"Holocaust is Jews own religious fault"

[Pardalis]

I see Oliver is back.

Do you have any news from your Middle Eastern collegue?

 

[Manopolus]

Yesterday I had a conversation about the whole Middle East mess with a colleague and we also talked about Israel as a part of it. When the Holocaust came up as an "accelerator" for immigration into Palestine, he argued that "the Holocaust probably never had happened if the Jews wouldn't have sticked to their religion and instead, integrated themselves into European societies so they wouldn't have been the scapegoat for centuries".

Now that striked me as a loaded argument against Religion, Judaism in particular, but I have no Idea how much of that POV is accurate. Sure, from History we know that Jewish People in strong Christian Societies [and other religious communities] were seen as "different" and probably in many cases in a negative meaning, but would integration have avoided the Shoah, I don't know.

Your thoughts?

[And I might add that my collegue isn't an Anti-Semite from what he argued besides that particular POV]

Just responding to the original argument here... haven't read the rest yet. My apologies if this has already been mentioned. The Jews were the money lenders throughout European history from the dark ages to the time of Hitler. Christian doctrine actually forbade the lending of money for interest, or so they believed in earlier times (not so much today, for some reason).

So, the Jews were the loan sharks of Europe... do you see why that might make some people a bit hateful of them?

Anyway, that's one of the causes. Actually, that role of Jews in Europe kind of kept them from "blending in."

(added) And yes, I realize that not all Jews in Europe were money lenders. However, the society tended to be a bit segregated, and the primary reason that your common Joe might have had contact with a Jew would very likely have to do with his needing money.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Just responding to the original argument here... haven't read the rest yet. My apologies if this has already been mentioned. The Jews were the money lenders throughout European history from the dark ages to the time of Hitler. Christian doctrine actually forbade the lending of money for interest, or so they believed in earlier times (not so much today, for some reason).

So, the Jews were the loan sharks of Europe... do you see why that might make some people a bit hateful of them?

Anyway, that's one of the causes. Actually, that role of Jews in Europe kind of kept them from "blending in."

(added) And yes, I realize that not all Jews in Europe were money lenders. However, the society tended to be a bit segregated, and the primary reason that your common Joe might have had contact with a Jew would very likely have to do with his needing money.

Actually, in many countries Jews were prohibited from owning property, so one of the few ways they could accumulate wealth was in the form of money. (It also had the advantage of being easily portable when the inevitable pogroms started.) That gave them a natural advantage when it came to being able to lend money.

(And Christians used to consider it anti-Biblical to charge interest, which prohibited Christians for lending money for a profit.)

 

[TimCallahan]

Another f***ing thread that won't die a well-deserved death!