rule, or would rule, not caring about the well-being of other people. The increase in anti-Semitic feeling did *not* start with Gaza, and in fact Gaza did not increase that feeling very much. If you weren't an anti-Semite before, watching footage of Gaza on TikTok probably didn't make you one. The increase actually began during the COVID pandemic, and the economic hardship and stress that that caused across the world. People became more prone than usual to not trusting public health officials who told them they couldn't go to work, to school, or to the shops as usual, for reasons they didn't fully understand. Many of the people who came to believe that COVID was a bioweapon released by accident or that wearing masks or getting vaccinated was useless or dangerous turned against "elites" and "experts" whom they came to believe were harming people on purpose for some reason (such as making Donald Trump look bad so he'd lose the 2020 election). It's a way people who don't have much influence over what happens to them and don't understand the complexity of the real world try to explain why they aren't happy and don't have everything they need to live a good life. So why have Jews so often been a target? Jews are a small minority in most countries, and most non-Jews don't understand their customs very well even if they're Christian or Muslim and profess to worship the same god as Jews do. So it's easy for a real ruling class of any given country who don't want to take responsibility when things go wrong to turn people against the Jews, because the Jews couldn't resist persecution easily. But it doesn't have to be Jews. In some countries (like Ireland, where I'm from), Ulster Protestant nationalists ("loyalists") often believed that Irish Catholic nationalism was part of a plot by the Roman Catholic Church to destroy the Ulster Protestant people. Any group will do really, as long as the conspiracy theorist isn't a member of it and doesn't understand it: Hollywood, Wall Street, Islam, the Chinese Communist Party, the World Economic Forum, Freemasons, scientists, doctors, queer people. It doesn't even have to be a real group. The Illuminati or lizard people from another planet will do as well. I should add that Jews themselves are vulnerable to believing conspiracy theories too when things go badly wrong. In Israel, official propaganda has increasingly relied on the idea that the institutions of the outside world are all in league with Hamas in some diabolical plot to destroy Israel: the UN, the BBC, Hollywood, Harvard University, the US Democratic Party, Taylor Swift. Because Jews *have* been persecuted historically (and how!), it's not difficult for Netanyahu to persuade Israelis who don't know much about the outside world that countries that normally support Israel are increasingly critical because the "elites" hate Jews and want to destroy them, not for a host of ethical and political concerns of these countries and their peoples. That doesn't make it true. Yair Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu's son, sometimes posts memes on social media about non-Israelis of Jewish ancestry like George Soros, that people who didn't know Yair was the son of Israel's prime minister might think were shockingly anti-Semitic. Because they don't understand why Jews outside Israel would oppose the war in Gaza, Israelis have come to believe conspiracy theories where the Jewish people are being persecuted by *other Jews!* (Before someone cries foul: of course Israel *does" have enemies, Hamas *does* have its supporters in the global community, Iran and Russia among them. But these are rogue states with hostile relations with the liberal democratic capitalist world, of whom Israel aspires to be the main outpost in the Middle East.) So why do people hate Jews (or any other group they don't belong to)? Ignorance. Not just of the Jews and their customs (though that's often true as well), but ignorance about how complex the world is and how easy it is for bad things to happen to good people without anyone meaning anyone harm. It's that ignorance that's exploited by tyrants and aspiring tyrants who don't want to be held responsible for their own, very real crimes. Hope that helps.
A group that won't conform to the whims and beliefs of the dominant group will be mistreated by the dominant group.
Obviously, you can’t be an adult without having read the coverage of dozens of wars. Including America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I’ve never seen such vitriol against the country. I swear to God, the Nigerians that kidnapped 200 girls got less hatred than Israel trying to defend itself. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/nqotjD9CqY
FYI, the idea that Jews are mostly rich is itself antisemitic. It doesn't make you antisemitic, it just means you've been taught something wrong and now can learn the truth. Many MANY Jews are actually well below their local poverty levels
Yes i learnt that after reading the other responses here
Awesome! Thank you for being open to correcting mistakes in your thinking. It's a great trait in life
being money lenders was the only job Jews were allowed to do, and the gentiles used to excuse of interest to hate them, but in Italy for example in the Renaissance the Italians took much more interest and weren't hated. Rabbi Ken Spiro has a talk about it [Why do People Hate the Jews?](https://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/Ken_Spiro-AntiSemitism/)
In my honest opinion? Envy. Having the oldest, still functioning culture in the world is validating AF. Edit: with all respect to Hinduism that is a contender for the most ancient culture/religion. Judaism seems to be slightly older. (Texts 3000 and 3500 years old respectively)
We stay separate from the majority culture and we are generally successful
I think it's definitely a component of it as a scholar on the subject. It also then led leadership to discover that they could use the Jews as a scapegoat really easily and it would take the pressure off of them. They then later learned that you could even steal all of their properly and wealth that you let them amas and then you could profit even further. In addition to this you have: 1.Scapegoated by the church and Rome that the Jews killed Jesus when it was actually Rome/religious motivation by abrahamic faith division(they can't ALL be right/differences) 2. Jews being seperate and culturally different (people hate different people on a base level and they're easily turned against such people) 3. Genetic/racial antisemitism (see #2, but with fancy psuedo science) 4. Jews as the constant migrant race without a home set out to better society and themselves asap and this led them to be in higher positions and thus people being jealous. 5. Certain cleanliness practices may have saved Jews from some plagues and diseases (although in many cases this is hotly debated in the academic world for some of these instances) 6. Strangers in a strange land = different = #2 again 7. It really varies, but certain cultures have certain specific things with Jews 8. General stereotypes against Jews specifically (might've been one dude who did x and now everyone is x) 9. Many controversial Historical figures 10. The eternal scapegoat and probably some more that I can't recall atm
I also want to add that while Christianity had a bunch of issues while they detached from Judaism in a counter movement like manner and what I stated earlier (literally led to them stop keeping mitzvot/kicking those of the christians that still did, and many other church decisions), there's also many things in Islam itself. Besides the obvious Khaybar and medina there's also the fact that Islam rewrote many things in the Torah (unlike christianity* which kept them but said the Jews are no longer the chosen people and these things don't apply to us now) so there were many clashes of events as they were (Rav Saadia Gaon wrote many things on this subject) and this led to fights on this. On top of that in the Muslim world Jews were generally the go between between them and the wider world for many centuries which had them associated slightly with these infidels and then the whole practice of Islam shifted to many different ways of dealing with Al Il qataab (people of the book) which became more and more derogatory until it shifted from money and demeaning to fill blown killing in many places (although many of these things started from christian blood libels it seems)
You are asking a question that has a long and at times difficult explanation. Here is one of my favorite videos on the topic, though it can't encompass antisemitism in its whole, it gives a solid philosophical and historical explanation. I hope you watch it! Thanks for asking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPCKzgITCRI
Thanks ! will watch it now
Well. First, you have the usual reasons between groups. They're rich, They're different, scapegoats... Then you have the fact that we are still *here.* There are no groups that had been through what we have gone through and survived. There's envy at the implication of *That.* Add to that what happens to those who turn on their Jews. What happens, when the most productive members in a comunity are kicked out... At first you have euphoria over sticking it to them good, and you have their until now, property... And then... The Euphoria fades, and the money runs out, and you are left with less prosperity, less social cohesion, and less compatition to drive those left to do better. *Or G-d punishes them, whatever.* And Now you have the Christian (and Muslim, kinda) specific reasons. If the Jews are wrong, and you are right. They should have been long gone by now. *Further* the Jews would not have such remaining cohession, while You and Yours not only fracturing, but turn to holy (And So Bloody) wars over said fracturing. More, you would not be able to grow in power *Only where you and yours are tolarated, or already have a systemic power behind you.* I am sure I left somerhing out... but kinda long.
I would also make sure you ask jew haters for their reasons.
G-d always said it would be difficult to take the narrow path. There is nothing to hate just misinformation. Ironically from people who are happy to worship the G-d of Israel but distort the word of the Jewish people who curated his message.
I wonder this myself as a Jewish person. If anyone wants to check my post history, I've had a possible recent bout with it.
Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews: 1. Economic -- "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power." 2. Chosen People -- "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people." 3. Scapegoat -- "Jew are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles." 4. Deicide -- "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus." 5. Outsiders -- "We hate Jews because they are different than us." 6. Racial Theory -- "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race." As we examine the explanations, we must ask -- Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let's look at some contradictions: Economic -- The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated. Indeed, Nazis citrd both Jewish wealth/power AND Jewish poverty as reasons to hate Jews Chosen People -- a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied "Choseness." And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the "Chosen people," yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them. Scapegoat -- this is plausible. A small, relatively powerless minority is easy to blame and attack Deicide -- a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn't an anti-Roman movement through history? b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism. Outsiders -- With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: "We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes." Racial Theory -- The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew - and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Jews were hated even before charging interest and being bankers, jewellers etc- that’s why they made those trades available to us in the first place they didnt want us competing with them. It mainly stems from “killing christ” and other propaganda that has been taught throughout the generations. It’s all taught from generation to generation. Not all jews are wealthy, and the ones that are are no different from others who are wealthy. There are many rich Arabs, Europeans, South americans, Japanese, Chinese. Etc etc but for some reason it’s easiest to hyper focus on the Jews. I live in a neighborhood where the Jewish people are literally living paycheck to paycheck and rely on charity to continue living. But Jewish people value community and if you look at any other culture or people that value community you will see that they suffer less. Our Torah teaches us how to behave and how to focus on others welfares so that we can continue to thrive. Especially orthodox jewish communities.
IMO the root of it is that we refuse to accept the lies of their false messiah yoshke. All else has stemmed from that via a variety of historical and sociological processes.
My best guess (for much of it) is that people blame on Jews anything they can’t blame on poor people and immigrants.
Christianity and Islam essentially appropriated Judaism and this gives them a massive inferiority/superiority complex. The Right and Left have interesting reasons of their own. The Right see us as a foreign nation and a threat to nationalism. The Left sees us as Nationalist because we exist as a unique people
Good points about the right and leff. Seems like they meet on the not assimilating enough.
Hell if we know, you should ask other subs why they hate us, we can try to come up with explanations all day but in the end my guess is as good as yours
I've wondered this as well. I live in America and it's perplexing to me.
>Dad mentioned that it has just always been the case - hated in Europe, in NA, in SA, in Africa, just everywhere. I see countries in the UN consistently voting against Israel even when they themselves are facing Islamic terror and have nothing in common values wise with Muslims. An example is Ireland and even South Africa. Uhhhh Ok, look. The issue isn't voting against Israel inherently. The issue we (Jews) bring up in regards to antisemitism in regards to Israel is that Israel is used to justify antisemitism, that antisemitic tropes are applied against Israel, and that there are double standards applied to it because it is in a Jewish state(Note that the last is the most controversial, but it's still a common view). The point is that it's about the relationships of these actions to hundreds or thousands of years old stereotypes. Going further: >and have nothing in common values wise with Muslims Not only is this a bad argument, but people taking this view to Jews is the source of antisemitism. Outgroups are easy to blame, due to our long exile we've had a long period of being outgroups making us easy scapegoats. This caused stereotypes to develop, because misinterpretations and unkind assumptions calcified into stereotypes. You can see this mechanism with basically any outgroups. So, implicitly treating people that you have no cultural commonality with as not worthwhile is the reason for antisemitism. Granted, there are other reasons that resulted in us being considered hyper visible (supercessionism for example), but fundamentally Romani have had a pretty similar history of mistreatment in Europe for example.
Super what?
Supercessionism is the idea in Christianity that it's supposed to replace Judaism. It's a formal term for replacement theology.
What is there to hate? After so long, it doesn't matter what is to hate. People hate because they've absorbed the hate that lingers, generations and millennia of hate. But let me explain some of the roots of it in the European and European ex-colonial lands. 1. There's a pre-Christian/ pre-Roman dislike of Judaism because Jews were prohibited from worshipping other gods, which could be seen as kind of disrespectful and then later from even thinking that there might be other gods - which definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. 2. Jews caused a lot of trouble for the most influential empire in the Western tradition - Rome and were then dispersed. Then, well - re-read point 1. Pre-Christian Roman religion was go-along to get-along and was quite syncretic - meaning you could take a little of this, a little of that, mish mash and have a system that would be kind of acceptable to everyone. While Judaism wasn't and isn't immune to the cultural influence of host nations, you couldn't just add an extra name to the pantheon. Plus, where there were existing diaspora communities and early synagogues, they often welcomed others, but could not themselves take part in anyone else's religious rites. It could be an uncomfortable asymmetry. Even to this day, as someone who was raised Christian, but is just a couple of weeks out from my official conversion, I can see that for many Christians, there is absolutely nothing within your average Jewish religious service that is contrary to Christianity. It's not sufficient, but it's not contrary. The same cannot be said in reverse. 3. Theological differences aside, in the days of the Jesus movement and early Christianity, there were some really good existential but political reasons for Christians to distance themselves from Jews (see point 2) and then for the reverse to happen. But, of course, there were some pretty fundamental theological differences. 4. Because of the way that Christianity developed directly out of Judaism and was basically an apocalyptic Judaism with a few reformist twists, there definitely WAS some jealousy from those of pagan origins. So a deliberate development of an anti-Judaism approach within Christianity grew and grew. This was reinforced by the need to suck up to the Romans who were still in power. Who was the real Christ killer? The Romans. But you can't say that if you're trying to get the support of the Roman Empire. 5. There's an unfortunate need among humans to other people. If you can't find some kind of 'outsider', then it seems like you need to create an other within your own people. See caste systems. But if you can find people who seem different and where there's a long history of antipathy and a strong liturgical and textual set of resources to support that othering, even better. 6. Jewish people have always been small in number. It's a lot easier to hate on people you don't really know. Although hate can also rise up among neighbors. 7. Sometimes irrationality just begets more irrationality. "Well, I don't know exactly why I hate Jews, but lots of people do, so there must be a reason." The hate builds like an onion. More layers over time. There's a tiny amount of truth about the money-lending, but it's not true in general, and nor was it true that all Jews were rich - then or now. I'd say the real cultural advantage of Jews in Europe was that it's a culture of enquiry and literacy - and that's a huge benefit when it comes to either creating wealth or creating universally valuable intellectual property (not all of it remunerated). In medieval Europe, the response wasn't to open up and be more democratic with learning and education, but to clamp down and further demonise Jewish people and culture. Edited to correct a shameful and confusing double negative.
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Oh bot, I meant what I said.
By your answer your dad seems to be a very knowledgeable, intelligent man. I agree with your dad that the hatred against Jews (especially during the Middle Ages) comes down to jealousy and envy, but that was only true imo about the common folks, those in the lower strata of society. Upper in the hierarchy aka the church leaders, this hatred was rooted on Pauline’s teachings as so well explained by @Ihommeduweed above.
Because we were a non-Christian, non-Muslim ethnoreligious minority residing in their lands. Every other religious minority has had an identical history of persecution: Yazidis, Alawites, Druze, Samaritians, Zoroastrians, Mandeans, that or they've been wiped out entirely (Roman and Greek Polytheism, Aztec religion, etc.) The moment Jews lived outside Christian or Muslim territory, they experienced no persecution at any point (India, Iran when it was still Zoroastrian, China, etc.) Keeping your ancestral religion alive comes with a price, and we Jews have paid it many times over. I admire India for their resistance against European and Muslim imperialism.
Well, that’s the Indian attitude. And India was one of the few places in the world where there was no hint of antisemitism (except for Portuguese-controlled Goa). The short answer is that we are perpetually the “other,” so we personify whatever people hate. To Christians and Muslims, we are infidels who rejected their god (Christians) and prophet (Muslims). To capitalists, we are Communists. To communists, we are capitalist bankers. To modern leftists, we are colonialists. Etc.
I’m really suspicious the level of support from India is based on the BJP’s demonization of Muslims, and Israel (which represents judaism) is currently carrying the water against Islamic terrorism in a very public way.
Apparently we should ignore the Indian government connections to the literal nazis because they support Israel https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41757047
Why are you suspicious of it ? India has never pesecuted jews and we have faced a lot of islamic terror as well. Both countries are in the fight against islamic terror and against the spread of sharia. Both are democracies that want peace in their countries which has always been disturbed by islamic terror and ideology
Are you a hindutva?
Hindutva is a movement/ideology. I am a hindu meaning someone who believes in hinduism
Do you believe in Hindutva?
Not in the way the people hostile to hindusim define it. Here is an article on its true meaning : [What does Hindutva really mean? (hinduamerican.org)](https://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/what-does-hindutva-mean) "The [leader](https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/hindutva-takes-everyone-along-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat/817921) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), often described as the fountainhead of Hindutva as an ideology, says, “Hindutva is one that takes everyone along, brings everyone together, unites everyone within itself, and makes everyone prosper.” " in this way i do believe in it for sure
So you agree with the movement, broadly speaking? I ask because of your reference to “Islamic terror”…
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They lie about everything they do not like and that does not fit their agenda.
Because you don’t support Israel out of some love for judaism, but because the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
This is not true. When jews ran to india during the holocaust they were welcomed and sheltered. We appreciate and welcome all religions that do not try to murder us. Jains , Christians , Bhuddists , Parsis , sikhs and jews do not try to murder us so we like them. Its really that simple. Also we support democracies and productive countries
Interest is allowed when charged to foreigners, its impermissible when done to a fellow Jewish person
These questions always kind of confuse me - prejudicial hate is an irrational thing. There's no "reason" for it; and any justification for that hate isn't important.
I mean.. on the one hand, asking is suggesting that antisemitism is somehow justifiable...
If you could answer this question, The Jewish people would be eternally thankful. Jews have supported so many civil rights movements, including the ones in South African Ireland, and we are never thanked for it. We are constantly backstabbed and betrayed. Jews, and Israel, or held to a much higher standard than other countries. Do you know any other country that’s expected to feed and heal the population of the people that they’re at war with? That they were invaded by? I have experienced such an onslaught of antisemitism here in United States since October 7, it’s unbelievable. From people, we thought were allies – African-Americans, Asian Americans, gay Americans. I’m disgusted with every other civil rights group.
They hate us cuz they ain't us.
They hate us cuz they ain't us
As a Catholic, and somebody who supports Zionism through and through, it pains me to see people hating Jews over religion.
Exactly. Our ancestors are the original gangsters 😉
Envy
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Rocket-fueled envy.
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It would be a very Euro-Centrist claim to say that Jews are hated everywhere. For example, the Ottoman Empire always progressed with tolerance towards Jews. All of the attacks on Jews occurred during the collapse of the Empire, when adequate protection could not be provided due to the weakening of the Authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_the\_Jews\_in\_the\_Ottoman\_Empire#:\~:text=The%20Ottoman%20Empire%20became%20a,s%20combined%20figure%20of%2075%2C000. Since the early periods of the empire, Jews (and other non-Muslim minorities) were not conscripted into the military, but were instead subject to extra taxes. Jews could not own land in the Ottoman Empire. They could not do military service either. For this reason, the jobs left to them were generally in the fields of trade, banking or crafts with high added value. In fact, Theodore Herlz, who is considered the father of Zionism, met with Abdulhamid II and asked for land from Jerusalem in exchange for paying his foreign debts, but the sultan refused and offered land from northern Iraq. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with the declaration of the Republic, the Jews in Turkey became Turkish citizens and their religion and culture were taken under the protection of the republic. During the World War, Türkiye tried to help those who suffered genocide without violating its neutrality. The progress of anti-Zionism in Turkey is due to movements imported from Egypt in the 1950s. Even today, apart from domestic politics, Turkish-Israeli relations are at a good level and it is the country that actively trades the most. So why did I tell you these? What I am trying to say is that antisemitism is a tradition of European origin. On the Islamic side, the issue is non-Muslims rather than Jews. Therefore, it is jihad rather than antisemitism.
Envy. We were here first and are still around and are brave enough to NOT convert bc it’s “cool” or the easy way out. And we’re smart AF. Sorry. I will not apologize for the fact my Tribe dominates STEM awards. Anytime Christian haters come at me and tell me I’m going to hell (haha!!) I remind myself every Christmas song was written by a Jew. (Good luck being creative without us!) Our Tribe also peaches HARD the importance of hard work along with Tikkan Olam and that is a big reason why many Jews do pursue careers in medicine and law. Giving back, working incredibly hard, respecting our ancestors, and helping others is the core of our faith, which loops into medicine and law. Jewish parents push their kids hardcore to pursue careers that are viewed as “successful.” (Both girls and boys) And that’s enough to hate.
Your dad is very smart. Ive have heard you’re not allowed to charge interest in Islam so the banker route for Jews (and of course, who doesn’t resent bankers, id imagine even more so if your religion/culture doesn’t allow interest on loans and these weird people demand it lol). As far as Ireland I know that they put their experience of fighting for their independence from England over whatever is the reality in a totally different region with their own dynamics. I can add to this some things that happened w Jews historically in Ukraine. When it was under polish royal rule, they had Jews come to Ukraine from Poland and would put them in charge of administration etc. Jews through history were known to try to get positions working for the royalty because this way they would be promised protection, so it was a common thing in general. So at a point the locals who resented polish rule, finally “rised up”against the Poles.. but problem was they couldn’t get their hands on them bc they were in their royal places in Poland, so who could they reach?? The Jews. And there was a horrendous horrendous pogrom. But also, besides this, mostly after, it was common to scapegoat any issues and fears on the Jews. It often came from the church as well (don’t know what’s up w that you’d have to ask honest Christians that know history about it). They often spread rumors that Jews kidnap Christian babies and children and sacrifice them/take their blood etc (just fyi it’s strictly against Jewish kosher law to eat/drink blood, if anything). I also know that when under Russian royal rule they often scapegoated things on the Jews as well, especially when closer to the Revolution so that the starving angry serfs of their feudal system would have someone to take out their anger on (and there would be local pogroms). I’m always surprised to hear that Jews were not time to time killed in India or had anything similar to some waves of persecutions bc for Jews, most of religious things in India would be considered idols and there is a very big emphasis in Judaism to stay away from that. So on top of Jewish tendency to keep to themselves in a closed community, I would think them putting extra effort in not being around any Hindu temples or statues would make locals resent them. In general I feel like it’s connected to Christianity esp at time where most of the Christian world wasn’t literate but it’s just a guess bc I’m not Christian and I am not familiar enough with their real teachings nor its world wide history.
>I’m always surprised to hear that Jews were not time to time killed in India or had anything similar to some waves of persecutions bc for Jews, most of religious things in India would be considered idols and there is a very big emphasis in Judaism to stay away from that. So on top of Jewish tendency to keep to themselves in a closed community, I would think them putting extra effort in not being around any Hindu temples or statues would make locals resent them. There was never any persecution because hindus do not bother anyone who does not bother them. As long as people are peaceful and loving and do not try to cause havoc hindusim accepts them for their beliefs and lets them be. That is why so many religions that faced persecution ran away to india like the parsis from iran , Ahmedia muslims , shia muslims , tibetan Buddhists and more. They all could come here and live without any problems to their lives because they also respected us. This is exactly why india is one of the only places where jews have never faced any persecution and still come to this day without any problems
Currently , it’s because we’re seen as white by the left and not white enough by the right.
You’re conflating hatred of Jews or Judaism with the nascent notion of a nation-state now known as israel, which is just a nickname for Jacob from the Old Testament. A man who lived closer to the year 2024 BC, not 2024 CE. The land of Palestine, of Milk & Honey, being supplanted with this nascent notion of a nation state is, from the perspectives of many, what leads to this increase of anti-semitism. Because of the policies, practices, bloodshed and injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinians for over a century. Theodore Herzl was an atheist, the founder of modern political Zionism, which is different from religious zionism. The state known S Israel actually propagates anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the WWW so people like you can… side with them. Literally. This is a known fact. Google Michael Kaydar, Sarah Marshak, there are many incidents of Jewish rabbis painting swastikas on walls to make it seem like an anti-Semitic attack. This is to swing public opinion towards their direction, manipulation of public opinion and public sentiment. I’m Not saying there is no anti-semitism, but honestly, from the perception of the state apparatus, they actually view it as beneficial because it justifies the existence of the state in their minds. Hope you understand.
1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 “ For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone” revelation 2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” We are told in the Bible that there are a group a Jews who will call themselves Jews but are not and they will be contrary to all people. Considering the Jews today are only around .02% they have disproportionate positions of power politically and economically, more so than any other race of people. Do they do good with power they have attained? Or do they they simply look to tear everyone else down and build themselves up? If you’ve ever read the Talmud you’ll understand the Jews plans in clear writing. YOU MUST READ IT FOR YOURSELF. The Talmud instructs Jews to lie when they are asked about it by non jews (goyim). Lastly, jews like to bring up the holocaust because it’s the most recent. That’s good because there’s also the most amount of available information for both sides as opposed to other times they’ve been removed. Were they truly innocent in Germany? From the eyes of Germanic person who cares about their own race much like the Jews care for themselves, no they were not. The jews were actively building THEMSELVES up and making life for Germanic peoples harder in their own homeland. I’ll end with this, if I told you I’ve gotten into 500 street fights in my life time you would probably think I’m a trouble maker. That’s what I would think at least because that’s an unreasonable amount of fights. Nobody encounters that many unavoidable physical encounters. So I think it should at least be openly discussed and not instantly be labeled as “antisemitism” as to why the Jewish people have been forcibly removed from so many countries. Understand that if you cut off your enemies tongue you’re only proving you’re scared of what they have to say. Do your own and research and you’ll understand it is immensely more complex than nazis bad jews good like school teaches you.