Why is there Antisemitism?

marksman said:
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.
Click to expand...

Kind of funny how many of those I remember the Hasidic Atheist stand up comic at Skepticamp used in his explanation of why a Rabbi he knew thought it was fine to lie to some board or other to advance his real estate deal. I do think that the comic was wrong about his fundamental argument against religion. Not all religions put as much emphasis as Judaism does on following precise rules to the letter instead of the spirit. With my protestant and Quaker experiences they did not have that legalism that he argued was a problem with religion.
 
Thanks for the clarifications, ddt.

ddt said:
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?
Click to expand...

The destruction of the Temple was about 60 AD. By then Roman antisemitism was firmly entrenched. (Heck, by the time Jesus is supposed to have lived, Roman antisemitism was well-formed.) And the destruction of the Temple (and associated massacres) was a pretty violent illustration to early Christians that it might be a good idea to separate themselves from Judaism if they hoped to have a future.
 
marksman said:
Thanks for the clarifications, ddt.
Click to expand...
Thanks - I don't claim special expertise in this area, but well, everybody chips in what he knows. :)

marksman said:
The destruction of the Temple was about 60 AD. By then Roman antisemitism was firmly entrenched. (Heck, by the time Jesus is supposed to have lived, Roman antisemitism was well-formed.) And the destruction of the Temple (and associated massacres) was a pretty violent illustration to early Christians that it might be a good idea to separate themselves from Judaism if they hoped to have a future.
Click to expand...
Oh, I agree. Merely wanted to point out that this separation was pretty much there from the get-go, and not only when Christianity made it to state religion, some 250 years later.
 
Thunder said:
err....umm..some of them are indeed real.
Click to expand...

Not from the research I've done. Either taken out of context or fabricated entirely.

The truth is that if anyone wants to search Jewish holy works for seemingly damning material they need look no further than the Old Testament, which most of us are familiar with. That's where you find people condemned to death for wearing clothing of mixed fibers, being homosexual, cursing your father, and so forth. Anti-Semites don't do this because it also condemns Christians, who also look on this as a holy work.

The Talmud is the oral law that mitigates the harshness of the Old Testament. It is the reason you don't see Jewish communities killing their kids when they curse their parents or putting homosexuals to death. But it's the Talmud that gets slandered because it's written in ancient languages and difficult to access, so anything said about it is difficult to prove wrong.

Thunder said:
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.
Click to expand...

It's odd that you speak of the anti-Semites as individuals but speak of Jews collectively. It's almost as though you want to emphasize that "Jews" have spoken negatively about Jesus, Christianity, etc. even while seeming to condemn "some" anti-Semites who use it as an excuse for hate.

But the reality is individuals in any group can be expected to say negative things about every other group, and the fact alone is unremarkable.
 
Well i guess, one can say that Antisemitism stems mainly from Religions, even pre - Christian religion.
 
One can say lots of thins that are wrong. Roman antisemitism had very little to do with Roman religion and lots to do with Roman culture. Had the only issue been that Jews wouldn't accept the Roman gods, there would have been little friction. Lots of people the Romans conquered insisted on keeping their gods, at least for a time.

The main problems were that Romans didn't trust people who wouldn't sit down for a meal for them and Jews couldn't have meals in Roman households, that Jews wouldn't acknowledge that Latin was a superior language to Hebrew, and that the Jews wouldn't act like a subjugated people even after numerous military defeats.

Religion was a factor, but to concentrate on that factor to the exclusion of the myriad of the non-religious factors would be quite inaccurate. Romans in general were not very religious around this time and were not sticklers for their religion.
 
marksman said:
One can say lots of thins that are wrong. Roman antisemitism had very little to do with Roman religion and lots to do with Roman culture. Had the only issue been that Jews wouldn't accept the Roman gods, there would have been little friction. Lots of people the Romans conquered insisted on keeping their gods, at least for a time.
Click to expand...

The thing is that the romans really didn't care if you kept your gods, so long as you participated in the state festivals to honor the state gods.
Religion was a factor, but to concentrate on that factor to the exclusion of the myriad of the non-religious factors would be quite inaccurate. Romans in general were not very religious around this time and were not sticklers for their religion.
Click to expand...

The point works for religion and social both, jews kept themselves isolated from the culture as a whole rather than become part of it.
 
marksman said:
One can say lots of thins that are wrong. Roman antisemitism had very little to do with Roman religion and lots to do with Roman culture. Had the only issue been that Jews wouldn't accept the Roman gods, there would have been little friction. Lots of people the Romans conquered insisted on keeping their gods, at least for a time.

The main problems were that Romans didn't trust people who wouldn't sit down for a meal for them and Jews couldn't have meals in Roman households, that Jews wouldn't acknowledge that Latin was a superior language to Hebrew, and that the Jews wouldn't act like a subjugated people even after numerous military defeats.

Religion was a factor, but to concentrate on that factor to the exclusion of the myriad of the non-religious factors would be quite inaccurate. Romans in general were not very religious around this time and were not sticklers for their religion.
Click to expand...

:D well i try to find out what is correct.
 
the Roman, ancient Egyptian, Aztec, Thracian, (it's a long list) cultures from that time don't exist any more. The Jewish culture does. That's a testament to a strong culture, and is to be admired.
Click to expand...

i have never thought about it that way.
 
ponderingturtle said:
jews kept themselves isolated from the culture as a whole rather than become part of it.
Click to expand...

They didn't isolate themselves. Jews lived all over the Empire. They just didn't participate in those aspects of Roman culture that conflicted with their religious beliefs and social mores.

Saying that antisemitism exists because Jews didn't assimilate into Roman culture is like saying antisemitism exists because there are Jews, which is tautological and not, I imagine, what the OP was going for.
 
marksman said:
They didn't isolate themselves. Jews lived all over the Empire. They just didn't participate in those aspects of Roman culture that conflicted with their religious beliefs and social mores.

Saying that antisemitism exists because Jews didn't assimilate into Roman culture is like saying antisemitism exists because there are Jews, which is tautological and not, I imagine, what the OP was going for.
Click to expand...

To an extent yes. By holding themselves separate they created the distinction that was used against them.
 
DC said:
i have been told that Antisemitism stemms soley from Religions, i doubt that.

I wonder what other people think how it comes into existance now adays.
Click to expand...

Same way it always did: people tend to not like/trust/respect/(your terms of choice) people who are different in some way. On the bright side, Robin Hood - the one on 50s television - and his crew liked and helped Jews several times. [This is notable due to it's comparative rarity- mostly they were invisible or present without any indication overtly made re: Jewishness - and the term was rarely used even on the aforementioned Hood].
 
fuelair said:
Same way it always did: people tend to not like/trust/respect/(your terms of choice) people who are different in some way. On the bright side, Robin Hood - the one on 50s television - and his crew liked and helped Jews several times. [This is notable due to it's comparative rarity- mostly they were invisible or present without any indication overtly made re: Jewishness - and the term was rarely used even on the aforementioned Hood].
Click to expand...

Don't forget about Ivanhoe. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom