There’s a reason some professions seem to have a disproportionate number of Jews. Latro, as a European, you should be able to guess what it is. For many many many years, Jews in Europe were not allowed to own any land. They lived in ghettoes with an unbelievably densely packed population. At the time, wealth was related to land ownership, and Jews were expressly forbidden from that. So Jews were forced to look for positions in professions that didn’t require a lot of space. Like…law. And medicine. Money-lending was forbidden to Christians for a long time, so Jews ended up being bankers, too. To this day, the idea of a Jewish farmer seems almost laughable. Everyone knows that Jews are quiet, well-education, and physically weak, right?
Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve never heard anything like that. And I might be making a huge assumption here, but my guess is that if you’re Dutch, you probably don’t know all that many Jews to base that opinion on.
As opposed to Gentiles, who are always eager to hire a Jew, even though they hate him for hogging all the jobs?
There are about 16,000,000 people in the Netherlands. About 30,000 of them are Jews. That’s less than 1 Jew for every 500 Gentiles. Even assuming nepotism, it’s mathematically impossible for them to hog all the jobs.
One thing Kyla: up and until the end of the 19th centuries, most Jews (in Europe, anyway, where about two-thirds of the Jewish population lived) WERE farmers or lived in rural communities in Eastern Europe. For example “Fiddler on the Roof” is set on one of these Jewish rural communties. These communties were by in large poorer than the surrounding communties ( for a vareity of reasons, which includes antisemitism) but they weren’t really ghettos (and they weren’t that cramped) as the isolation in which they operated in was mostly self-enforced.
Usuary, which at first meant any money-lending and later meant charging a large amount of interest (IIRC the max. interest was set by the church at 10%), was a (Christian) sin in medieval Europe. This meant that the Jews played an invaluable economic function as borrowing is a great way to induce economic growth. Anyone working with money is likely to get rich themselves and envy of the Jews wealth was a major cause of antisemtism in western Europe.
I’ve been in this thread a time or two before and others like it as well. So, please remind me since I’ve been away so long.
Who is it again that, “HATES THE JEWS SO MUCH?”
We are not talking middle-ages here, I was referring to the 1930’s. In most of western Europe, including Holland and Germany, Jews weren’t forced to live in the kind of gettho’s you describe. They were an integral part of society and they could hold any job. Sure there were the ‘traditional’ jobs such as banking and jewelry, that’s why I left those out of the nepotism bit.
The lawyer and media were american examples of where there seem to be a lot of Jews, in proportion. I hardly think that you can attribute that to the reasons you state. At least I’m not aware of any restrictions for Jews in the history of the US.
Before the holocaust the numbers were a bit different, I’m sad to say.
I’ll see if I can find some cites. I’m at work so I don’t have too much time to hunt for cites.
There were, however, barriers to Jewish entry to many occupations in the U.S., as well as barriers to education and housing. Private U.S. universities, and even some state schools, barred (or set low quotas for admission) on Jewish applicants right up until the 1950s.
The Jewish entry into what became the media began with the entertainment industry, from which they were not barred because it was considered a less than respectable industry and did not include as many barriers. At the beginning of the 20th century, the presence of Jews in Vaudeville permitted many to migrate into radio when it first appeared and the “wide open” nature of the infant motion picture industry allowed them to enter there, as well. With an established presence in radio and movies, they were ideally poised to move into the arena of television when it appeared.
Similarly, after initial resistance, law schools and medical schools were among the earlier schools to lower (not drop) barriers to entrance by Jews. With the strong pro-education culture of the Jewish community, those high-education professions were prime targets for Jews to use to break out of the garment districts (for example) into other fields, while engineering concerns were still frequently barred to them.
My answer goes something like this: 1) Put a Jew family in any country. 2) The whole family learns the culture/language of that country in no time. They already have one or two cultures behind them. They can mix the best parts of different cultures. 3) They find friends and a community - their own community at once, and thus get a collective knowledge of the situation, of any situation and someone has always another background than the others. Shortly = they are carrying a bank of knowledge and visdom inside their community. 4) Their upbringing is very simple => read and learn - use Your talents - You have to be the best - we are all backing You up.
The result: They are more civilised, faster, not slow to use their talents etc. They are just better than the average. Naturally they have also average people among them, but the more talented and faster are seen.
Final result: They get hated, related with jelousy. Mostly by the monoculturells. (It is the non-colour race with mixed believes and big belly-buttons).
And I myself, critizize the Israelian politics quite hard in many of my posts, because “noblesse oblige’”, but I do not hate Jews. I admire them.
And most of all I admire Eva Luna. A bright multicultured girl that have studied much. OK, I am jealous, but I do not hate Eva
P.S. She is always now and then defending my views or my rights to have views.
Secretly I would like to meet her in my dreams.
What part do You mean?
No, I am not joking. I am myself a member of a minority. Had to fight every week “with the guys”, because I did not speak the common language (Finnish) correctly.
My mother-language is Swedish. And the heritage of the Finn-Swedes are just as I described in the earlier post. We hold all the top positions in Finland long after WWII. Just look at the names of Finnish history: Mannerheim, Stahlberg, Lonnrot, Sibelius etc.
We were taught to everything that I have described before.
And we were hated. Now when the Finns, the 95% majority, has taken over the major part, more or less, we are not hated but accepted.
I hope that I did not hurt anyones feelings by my description.
Btw., the Finn-Swedes are sometimes called “the Finnish Jews”, because we had all the power within the economical, cultural etc. field in Finland, still some 40 - 50 years ago.
My family some 100 years ago, was servants for the Swedish-speaking establishment some 100 years ago, and has since then gone the natural way to different proffessions. But still, we tell our children to work hard and there is nothing that was an obstacle, money etc., when it was about learning.
I have begun to read aloud to all my 4 children when they have been about 1 month old. Later we (I had different wifes) read for the children fairy tails every day about 2 - 3 hours. In Swedish and Finnish. (Different rooms for different languages).
I have bought computers to every child, one each, (remember Sinclair, 286 and 386 etc.) when they have been 4 years old. (And they costed me a bundle those days).
My first son was born before the Sinclair came to the shops, and he learned to “write” at the age of 3 with my electrical typewriter, with a screen of 16 letter at the time. (I was a reporter at that time).
He made his first lay-outs on a Apple at the age of 10, and my customers never saw any difference in the result. Naturally I corrected the wildest ideas, but as Karl-Michael was interested in the work, I teached him. (I was in the advertisement business at that time). He put up his first own firm when he was 16. Now he is in the university and part-time working in a computer company. Well I could write about this for hours, but I think that You got the general idea.
My own interest has always been in different cultures, as Yours just now, when I am in an English-speaking cite.
Btw. The cites in English will get more and more foreigners writing about what the world outside USA, so You can just dream about what kind of discussions here will be within 5 - 10 years, when Africa, Asia, including China, and Russia, where I live, will come and tell what they think!
I am just smiling when I am writing about this, because I have somekind of idea what it will be like :).
You can already now see that quite a lot of the posts from Netherlands, UK etc. are not streamlined with “the normal” discussion.
And it is not a joke that Eva Luna has a very broad mind and understanding for different cultures.
She is just great!
I can see from your second post that English is not your first language. Be advised that a phrase like “Jew family” can be highly offensive if uttered in the wrong way.
What you have said here is pure and simple stereotyping - and that is the first step towards racism. I must tell you that Jews are no different from any other people, they are not in any way gifted, or special, or “better than average”. If you say they are, then you say they are different. If they are different, then it’s OK to hate them. Stop and think very carefully before you go down the path that has caused so much sorrow!
I confess to knowing nothing about the conflicts between Finland and Sweden. Whatever may be in your history, do not infer that other situations are simply replicas of what you know.
Howdy, all! Just wanted to pop in for a moment to say that I’m so impressed at the level of erudition of some of the posters on this thread. Quite frankly, it makes me feel like quite the “loser Jew.” If they’d taught real, live Jewish history at the synagogue where my parents sent me to Sunday school, rather than stupid memorization of prayers in Hebrew with no thought or analysis behind it, I might have actually been interested and gotten a Jewish education.
Now I’m just going to have to read books and play catchup. Any suggestions to start off with? Whatever Jewish history I know is pretty much by osmosis from stories from my grandparents, and from secular historical studies, especially in Spanish and Russian history. (Oh, and some geneological research and volunteering for a geneological Website: check out www.jewishgen.org; there is so much wonderful information there!)
A couple of random thoughts: I think that as with some other immigrant groups (I’m thinking of some Indian and East Asian friends of mine, whose experiences have been similar, if a bit more recent; I’m a third-generation American on one side and fourth-generation on the other), the perception that Jewish culture places a great emphasis on educational achievement is true (even if my stubborn sister never did finish college), but it’s a matter of parents having high expectations for their kids. Mom started teaching me to read when I was 2, stopping only when she saw that my reading abilities were far outpacing my speaking abilities; I started kindergarten reading 3 years ahead of my grade level, and never stopped after that. In our family, it wasn’t “will she go to college?” but rather “can she get into Harvard? or will she have to settle for U. of C.?” It boggles my mind when I visit a household that has no books in it, and where the TV is on all the time. That would have been out of the question in my family. Of course, that’s also true of non-Jewish friends of mine, but then, would I be likely to make friends with someone who does nothing with his/her free time but watch TV?
Oh, and Henry, nice to see you again. You’re making me blush! Say hi to Lake Baikal for me if you’re there anytime soon…I must get back one of these days, and not with a group of noisy, drunken 19-year-olds! The funny part: Mom thought I was insane for wanting to learn Russian and go to Russia. "What the hell do you need them for? Our family was trying to get out of there for generations, and you want to go back? I think Mom thinks all of Russia is like Sholom Aleichem’s Anatevka. Well, she’s missing out…
Oh, and many people are surprised to learn that I’m Jewish; Jews recognize me as such all the time, as do many people in areas where Jews have historically been persecuted (in Russia, “what’s our nationality,” meaning ethnic group, is one of the first questions people frequently ask when meaning a foreigner, and they usually aren’t talking about what passport you carry). But many Gentiles are carrying preconceptions that Jews are insular.
I’m pretty nonobservant, but one of my co-workers is quite Orthodox; in fact, her husband is an Orthodox rabbi. Once my Gentile co-workers figured out that I knew stuff about Jewish religious and cultural practices, even if I didn’t necessarily follow them myself, they all started asking me questions about the Orthodox co-worker that basically showed they were too intimidated to ask her themselves, but were honestly curious. (Things like, “Is her head shaved under that wig?”) Some were resentful that she’d arranged her schedule to be able to leave early on Friday afternoons, even though she certainly works at least as much as the rest of us; they see it as favoritism. They never seem to remember that she can’t participate in fun office events that involve food, or that happen on Friday nights. I think they see her non-participation as a lack of desire to bond with the rest of us, when that’s really not the case. Her boss showed some genuine interest in learning about Jewish culture, and was promptly invited along for a holiday dinner at her home. IME if you ask her questions, even if they show an astonishing level of ignorance, she is quite happy to answer them to the best of her prodigious abilities. (Oh, and some people see her unwillingness to shake hands with men as standoffishness, which is just silly.)
So let’s all follow my mom’s example, shall we, and try out living in a multicultural environment and learning how other people do things, as long as they don’t actually conflict with our own beliefs?
You misunderstand. I’m simply stating the historical basis for why Jews traditionally choose specific fields over other fields. Although the more I think about it, the more I second guess my own logic - those jobs, like doctor or lawyer, are high status positions, and all people would consider them as such, not just Jews. Hm. This is why I shouldn’t participate in GD.
I still do want to see a cite on how Jews get ahead by nepotism, though.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking one July morning in 1995, as I sat through the Novosibirsk regional meeting of the Liberal Democratic Part of Russia (which is anything but; it’s Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party). If Jews controlled the world financial system, I sure wouldn’t have this level of outstanding student loans!
Maybe goyas are jealous that they were not “chosen.” Maybe calling yourself “chosen” may appear snobbish? Maybe it’s another case of self-segregation causing distrust from outsiders?
Maybe. But do you know what “chosen” means? What does that entail?
Does it entail superiority? No it doesn’t. It entails three things:
(1) Is entails that we believe that we have a special relationship with God that the other people of the world do not have. This does not mean that we beleive that God hates non-Jews or that God doesn’t care about or listen to the prayers of non-Jews. It simply means that we have entered into a special relationship with God that others have not. Which brings us to #2…
(2) We were chosen to fulfill God’s 613 commandments. Only Jews are required to do this. Non-Jews are not required to keep the Sabbath, eat only kosher food, circumcise their sons or fast on Yom Kippur. Only Jews are required to do these things. Non-Jews, by contrast, have only to keep the seven Noahide laws. Since we accepted these extra commandments upon ourselves, God has granted us the special relationship as described in #1 above.
(3) Jews were chosen by God to be a “light unto the nations.” We are supposed to, by our actions and deeds, act as a beacon of morality and the proper way to act to the rest of the world. Granted, there have been times and places where individual Jews did a real lousy job of this mission, but, on the whole, I’d like to think we’ve done a passable job on this.
So, in a nutshell, that’s what being an am nivchar is all about. It’s not a racist attitude. It’s not a “we’re superior to you” mentality. It’s not meant to be snobbish.
I think for someone to be jealous they must suscribe to the Jewish form of God (as distinct from the Christian or Islamic version) so I wouldn’t say that. It’s difficult to say whether it appears snobbish as all religions to a certain extent appear to have a superiority complex to outsiders but that said there is a racial element to Judaism that isn’t present in the other major religions which may make adherrants appear as racial supremacists, which has to be said is not true for the large majority of Jews (though I have met a few who clearly are, but any large grouping has people such as them).
Self-segregation is probably a key factor as it allows folk-tales and ignorance to grow up around them and may as you said make Jews appear snobbish. But then again there has been very little self-segration since the beginning of the 20th century and moderate Judaism and Jewish secularism are in no way isolationist.
Not necessarily accurate. Many Christian denominations hold that Jews are in fact, chosen of God. In fact, the Pope recently announced that since Jews have their own covenant with God, it is unnecessary for them to convert to Christianity in order to receive the full benefit of…I don’t know, be saved, or go to heaven, or whatever Catholics get in the Catholic faith.
But as been gone over a zillion times, being “chosen” isn’t an indication of superiority. It’s just means that Jews have a specific role to fill as given by God. It does not preclude any other groups or religions having a meaningful relation with God. And since the covenant isn’t at all easy to fulfill, it’s practically the very definition of the term “mixed blessing.”
Nearly all Christians believe that Jews were the chosen people of the old testement, but they also believe since the coming of Jesus, salvation is universal and can only be obtained through Christ. There are a few denominations who base alot of their dogma on the old testement and several propehcies, particularly a belief that IIRC that Revelations predicts 144,000 Jews will ascend to heaven with the second coming, which is also tied to the fact that many that believe the aliyah is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy but these form a minority and are a recent phenomena.
I did hear something about recently a Catholic priest saying that Jews could be ‘saved’ without Jesus, but I’m not sure if this is or has been a part of Catholic dogma.
