I only joined a few days ago. Since then I’ve posted replies on a few threads. So far no one else agrees, disagrees on anything in my posts except the typos!!
I am starting to feel unloved
Doc,
You forgot the punctuation at the end of your last sentence. 
::ducks for cover::
Zev Steinhardt
Well, firstly, I think anti-Semitism hasn’t been uniform in its content over the millennia. For most of that time, up until the twentieth century, anti-Semitism was religious in nature - a Jew could convert to Christianity or Islam and escape oppression. More recently anti-Semitism became ethnically and biologically based: “once a Jew, always a Jew” and hence the rise of scapegoating. I have a book at hand called Race and Class by Alex Callinicos, from which I find this quote: (it’s lengthy, hold on…)
**
So that’s how I see it. In societies where social and economic roles were more rigidly defined, the Jews had their place and were assimilated, although the religious difference was always a point of contention. Only when social roles were dissolved and society became more fluid, with the resulting frictions and antagonisms, did anti-Semitism become more biologically based, as an outgrowth of the racism used to justify colonisation of Africa, the Americas, and Australasia.
Olentzero,
What’s more significant, to my mind, is that there is an underlying reason for the hatred, and the specific feelings are justifications. Thus when Europe was more religious than it is today, the anti-semitism was given a religious veneer. Now, with religious feelings not generally as intense, racial justifications are more prominent.
An excellent book on this subject is The Anguish of the Jews by Edward Flannery.
Edward Flannery was a Roman Catholic priest who wrote on the subject of the church’s antisemitism through the centuries. He does, however, start with pre-church antisemitism.
Zev Steinhardt
I hope no one minds if I quibble with a few issues, particularly about Jews in the ancient and medieval worlds.
First, the attitude of the Romans towards the Jews is complicated, and depends largely on time. By and large, the Romans tolerated the Jews. The Romans admired that the Jews clung to the ways of their ancestors, a characteristic of surpassing virtue. As long as the Jews were quiet, paid their taxes, and (later) honored the imperial cult, the Romans were willing to allow the Jews a wide amount of self-rule. On the other hand, when the Jews rose up as under Bar Kokhba, the Romans were ruthless in putting them down.
The advent of Christianity posed something of a problem. If you read the Epistles carefully, the reveal an ambiguous attitude towards the Jews. Paul admits the following in 1 Corinthians, 9:19-21: To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law
(though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
Keeping this in mind, turn to 1 Thessalonians, 14:16: **
For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things thos churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men
in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.**.
So Paul preaches hate to the Thessalonians, Northern Greeks who already hated Jews. What does Paul say to the Romans, who largely tolerated them? See Romans, 15:27:For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual
blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings..
What’s the bottom line? I don’t think the Christian position on the Jews is clear at all. Which leads us to the middle ages, when as they say, Jews were moneylenders.
This is a strange stereotype and is summarily false. At every time during the middle ages, the number of Christian moneylenders dwarfed the number of Jewish ones. More strikingly, the volume of money lent by Jews was downright negligible throughout most of these periods. Jewish moneylending peaked in the early middle ages, before the advent of serious anti-semitism, and Jews bankrolled many Venetian expeditions eastward. But beyond, say, the 10th century, Christians took over the moneylending industry utterly.
Doubting Thomases are shouting from the audience, “what about the scriptural prohibition of usury?” Well, scholastic theologians and canon lawyers from Gratian, to Thomas Aquinas, to Nicole Auresme had it all figured out, and concocted numerous “excuses” which gave Christians the right to collect interest.
So what was the big deal with the Jews in the middle ages? For starters, they had unusual special rights. In England and Germany, they were essentially slaves to the monarch, who protected their rights and freedoms himself, and did not subject them to his vassals. However, the Jews were forced to pay enormous taxes to their respective monarchs. A typical English tax-collecting stragegy in the 12th century would be as follows. The king’s vassals would owe money to the Jews. The king would charge the Jews enormous surcharges, forcing them to collect on their debts to the magnates. So the Jews engendered all the hatred, as no one likes a bill collector, and the king got his money without doing a damned thing. So if you are looking for anti-semitism among the aristocracy, it’s there staring you in the face.
I apologize for the length of this post. I only hope people find it useful in framing their positions about the history of anti-semitism. If you want a bibliography, please ask.
Regards,
MR
“Underlying reason for the hatred” implies that anti-Semitism was universal, that everyone hated (and still hates) the Jews. That’s just not true. There have always been unthinking bigots, yes, but shine the light of daily experience on their views and the end up looking as stupid and asinine as they really are.
The one thing people in the positions of power fear absolutely is a serious challenge to their rule. Serious challenges are marked by unity among those fighting back, which means the breakdown of old prejudices and preconceptions. So they depend on maintaining divisions among the people they rule along any lines they can. Sometimes they’d directly foment things, such as officially sanctioned pogroms in Russia, or just let whatever knuckledraggers who happened to be around cut loose and cause problems. They’ve never done anything serious to combat it.
This is my point - anti-semitism and racism aren’t some sort of underlying human characteristic. Fear of the unknown and the not well understood are, but experience shows the more familiar one gets with something, the less fear, and the less hatred that can spring from it when someone just as ill-informed tries to rile you up. Kings, bishops, and the like didn’t create anti-semitism, but it’s part of the ideology used to keep things as they are.
Well, the Haram ash-Sharif is an important religious site to Muslims, too; it wasn’t just out of spite. This is the spot that Muhammed rose to heaven, where he met with Allah. (Incidentally, this hadith came into existence during the period of time that the Hashemites, Muhammed’s descendents, lost control of Mecca and Medina. Feeling embarrassed that they were not in charge of the holy cities, they…invented one.)
I think you are greatly exaggerating the hideous treatment of Jews by Muslims. There are a few examples of forced conversions, notably in Iran, but in general, Jews were treated with respect in Muslim countries. They were taxed at a rate slightly higher than their neighbors, but to say it was Islam or the sword is not really true. Just a little bit of research will show that until the 20th century, Jews were valued and normal members of society in many Muslim nations, particularly Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt. This changed primarily as a result of European colonialism. A dear friend of mine is a French-Israeli of Algerian heritage - her family lived in Algeria for many generations, but the French colonialists treated Jews as different from their Muslim neighbors, and in my friend’s family’s case, afforded them French citizenship. When the French left Algeria, my friend’s parents went to France, too - not because they were Jews, but because they were French citizens.
Like DocCathode, I am also a Newbie. However, I can see that the reason no one answered my post is because i am lookin at it from the outside where everyone else is looking at it from the inside. It is rather refreshing not to be burdened by beliefs of a religion. To me it’s as clear as pure water. It just convinces me more that you find the truth only when your mind is unmuddled by religion.
I never said Jews (or Christians) were forced to convert or die. I said it was the fate of others. As for Muslims treating the Jews with respect, there were some rare golden ages. Most of the time, Jews were required by law to walk on the left. They were forbidden from talking any Jew out of converting to Islam. Jews were allowed to live, but they were definitely second class citizens. By your own admission Kyla, the Muslims “invented” another holy city. I know the site has some religious signfifigance but not nearly as much as Mecca.
Jack,
The smugness of your tone led me to scroll back up and re-read your last post:
Some questions:
[list=a]
[li]Which Europeans used religion as a means “to control the masses?” Could you provide some detail? You’re generalizing and I tend to think that different Europeans throughout history might have had different motivations for their actions. All you’ve described here is some sort of Protocols of the Elders of Evil Clergy; a history-sweeping conspiracy to control the masses through religious persecution.[/li][li]Do you mean to imply (as you seem to) that Eurpopean despots invented Christianity as a means to control their subjects?[/li][li]Can you provide some detail as to how Jews and other “uncontrolled religions” were “potential threat to the rulers?” I am not a serious student of history, but I am unfamiliar with the “threat of an uncontrolled religion” you mention.[/li][li]You say, “It is rather refreshing not to be burdened by beliefs of a religion… It just convinces me more that you find the truth only when your mind is unmuddled by religion.” Unless I’m mistaken, them’s fightin’ words. Unless you provide some data to back up your assertions, I am going to assume that you meant to say, “You find the truth only when your mind is unmuddled by factual accuracy.”[/li][/list=a]
Looking forward to your reply,
Nice Guy sdimbert
In Matt. 27:25 the jews tell Pilate who doesn’t want to kill Jesus, (who was a Rabbi), “his blood be upon us and our children”, and demand his death. There has always been tribalism, but I think it was the jews who gave the curse, although it could have also been the early church fathers who assigned that phrase to the jews.
Well, I have my doubts about this quote, but even if so ( and mobs do stupid things all the time), it was the Sadducees who were responsible, and claimed the guilt. And, note, the Sadducees/Zadokim, have nearly been wiped from the earth. The Pharisees were mostly freindly to the early Christians.
While it’s true that mobs do crazy things, Jesus was originally condemmed by the Jewish priests and then taken to Pilate. Daniel may be correct as a biblical scholar, but people who read only the Bible would not discriminate between the Sadducees and the Jews in general. Even when I was growing up, I heard the Minister of my church say the jews are condemmed because they rejected Jesus. And people can still point to Matt: 27:25 as an excuse to hate the Jews.
That verse has been used alot over the years to justify what was done to the Jews. Of course, I always had the following problems with it, even if the quote were a true one:
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Can you assign blame to your children? Would you like to be executed for a crime your great-grandfather committed a hundred years before you were born?
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Even if you can assign blame to your children, you definitely cannot assign it to someone else who is alive at the time. For example, if a Miami resident robs a bank, he couldn’t say that all of Miami is responsible, only he is. The relevence of this is that at the time of Jesus’ death, most Jews did not live in Jerusalem. Most, in fact, lived in Babylonia. So, theoretically, only those Jews who are descended from the Jews who were present in Jerusalem would be responsible (again, assuming you could assign blame to your children).
Oh well, try to reason with a mob who’s trying to kill you. 
Zev Steinhardt
It is a little hard to tell whether you are saying that:
-the passage in Matthew is the reason Jews have earned hostility;
-the passage in Matthew is the reason Christians have decided to hate the Jews;
or
-the passage in Matthew is the rationalization Christians have used to excuse their hatred for Jews.
I reject the first possibility on two grounds: Christians are not supposed to hate anyone, to begin with; the Jews have done nothing to incur the hatred of Christians.
I reject the second possibility on the grounds that Christianity, as a movement, has not hated Jews at all times in all places. Influenced by existing prejudices (from Zoroastrianism, among other things) and by actual conflicts between the earliest Christians and Jews in Asia Minor, there is a long tradition of anti-Jewish thought among Christians in Asia Minor (and, later, in the Byzantine Empire). However, in the City of Rome and the West, Jews and Christians tended to be persecuted together during the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and, aside from a few flare-ups of Christian clerical fervor, Jews lived in relative harmony with Christians in Western Europe for almost 1,000 years. It was only in the hundred years prior to the first Crusade that anti-Jewish sentiment began to take hold in Western Europe. (In the midst of the fervor for that Crusade, an anti-Jewish sentiment developed that simply grew and grew until it culminated in the Shoah.) However, if it were true that anti-Jewish sentiment is based in Scripture, that initial 900-1,000 year peace in Western Europe should have never taken place.
Tomndebb suggests three reasons Christians might have hated jews, but then reveals a bias by saying “Christians are not supposed to hate anyone”. But they do anyway. Many so-called Christians hate blacks. During WWII many Christians hated the Japanese. Tribalism can show up in many places, whether in an easy target like skin color, or in more subtle targets like political or religious beliefs.
And I disagree that jews lived in “relative harmony” in western europe, because they were treated as second class citizens unable to take part in civic affairs or even to have a “Christian” name; unable to own land and limited to specific trades like money-lending and jewery. What Tomndebb probably means is that the jews didn’t attack the Christians, (but there are many instances of Christians attacking Jews).
Of course you can’t pass guilt onto children, but people who are anxious to hate someone will use any excuse and scripture just provides an excuse against jews. The real origin of hate is vanity, and if you’ve studied Genesis you know that vanity is the original sin. (The ancient hebrews were ignorant of science but they weren’t stupid).
[hijack]
Tom, what is it you’re reading? You always are the most well-informed person on the most interesting topics. Do you have any books to recommend in particular?
If anyone else has recommendations, I’d love to hear them. I particularly ask Tom, because I have been in awe of his knowledge of religious history for several years now.
[/hijack]
- I am a Christian, and I don’t hate Jews.
- I know several other Christians, and they don’t hate Jews.
- Altho, not very well, ie a freind who knows somebody, etc, the only person I know who does hate Jews, is a general all-around type bigot, and hates blacks, etc, also, and thinks he’s a Christian.
- There are some who are not Christian, and DO hate Jews, re the Middle-east wars, etc.
So why all this bit about CHRISTIANS hating Jews? Anti-semiticism started before there WERE any Christians, and continues in areas where Christians are hated just as much. Now, here in the US, it is mostly “Christians”, but that is becuase the US is mostly Christian. (ie, 75% of the bigots are Christians, but so is 75% of the general populace). And, here in the ol USA, most of them are general rascists and bigots, ie haters of everyone “different”.
Minority religions have always been hated & reviled thru-out history, and since the Jews are almost always a minority, well… Incidentally, in Isreal, where they are the majority, a certain % of them are being just as bigoted and rascist.
On the Aish HaTorah Seminar page that I quoted above, the “Deicide Excuse” is one of six that is mentioned and dismissed as possible reasons why people hate Jews. Since it is obvious that nobody went to read it, I will bring the Mountain to Moses (heh):
(I apoligize in advance for the lenght of this quotation… but I think that these guys do a good job with issues like these and I would love to hear this group’s reactions to these argumets.)
Comments?