VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 00:09:19 12/08/02 Sun
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Re: Why is there anti-semitism?
In reply to: 's message, "Re: Why is there anti-semitism?" on 11:58:49 04/22/02 Mon

Obviously there are different reasons for anti-semitism, but I think the main one has to be that people fear people that are different from them, or are at least quicker to judge/hate them. Historically the Jews (I am Jewish, in case you were wondering) have been kept separate and different from the larger societies in which they lived (many times they kept themselves purposefully separate) and so people have been suspicious of them for these reasons. Basically, for a tradition like Judaism to survive in the manner it has for so long, it would have had to kept itself sheltered off, and the people have done this in a number of ways (i.e. creating the Kashrut dietary laws, and living in separate areas only with other Jews). Unfortunately, this has brought negative consequences as well...As a good example,when the Plague happened, something which mainly based on populations and the conditions under which people live, the Jews in their secluded neighborhoods (and ones that were generally more sanitary than Medieval Europe as a whole) were able to avoid some of the mass infections and deaths that occurred. When other people saw this, they became extremely suspicious and thought that the Jews were perhaps even causing the Plague to happen to everyone else, since they didn't appear to be affected by it.
Another reason for anti-semitism has been the continued economic and social success of the Jewish people as a whole. This is the classic "foreigners taking our jobs" idea...like in Germany before WWI, the Jews, who had been very successful in business in Germany, were seen as stealing the wealth that other Germans were lacking. There are many attempted explanations for this pattern of economic success (I suggest "The Jewish Phenomenon" if you're interested), but a lot of it probably has to deal with the fact that certain factors have always been very important to Jews, which they pass on through the generations, including becoming literate, getting an education, taking care of the others in the Jewish community, keeping businesses within the family, the wish for one's children to become more successful than oneself, etc. During the middle ages, there was actually a phenomenon known as "the sponge theory," where countries that were faltering economically would invite in Jewish populations to boost the economy (they would literally absorb them into society, hence "sponge" analogy), then once the economy was thriving again (or at least relative to where it began), people turned back to their old ways of persecuting the Jews and forcing them back out. This is one explanation for the general migration of Jews around different countries in Europe, ending with massive pogroms in the Ukraine in the 1500s-1600s. Basically, this is the same as when Americans shun immigrants because they think they are stealing American jobs. This has unfortunately been a problem with the Jews ever since they were forced out of Israel in biblical times, because they are one of few (if not only, at least that were able to survive) groups of people that do not (until 1948) have a homeland/country. Thus where ever they went, they were seen as foreigners, and this too is a large reason anti-semitism exists.
Religious differences have also lead to anti-semitism. After Christianity branched off completely from Judaism (basically from the time of Paul on), the phenomenon of "deicide" came into play, the idea that the Jews killed Jesus (it is often believed that they were responsible for His death, but this belief goes a step further to say they actually killed Him). For Christians (obviously not all Christians believe this, but historically it was a popular belief) this was the ultimate crime, and thus they found it very easy to hate Jews. Also, it was a matter of seeing the Jews as a threat to Christianity, because here are the people who created the book which justifies Christ's coming about, and yet they refuse to believe in him as the Messiah. Although historically Islam was very receptive to both Judaism and Christianity ("People of the Book"), in more recent times there has been a lot of tension because of the Israel/Palestine conflict. It is a case now of people taking political differences and projecting them onto an entire group of people as hate and prejudice (not to say some Jews are not guilty of the reverse as well).
Wow, that was long. Okay, there are many many explanations, but these are some of the biggies. If you have questions/comments, feel free to e-mail me, jsm36@georgetown.edu

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.