Why do people hate Jews?

[tomndebb]

Jealousy…number one reason

Lets talk Nobel Prize winners for example:

Actually, let’s not take the Nobel Prize for example–particularly when you have set up an artificial comparison, limiting “non-Jews” to Muslims.

For your comparison to be valid, the European selection committee would have had to be paying attention ot the entire world (rather than to Europe with periodic glimpses at North America, expanding out of those regions only since WWII) over the entire history of the prize. Then, you ought to be able to show that the people in Muslim countries were not denied educational opportunities during the period when European nations held them as colonies or “mandates” and that those countries that have gotten out from colonial or other European control were able to do so with a minimum of social disruption that allowed their citizens to venture into the various areas to which the Nobel selection committees paid attention. It would also be useful to show that the people in those lands were sufficiently aware of (or cared enough about) the Nobel Prize to actually submit nominations.

Failing those parameters leaves you with an arbitrary measure of societies that may give you a warm feeling, but provides no useful or valid comparison regarding this topic.

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Actually, I doubt that jealousy has ever played a serious role in hatred toward the Jews. A certain amount of jealousy has probably been fostered in the last 100 years while different specific efforts to scapegoat them have been made. However, throughout much of the period that Jews have been persecuted in Europe, they have not enjoyed a standard of living better than (or often as good as) their Christian neighbors. While a few merchants were probably able to acquire wealth during the periods when they were able to engage in money-lending (which has not been true of the entire 1700 years since Christianity began to dominate Europe), there were as many periods when they were either simple farmers alongside their Christian neighbors or they were compelled to live in poverty in ghettoes created for them. It is absurd to believe that anyone could be jealous of the Jews huddled in the shtetls of nineteenth century Russia from which milieu the Protocols forgery arose. In the late nineteenth century U.S., there was a movement to ban Jewish immigration on the basis that they were too poor and too stupid to ever become productive citizens.

My belief is that the prime motive behind their persecution has been xenophobia, fueled by their resistance to abandoning their religion and its cultural trappings. (This is not to dismiss the aspects of deliberate religious persecution and the deliberate use of that society as scapegoats by various political leaders, but I suspect that those issues were only able to gain support because of the underlying xenophobia that preceded them.)

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Objectively, it’s difficult to explain to bright, industrious students why Jews succeed in getting into the best colleges, far out of proportion to the national average.

Objectively, this phenomenon is extraordinarily easy to explain. (It may be difficult to persuade people with a prior bias of its truth, but that is simply a result of people choosing beliefs without evidence.)

Jews succeed in professions that require study out of all proportion to their numbers for the simply reason that the Jewish culture has a tradition that is over 2000 years old, of urging every (male until recently) child to be a scholar. Rather than relegating studious types to the clergy or to institutions of learning, Jews placed a high value on education for all their members. If some extraordinarily high percentage of a population is literate and if scholarship is exalted as a value above feats of arms or athletic prowess or mercantile expertise, then that society will produce an extraordinarily high percentage of scholars. The Jewish mandate that children be educated was enshrined in law about 70 years prior to the birth of Jesus and the tradition has never lapsed.

[roger_thornhill]

@tomndebb

Actually, I doubt that jealousy has ever played a serious role in hatred toward the Jews. A certain amount of jealousy has probably been fostered in the last 100 years…

The question posed bythe OP is ‘Why do people hate Jews [today]’?’ That many posters in the here and now of this thread consider jealousy of the success of the Jews to be a major factor in that hatred (which the posters may or may not share) is significant in itself.

If one takes it as a given that idealised “Jewish culture” (as opposed to every single Jewish family in reality) urge every male child to be a scholar, then that raises problems of its own. For Jews also excel (or at least do as well as other cultural groups) in “feats of arms” (take a look at the Jewish armed forces), and “athletic prowess” (several Olympic athletes and swimmers come to mind). A for their “mercantile expertise”, this I would have thought was of a legendary nature.

[PaulFitzroy]

I don’t even think it’s the idea of scholarship so much as simply success in general. Why this is, I don’t know.

I don’t think the majority of Jews in Russia and Poland circa 1900 were particularly learned or scholarly; after all, they did have to work regular trades like agriculture, blacksmithing and woodworking in the small villages they lived in. (Although they had Torah study at home, I don’t know if this translates to overall ‘intelligence’.)

It could be just the desire to not be pushed around anymore that made Jews succeed here in the U.S.; they pragmatically realized early that money equals power, and they want to make sure they and their children have power so they will be able to do as they please.

[sleeping]

@PaulFitzroy

I don’t even think it’s the idea of scholarship so much as simply success in general. Why this is, I don’t know.

I don’t think the majority of Jews in Russia and Poland circa 1900 were particularly learned or scholarly; after all, they did have to work regular trades like agriculture, blacksmithing and woodworking in the small villages they lived in. (Although they had Torah study at home, I don’t know if this translates to overall ‘intelligence’.)

Torah study led to literacy, which allowed Jews to obtain higher-paying positions (by opening up avenues to white collar work).

[tomndebb]

The question posed bythe OP is ‘Why do people hate Jews [today]’?’

I see nothing in the OP to limit the discussion to “[today]”. In fact, the notion that there is some hatred of the Jewish people “today” that differs in some substantive way from hatred over the last several centuries would need to be put forth with its own evidence. I explicitly noted that both jealousy and the attempt to make Jews scapegoats could be and have been used, especially in the last 100 years, but there needs to be fertile soil into which to plant those seeds and simply declaring that people are jealous is not exactly strong evidence.

I have no idea why you would consider Jewish prediliction for scholarship to be “problematic.” It would have been helpful had you even explained what you meant by that claim. Jewish scholarship is a reality. It is not merely something that exists in an ideal. It can be seen in the extraordinarily high rate of literacy among Jews throughout the centuries. Feats of arms? Jews have on several occasions risen to the challenge to produce fighters, but there is no tradition of the “Jewish warrior” that extends across the generations. (The current Israeli military is periodically contrasted to the perceived (not real) passive response of Jewish society to the Nazi attempt to eradicate them.) While Jews bear a stereotype as shrewd traders, they do not exalt merchants, as such, in their own literature or traditions and even the notion that they are shrewd traders basically developed after they were forced to adopt trade as other avenues of livelihood were denied them.

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(Although they had Torah study at home, I don’t know if this translates to overall ‘intelligence’.)

Not “intelligence,” scholarship. Jewish society exalts studying, education, literacy. Even when their scholarship was limited to Hebrew Scriptures, (while speaking Yiddish or Ladino), they still made study, itself, an object of praise. A person raised with an emphasis on study will be much more prepared to engage in further study than a person for whom study was a task reserved for special classes of people (of whom they may not be a member). It is a foundation upon which they can build any sort of educational program–and the Jews have done just that.

[roger_thornhill]

@tomndebb

I have no idea why you would consider Jewish prediliction for scholarship to be “problematic.” It would have been helpful had you even explained what you meant by that claim.

You misunderstood what I wrote. The problems that I refer to are expanded on in the following sentence:

For Jews also excel (or at least do as well as other cultural groups) in “feats of arms” (take a look at the Jewish armed forces), and “athletic prowess” (several Olympic athletes and swimmers come to mind). As for their “mercantile expertise”, this I would have thought was of a legendary nature.

‘For’ provides the link.

[Abe]

@Jackmannii

Well, that certain explains the history of anti-Semitism prior to 1948.

What are you trying to say? And do you actually understand what I was saying? I’m talking specifically about reasons why anti-semitism is on the rise (not was whenever). Of course, it could be an entirely random development with absolutely no reason behind it, but I highly doubt it, particularly in the face of recent history. Again, the US makes an excellent capsule example for this argument. But it is so much simpler to just whine about being automatically hated rather than investigate possible causes.

For reasons contributing to anti-jewish sentiments pre-1948, have a read through this thread: some of the factors have already been brought up. I mentioned specifically recent history.

Maybe we could ask the black posters here whether there is such a thing as hate for hate’s sake, or to describe what “triggers” or “perceived arrogance” they’ve supplied to spur on racism.

Spare me the rhetorical selectivity, you know very well the list was not exhaustive, nor is there any need for you to attempt the above cheap manipulation. Even racism against blacks has underlying reasons that are the subject of honest investigation – for example, tribalism that causes distinctions between “us” and “them”, residual instincts of fear most likely from the days when “different” used to equal potentially dangerous, and so on. Then there are cultural and religious justifications employed to bolster the tribal lines of division (e.g., interpretations of the Bible to the effect that blacks are the descendants of Ham the accursed). All this doesn’t justify anything, of course, but it is naive in the extreme to ignore the causes of ethnic or religious tensions.

I am pleased though, to hear that Jews have an official “policy”, as you described earlier. Oooo, is there a website?

Jews don’t have any official policy any more than Americans do, nor have I ever suggested such an allegation. Both Jews and Americans however are forced to bear the consequences of the policies of their political/spiritual homeland, and here the relative cohesiveness and insularity of Jewish culture exacerbates the problem of collective judgement by third parties. Again no one is implying this is just and fair – it just is. Understand the problem before you try to fix it.

@Loopydude

I think it’s possible to be, say, less-than-thrilled with Ariel Sharon’s policies, or rather ambivalent about Zionism, and still avoid being a rabid Jew-hater.

Of course it is. Unfortunately hardline and hawkish policies seem to win more enemies than friends – rationally or irrationally as the case may be. Ariel Sharon and Bush (to use the American example yet again) have learned this painful lesson in the last few years.

[Weirddave]

While you may or may not agree with their conclusion, I think that “Why the Jews” site linked above does a fine job of disproving all of the “reasons” for hating Jews that are being bandied about in this thread.

The real problem here is that there is no one “cause” you can point to, indeed, even multiple “causes” can be disproven fairly easily. The real problem here is that hatred of Jews, just like hatred of Blacks or Muslims or Christians or any one of a number of non-homogeneous groups is irrational. You know it, I know it, anyone with the ability to look at the situation objectively can clearly see it. Trying to find consistent, rational reasons for centuries of irrational beliefs is a pointless exercise in mental masturbation.

[roger_thornhill]

Dave has shot his load.

[LavenderBlue]

@Carnac the Magnificent!

To add: Any statistically tiny group that holds itself apart from others and succeeds wildly out of proportion to its numbers–and we’re talking wealth and privilege here–is going to be resented, period. Especially when said group embraces distinct customs and frequently worries aloud about the “threat” of assimilation with mainstream America–this at a time when assimilation is widely perceived as a good thing.

As roughly one half of all marriages are currently between Jews and non-Jews, Jews have some reasons to worry about the dispersal of a unique American cultural and religious viewpoint. If you take the premise that assimilation as a good thing I don’t know how you can get anymore assimilated than marriage. Jews should then be commended rather than condemned as you’ve implied.

It’s hard to reconcile the fact that ~20-25 percent of Ivy League student bodies are Jewish and that the proportion of Jews in American medical and law school are 15-20 times their representation on a national per capita basis. Objectively, it’s difficult to explain to bright, industrious students why Jews succeed in getting into the best colleges, far out of proportion to the national average.

tomndebb explained it very well but I’d like to add that academic achievement should hardly be unexpected when a culture that fully embraces books and literacy finally gets access to a society that allows them an equal opportunity to succeed.

Ask any African American, gay or woman, and they’ll confirm that job discrimination exists. Just as gentiles discriminate against Jews, Jews discriminate against gentiles, by preferentially hiring from “their own tribe,” as one Jewish acquaintance recently said. When you concentrate wealth within your own narrow group at the expense of other groups whose wealth you solicit, it invites resentment. (We’re not talking affluent WASPs here; we’re talking middle-class Americans.) One could argue that preferential hiring is rational, but the trend in the US has been toward fairer, more impartial practices.

Cite? Because otherwise that statement’s rather offensive.

Try talking about this issue in a rational way and you can find yourself being shouted down and smeared with pejorative labels. The media won’t touch this topic in any serious way, which itself is odd, considering that most everything is fair game these days and generating controversy is the name of the game. Ditto at universities. Instead of exploring an issue that should be of interest, there’s just silence.

Again, cite? Because the way you’ve phrased your response is neither rational nor serious.

[Abe]

@Weirddave

The real problem here is that there is no one “cause” you can point to, indeed, even multiple “causes” can be disproven fairly easily. The real problem here is that hatred of Jews, just like hatred of Blacks or Muslims or Christians or any one of a number of non-homogeneous groups is irrational. You know it, I know it, anyone with the ability to look at the situation objectively can clearly see it. Trying to find consistent, rational reasons for centuries of irrational beliefs is a pointless exercise in mental masturbation.

You are missing the point and trumpeting an acausal argument to boot.

Instead of addressing it systematically and risking your epithet of “mental masturbator”, I will just note that you completely ignore the relevance of perception. For example, it is a popular perception that the Jews are to blame for the death of Jesus. Never mind that no viable historical records exist for this alleged killing or even for the life of Jesus. Never mind that it is now thought that early Christians were sucking up to the Romans at the expense of the Jews by deflecting possible criticisms away from the Empire when they redacted the New Testament. Never mind that it’s just a story in an old book of myths that people take on faith. No, the real problem is not whether the Jews are actually and historically to blame for the death of Jesus, but that a substantial number of people think they are.

That is what you call a cause of anti-Jewish sentiment – the very thing you claim does not exist.

[OliverTwistofLime]

tomndebb: you mention that xenophobia is the force initiating degrees of hatred of the Jews…that they have clung on to their religion and culture for all these years.

I think that is total garbage. I have never met anyone who gives a damn what the culture or the religious practices of the Jews may be.

Jealously is exhibited by the comments: Hey, they totally control the entertainment industry, the banks and financial institutions. All they are interested in is money.

Cmon, get off your pompous high horse and see how the situation is in real life!

[Abe]

Real nice argument there. Tight, precise, concise… practically irrefutable!!

Now, if only anything at all logically followed from anything else in that post…

[Rune]

@Abe

No one said reasons have to be rational. In response to the assertion that anti-semitism is on the rise, I posit the reasons for anti-whatever (in this case anti-Americanism) as an illustration of cause and effect. In the present case, the actions and policies of Israel in recent history have provided more than enough animus to fuel anti-jewish sentiments (ditto with regards to the US).

There is rarely such thing as hate for hate’s sake. Usually there are triggers or at the least contributing factors – whether they be the insularity of a culture, perceived arrogance, anecdotal or real economic advantages, projection of power, etc., this is often all the reason people need. There are often reasons for ethnic and religious tensions and conflict. Not necessarily morally or rationally valid ones, but at least partially explanatory nonetheless.

Well of course there are reasons. Even the Nazis had reasons to hate the Jews. However this certainly does not preclude they are victims of reasons that are outside their control – actually irrational reasons almost guarantee to be outside their control, since they by their nature cannot do anything to alter it. And hating Jews (as a group) outside Israel for Israel’s sake is irrational.

There’s also the matter of chicken & egg. Of whether Israel’s faults breeds anti-Semitism, or whether anti-Semitism breeds unproportional criticism of Israel. Or whether criticism of Israel is often not merely a cover for an anti-Semitism that itself has become politically taboo.

[tomndebb]

I think that is total garbage. I have never met anyone who gives a damn what the culture or the religious practices of the Jews may be.

Jealously is exhibited by the comments: Hey, they totally control the entertainment industry, the banks and financial institutions. All they are interested in is money.

But, of course, they do not “control the entertainment industry, the banks and financial institutions” so that claim is not based in reality. Jews seem to be disproportionately represented in those fields, but they are not “controlled” by Jews and most Jews do not even work in those fields. I worked in an industry that was (in Cleveland) overwhelmingly dominated by Italian immigrants. That industry ran on narrow margins, so everyone was expected to be tight with their money. The huge majority of Italian business owners, the single Irish owner, and the scattered Polish and German estimators were complimented on their ability to squeeze a penny. The lone Jew in the industry (who was not the richest guy in the field and was known for fairness in dealing with vendors and employees) always attracted a comment about “being a Jew” when he pulled off a good deal.
I am sure that the people making those remarks were expressing a bit of jealousy, but they were playing on stereotypes (against the evidence) that had nothing to do with the real situation.

I have already noted that jealousy is one factor. However, it is a manufactured reason (much like the “Christ killer” reason) that only finds support because people have already chosen to believe bad things about this group which continues to maintain its cultural and religious traditions.

Jealousy, religious bigotry, and other factors certainly help to continue or expand the predudice against Jews in today’s world. However, they are only able to continue because the Jews remain a separate, identifiable group. In the U.S., Southerners and Northerners have had numerous flashes of intolerance of each other since the 1860s. They do not hunker down into a continuous state of warfare, however, because a person from the North or South who moves to the opposite region (or who mix into the West) winds up raising their children as one of the local people. A Jew who moves from one region or even nation to another remains an identifiable Jew.

My point is not that no other factor can have an effect, it is that all the other factors are an outgrowth of pre-existing prejudices. Many of the factors are false (Christ killer) or have been manufactured for political reasons, yet people accept them as legitimate reasons despite their shaky foundations.

Claims that Jews “control” entertainment or finance are demonstrably false. Regardless that a great many Jews make their living in those industries, they do not exercise “control.” Yet the charge continues without any evidence, simply because we recognize Jews as “different.”

The problems that I refer to are expanded on in the following sentence:

For Jews also excel (or at least do as well as other cultural groups) in “feats of arms” (take a look at the Jewish armed forces), and “athletic prowess” (several Olympic athletes and swimmers come to mind). As for their “mercantile expertise”, this I would have thought was of a legendary nature.

The respect accorded the Israeli Defense Force is hardly something that carries over to “Jews” on any general level and the presence of a few Jewish athletes has done nothing to promote the idea that “Jews” are great athletes–they are seen as individually great athletes who happened to have been Jewish. I have already addressed the issue of trading.

Jews are percieved as successful–judged by Nobel prizes in science and math or by becoming leaders in (not controllers of) financial industries–because a very high percentage of them (especially compared to the general population) study and come to their respective fields with an interest in learning as much as they can about those fields. This was my original point and noting that one 56 year old nation has fielded a tough army or that a doxen or so Olympic medalists happen to have been Jewish does not present a “problem” for that thesis.

[ralph124c]

In regard to the alleged hatred of jews (provoked by their role as “Christ killers”). As I understand it, Chrit’s death was a necessary thing, which was required for the salvation of mankind. In this sense, it (the death of Christ) was a very necessary, even “good” thing! As well, Christ 9being God as well) , was immortal, and afetr his day of intense suffering, was made whole and free of all earthly pain.
So why keep blaming the Jews for a historical event which:
(1) HAD to happen
(2) resulted in all manner of good things (the salavation of man)
It makes no sense to me!

[roger_thornhill]

@tomndebb

I have already noted that jealousy is one factor. However, it is a manufactured reason…

But jealousy isn’t a reason, it’s a feeling that many people have with regard to Jews. The reasons for that feeling may be many and various, including those already mentioned in this thread. They may be based on attestable, historical “facts” (quotation marks because of the way in which historical events have come down to us, and how and why and by whom they were recorded in the first place). They may also be of varying - and contestable - degrees of rationality.

But jealousy is no reason, and it can be described as “manufactured” no more than any other feeling can be so described.

[Carnac_the_Magnificent]

@tomndebb

Claims that Jews “control” entertainment or finance are demonstrably false. Regardless that a great many Jews make their living in those industries, they do not exercise “control.”

If demonstrably false, where is your demonstration? Proving that they don’t “exercise control” (your words) is something I’d like to see.

To argue that Goldwyn, Spielberg, Geffen, Katzenberg, Spelling, Spielberg, Ovitz, Wasserman, Mayer, Tisch, Eisner, Sarnoff, Goldenson, Paley, et al.–either today or historically–did not exert significant control on Hollywood or the media is silly beyond words. These are immensely powerful, supremely influential and monied men who have statuture far beyond what you grasp. Geffen alone controls a huge part of Hollywood. The fact that they are jewish is interesting, but that they exercise powerful control is beyond dispute. How much “control”–and whether that control is good or bad–is subject to debate, of course. ;j

[Latro]

@Carnac the Magnificent!

The fact that they are jewish is interesting, but that they exercise powerful control is beyond dispute. How much “control”–and whether that control is good or bad–is subject to debate, of course. ;j

Or rather, when does the perception of ‘a significant number’ of influential jews with control become the perception of the Jews are in control.

[Weirddave]

@Abe

You are missing the point and trumpeting an acausal argument to boot.

Instead of addressing it systematically and risking your epithet of “mental masturbator”, I will just note that you completely ignore the relevance of perception. For example, it is a popular perception that the Jews are to blame for the death of Jesus. Never mind that no viable historical records exist for this alleged killing or even for the life of Jesus. Never mind that it is now thought that early Christians were sucking up to the Romans at the expense of the Jews by deflecting possible criticisms away from the Empire when they redacted the New Testament. Never mind that it’s just a story in an old book of myths that people take on faith. No, the real problem is not whether the Jews are actually and historically to blame for the death of Jesus, but that a substantial number of people think they are.

That is what you call a cause of anti-Jewish sentiment – the very thing you claim does not exist.

Actually, I think you are making my point for me. The fact that Jews were NOT responsible for Christ’s death means that anyone who hates the Jews because they “killed Christ” is being irrational. Accusitations of deicide are just like any of the other reasons being discussed here-demonstrateably false. Basing a hatred on something that is demonstrateably false is irrational by definition.

Roger-

OK, I shot my load. What does that mean? Do I need to wipe it up? Do people swallow? I’m kind of confused as to what you meant by that. Still, I always enjoy shooting my load.