Why is there Antisemitism?

[Mycroft]

I think plain old mental illness has been overlooked as one reason. Some people are prone to paranoia, and those people are prone to fall into anti-Semitism just by researching the old anti-Semitic hoaxes that have been perpetuated over the years. Hoaxes such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or those lists of fake Talmud quotes that are so easily found on the internet.

I think you see this a lot at places like prison planet or Rense.

 

[Mycroft]

I find it interesting that DC has actually heard people express clear anti-semitic opinions openly in conversation, presented as a commonplace experience for him.

As an American, I find it hard to imagine being party to such a conversation even once, let alone fairly often.

As an American, I've heard people use anti-Semitic slurs in casual conversation. I've heard people use the word "Jew" as a verb meaning to bargain, I've heard people blame Jews for commercializing Christmas, and I've heard religious people talk about how Jews are damned for killing Jesus, among other things.

It may be a regional thing. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest and never heard anything there, but now I live in Kansas, and probably hear something along these lines 3 or 4 times a year. Not enough that I'd call it common.

 

[DC]

I think its incorrect to define anti-Semitism as simply "not liking Jews".

I believe true anti-Semitism originated as a result of the 2,000 year olf schism between Jews and Christians, and the many results of that continued competition and then persecution and stereotyping.

Not liking Jews because you think Matzo balls taste bad, is not true anti-Semitism, in my view.

wtf? when you judge a huge group of people by the taste of their food, you are just mentally ill. Its not even a way to judge if they are talented in cooking or not. its just sooo stupid.

 

[theprestige]

huh common place? what does that mean exactly.

it is not something i come across every day.

Well, maybe not commonplace. I apologize. My point was more that it's not something I come across any day.

 

[Gazpacho]

very touching and interesting, but not really helpful to find out how antisemitism comes into existence.

Some of it is relevant. For example, the director's Ashkenazi aunt and how she has internalized the crook stereotype of Jews. This is not any different from African-Americans who internalize the thug / gangster stereotype. It happens because that was historically the only route open to their group, and they have grown up bombarded with that image of themselves.

If the stereotypes are that deep and pervasive, that even some Jews cannot escape them, then atheism is no protection either. Still, it is religion that keeps giving the stereotypes a push in every generation.

 

[Thunder]

Hoaxes such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or those lists of fake Talmud quotes that are so easily found on the internet.
.

err....umm..some of them are indeed real.

it is indeed unfortunate that some anti-Semites use negative statements about Jesus, Christianity, and Gentiles, that have been made by Jews over the centuries, to fuel anti-Semitism.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I think its incorrect to define anti-Semitism as simply "not liking Jews".

It is primarily used as such in the english speaking world and Israel. Outside of it, it is correctly used (at least by the research community) to describe what the coiners of the term, german racists, had in mind. They explicitly invented it to seperate their "modern" racially motivated hatred of Jews from the traditional, religiously motivated hatred of Jews. If you search for "Antisemitismus" in the german wikipedia f.e., it redirects you to a chapter of the general article "Judenfeindlichkeit", which explains what i just told you:

In Israel, Großbritannien und den USA verwendet man den Ausdruck als Oberbegriff für alle komplexen Motive und Traditionen pauschaler Judenfeindlichkeit und als Synonym für Judenablehnung mit „eliminatorischen“ Zügen, die als langfristige Ursache des Holocaust gilt. Damit bezieht die dortige Forschung den von Judengegnern geprägten Begriff auch auf nichtrassistische Judenfeindlichkeit und unterstellt dieser so unter Umständen nicht vorhandene Ausrottungsabsichten.

Deutschsprachige Forscher beziehen den Begriff dagegen weiterhin primär auf die besondere Strömung, die ihn für ihre Ziele erfand und benutzte und deren Ideologie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus zur Staatsdoktrin wurde. Sie bezeichnen diese besondere anti-emanzipatorische Strömung, die sich von etwa 1789 an in Mitteleuropa etablierte, meist als „modernen Antisemitismus“.

 

[DC]

Well, maybe not commonplace. I apologize. My point was more that it's not something I come across any day.

You never heard someone make an antisemitic remark? Its not like i saw a group preparing atacks on jews or building up camps. Just some stupid bigoted remarks lie when we talked about behavior of banks, someone claimed, those bad banks are all headed by Jews. Or the usual remarks about the Rothschilds. **

** usual stuff, doesnt mean its something i hear everyday, its very seldom, but when i hear its the usual CT stuff you read on the CT websites.

 

[funk de fino]

I have never heard actual real life Anti semitism and I travel all over the world and have been to many Muslim countries.

I have heard quite a bit of openly racist stuff though. Mostly in the US south.

 

[marksman]

I believe true anti-Semitism originated as a result of the 2,000 year olf schism between Jews and Christians

You believe wrong. Antisemitism, even in Rome, well predates Christianity. I suggest you read Constantine's Sword by James Carroll, a very well-researched look into the history of European antisemitism.

Roman antisemitism stems from several issues:
1. Most people Romans conquered melded Roman gods with their own pantheon. Jews did not -- this was something of an affront.

2. In Rome, alliances were usually forged over dinner. Jewish laws of kashrut prohibited Jews from eating in Roman homes. This was seen as alien and inhospitable.

3. As set forth before, the Emperor who first conquered Jerusalem around 63 B.C. His dynasty's legitimacy was based in part on his conquest of the region.

4. The Sicarii, Zealots and other Jewish rebels made this conquest infirm (which is why the charge that Jesus was being treasonous to Rome by calling himself King of Jews was dealt with so harshly). Rome was brutal to Jews. by some historian's counts, one in three Jews worldwide were killed during Rome's pacification of Jerusalem. That equals -- proportionally -- the proportion of the world's Jews killed in the Holocaust. All of this occurred between 106 B.C. and 135 CE, well before Christianity had a foothold in Rome.

When Christianity did begin to take hold, it went to great lengths to divorce itself from Judaism entirely. Partly, this was not because Christianity is inherently antisemitic, but because it was trying to convert a people who were already antisemitic. So it adopted pre-existing Roman antisemitism and incorporated it.

 

[marksman]

I have never heard actual real life Anti semitism and I travel all over the world and have been to many Muslim countries.

I have heard quite a bit of openly racist stuff though. Mostly in the US south.

When I lived in Mexico, I was frequently derided as a Christ-killer when people discovered I was Jewish. I got into at least one fistfight because of my Judaism. I knew people who were perfectly hospitable to me ... until they found out I was Jewish. This happened again in Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. (Though no fistfights that time.)

And I knew plenty of people who were not antisemitic at all. I found that in the tourist areas, people tended to be more open-minded (or tight-lipped). When you left the beaten path, however, prejudices start to emerge.

 

[DC]

You believe wrong. Antisemitism, even in Rome, well predates Christianity. I suggest you read Constantine's Sword by James Carroll, a very well-researched look into the history of European antisemitism.

Roman antisemitism stems from several issues:
1. Most people Romans conquered melded Roman gods with their own pantheon. Jews did not -- this was something of an affront.

2. In Rome, alliances were usually forged over dinner. Jewish laws of kashrut prohibited Jews from eating in Roman homes. This was seen as alien and inhospitable.

3. As set forth before, the Emperor who first conquered Jerusalem around 63 B.C. His dynasty's legitimacy was based in part on his conquest of the region.

4. The Sicarii, Zealots and other Jewish rebels made this conquest infirm (which is why the charge that Jesus was being treasonous to Rome by calling himself King of Jews was dealt with so harshly). Rome was brutal to Jews. by some historian's counts, one in three Jews worldwide were killed during Rome's pacification of Jerusalem. That equals -- proportionally -- the proportion of the world's Jews killed in the Holocaust. All of this occurred between 106 B.C. and 135 CE, well before Christianity had a foothold in Rome.

When Christianity did begin to take hold, it went to great lengths to divorce itself from Judaism entirely. Partly, this was not because Christianity is inherently antisemitic, but because it was trying to convert a people who were already antisemitic. So it adopted pre-existing Roman antisemitism and incorporated it.

thanks, very informative, didn't know that.

 

[Thunder]

When I lived in Mexico, I was frequently derided as a Christ-killer when people discovered I was Jewish. I got into at least one fistfight because of my Judaism.

Good man. I hope he learned his lesson.

 

[Thunder]

You believe wrong. Antisemitism, even in Rome, well predates Christianity. I suggest you read Constantine's Sword by James Carroll, a very well-researched look into the history of European antisemitism.

perhaps we should distinguish between different forms of anti-Semitism.

pre-Christian, Christian, Nazi, Socialist, Muslim, and even anti-Zionist.

each one is different. each one targets different groups of Jews...for different reasons.

but they are not the same.

 

[marksman]

Actually, of all the antisemites I met, I felt worst for him. We were both only 15 at the time. His dad worked for the Mexican petroleum company and got laid off because his company lost a contract to an American company. I was the only American he knew and so he tried to antagonize me into a fight with anti-american slurs. When that didn't work, he started using antisemitic slurs, which I was also going to ignore, except that I saw some of the other kids were beginning to join in. And that scared me a little bit, so I told him to back off and because I responded to him, he decided to escalate and he charged me.

So we fought. The problem for him was that he was barely five feet and I had just finished my growth spurt. I was almost a foot taller than him. He also thought that because I was horrible at futbol -- the only sport we played down there -- I must be unathletic. So he was pretty surprised when I turned out to be pretty capable in a fight (I was surprised too -- it was my first fight.)

We both got suspended from school for a few days. I heard later his dad beat him. I don't know whether it was because he got suspended, got in a fight, lost a fight, or got beat up by a Jew. Either way, I didn't intend for him to get suspended. He apologized for what he said to me later, but I could never tell if it was because he realized he was wrong, or if it was just because I won the fight.

 

[Thunder]

Ive never gotten into a fist fight over anti-Semitism, but I have never ignored it either. Ive told more than one co-worker not to say bad things about Jews, even in jest. And I took on anti-Semites in high school.

Never let folks think they can get away with such bigotry.

 

[marksman]

perhaps we should distinguish between different forms of anti-Semitism.

pre-Christian, Christian, Nazi, Socialist, Muslim, and even anti-Zionist.

each one is different. each one targets different groups of Jews...for different reasons.

but they are not the same.

That would be nice, but they all sort of meld together. They also come down to Jews being the "stranger". And the "stranger" is strange because... 1) he has alien customs that make it difficult to know if he can be trusted, 2) he isn't related to us by blood and is thus less trustworthy, 3) he isn't part of our superior culture/race/religion, 4) he doesn't acknowledge that the way we do things is better than the way he does things, 5) he speaks a foreign language or has a foreign accent that makes it harder to communicate, 6) he uses resources that should go to my family/neighbors/friends/nation, and 7) history tells me these people have done bad things in the past.

Each form of antisemitism shares these traits, tailored to the specific culture in which it occurs, to differing degrees.

 

[marksman]

Never let folks think they can get away with such bigotry.

Sometimes ignoring it is doing something about it. Before this kid, when someone said something antisemitic, they were just trying to get a rise out of me. I ignored it and he realized I wouldn't rise to the bait and he dropped it. Invariably, at some point we were friendly to one another and then I could tell him how his words hurt me and then he would apologize and because we were now friends I knew he meant it. If I had confronted him right there and then, he would have dug in his heels and then he never would have backed down from what he said. If anything, he would have said it more often, until even he believed it.

Remember, that we were all 15. That's not exactly the most rational point of a child's development.

 

[Jono]

Well as Doctor Evil noted, it's in part due to the history of cultural/religious/ethno-centric behaviourisms of 1+X sufficiently distinct groups (in one self-identifying way or another) dwelling in the same house so to speak.
Interestingly, a lot of anti-semitic literature brings up same or similar issues that are presented in jewish history books, where the difference is shaded more in the spin on the facts. For example; european jewish people have more or less remained a tightly nit group in contrast to the "host" populus of their given country, succeding on and off disproportionately in financial, political and academic circles, having a progressive streak outward-group but conservative streak inward-group.

This is, not uncommonly, a theme highlighted by "both sides" if you will, where the anti-semitic literature focus on the above being a negative result of a greedy, ambitious and anti-gentile people, and where the jewish literature focus on this being a testament to their peoples' perseverence, splendid qualities and successes.

If there's a definable group within a group, especially on ethno-religious basis, like european jews within the given european populus that makes a lot of waves one way or the other, it's been shown historically to be the proverbial kindling to the fire of stereotypes. And, again in part, this is a fluctatingly spread-out yet inherent behaviour. Getting rid of "this is us and this is them" from a negative point of view, from mankind, is not possible.

 

[ddt]

Roman antisemitism stems from several issues:
1. Most people Romans conquered melded Roman gods with their own pantheon. Jews did not -- this was something of an affront.

IIRC, specifically also the fact that the Roman emperor was considered divine and that the Jews didn't accept this.

OTOH, Roman intellectuals did admire Jewish monotheism from a philosophical standpoint.

3. As set forth before, the Emperor who first conquered Jerusalem around 63 B.C. His dynasty's legitimacy was based in part on his conquest of the region.

The first Roman conqueror of Jerusalem would be Pompey - no Emperor and no dynasty though. Dr. Evil mentioned the dynasty of the Flavians (Vespasian and kin) who subdued the Jewish war of 66-72 AD.

Another aspect was that Romans considered circumcision a barbarous mutilation.

Jona Lendering also has a 2-page write-up on anti-semitism in the ancient world at livius.org.

When Christianity did begin to take hold, it went to great lengths to divorce itself from Judaism entirely. Partly, this was not because Christianity is inherently antisemitic, but because it was trying to convert a people who were already antisemitic. So it adopted pre-existing Roman antisemitism and incorporated it.

The gospels go to great length to absolve the Romans (Pilate) of guilt for Jesus' crucifixion, and put the blame on the Jews. The earliest gospels date from about the time of the destruction of the temple. Paul early on tried to convert gentiles to Christianity. Isn't the Christian drive to discriminate themselves from Judaism there already from the start?