Hi
Why does anti-Semitism among Westerners/Western-educated people have such staying power today?
I can understand perhaps anti-Semitism having such traction when Jews were one of the few minorities in our society./ But today, when our society has so many more minorities, why are Jews still scapegoated? I am aware of the antipathy many Muslims have for Jews. I hear it daily. You only have to look a the situation France and Germany when it comes to relations between Muslims and Jews (not all Muslims and Jews hate each other! but there is an undeniable issue there) Is it the fact that Jews are still overrepresented in the film industry (if that’s still true?) or the banking industry or the arts? the courts? Its is an issue of right-wing groups blaming Jews for decadence? liberalism?Perhaps I’ve put my finger on the answer. I don 't know. There are many minorities in the West who do not integrate easily or happily. Most Jews typically have. I am genuinely interested in the question of why anti-Semitism is still so pervasive among Western-educated people. I look forward to your feedback.
Can’t speak for French and German Muslims but it seems clear that Christians feel inferior to Jews, something that does not apply to other minority groups. Jews are described as having superior intelligence that Christians can’t ever compete with, thus Jews will eventually control everything on earth. Judaism is also seen as a superior religion to Christianity, requiring true faith and adherence to God over all other things. Christianity on the other hand requires only one moment of proclaimed faith before death. Even Christianity believes that Jews are the chosen people of God while they themselves are not. In addition Christians are jealous of the Jews ability to ignore the concept of original sin while no Christian can ever be good in their own eyes.
So while most hate and prejudice is a way for people to feel superior to others, anti-semitism will exists as long as the weak and insecure are shamed by their own mythology.
The two types of anti-semitism I’ve encountered in the UK (not as a victim) are:
Left-wingers objecting to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians leading to conflation of the state of Israel and the Jewish people in general.
Various supposed global conspiracies being pinned on wealthy Jewish people (e.g. Soros, the Rothschilds, etc.).
In both cases, those spouting what seems clearly anti-semitic have denied it when I’ve challenged them, as if they’ve inadvertently bought into it. Though even if this isn’t deliberate/active anti-semitism it must provide a more comfortable environment for outright Nazi(-sympathiser)s to operate in.
Thanks TriPolar, but it seem to me that in today’s society, where many may call themselves Catholics, Protestants etc there is far more agnosticism, and fewer nominal Christians are actually practicing their faith. So I don’t think the virulent anti-Semitism that is becoming a very serious problem in the US for example is triggered by religion necessarily . It seems to be racial in nature but what actually drives this hatred? Is is social, cultural or economic pressure? . Do the perpetrators of the killings of Jews or the defacement of Jewish grave stones give any reasons why they do it? What reasons do they give?
You already know the answer to that, you’ve stated it here. It’s not religion per se, it’s tribalism, whether you believe in the mythology or not it is something you accept to stay in the tribe. Read your posts carefully, they indicate to me an acceptance of anti-semitic tribal nonsense.
Thanks Staggerlee. It does seem to me based on what I’ve seen online that people really do believe these theories. But what gives these conspiracies traction? I suspect many of them have never met Jews or their social surroundings simply perpetuate these myths? I’s be interested in any studies done on social groups, how they come by these conspiracies(word of mouth, internet etc), retain them and pass them on generation after generation. Of course there are also political voices that reinforce these conspiracies too.
Like almost all all such conspiracy and hate theories, I’ve always believed it comes out of insecurity or perceived power imbalance. People feel out of control of their lives - for whatever reason - and seek something outside of themselves to blame for it. And general economic forces are too abstract. So people look for an outgroup.
They’re feeling powerless or desperate.
They know they’re working and trying.
It’s not working.
Someone must be manipulating things to hold them down.
Combine that with a European overarching church for millenia that didn’t want a competing power structure - or even a group that didn’t acknowledge it’s authority - and you have a decent path towards centuries of persecution.
I know so many family members who believe anti-Semitic conspiracies, some too bizarre and identifying to post here. Many swear up and down that the Jews own the banks. (A quick check of the CEOs and board of directors of Canadian banks would bring up very few Jewish names.) Since banks have a lot of money, obviously they “own” industry who lobby and “own” politicians, so when you realize all politicians support a law you don’t like, it’s really the “fault of the Jews”. This is so much BS, of course. Another article of BS would be Hollywood conspiracies; Holloywood had many Jewish founders (who moved to an area that had yet to develop anti-Semitic barriers) and has a lot of left-wing cultural influence… so some right-wing anti-Semites believe that Jews are programming people through the media to be left-wing.
In the last Quebec separation referendum, in 1995, Jacques Parizeau blamed his side’s loss on “l’argent et des votes ethniques”, which translates as “money and the ethnic vote”. Argent is French for silver, or money, and when I first heard the statement, I was offended at the latter half of the statement. Both sides had cheated; the winning side found “creative” ways of overspending, and I assumed that’s what the comment on money meant. I was wrong. I later found out that “argent” is also a derogatory term for Jew in French. Jews voted heavily against separation, but I doubt this had anything to do with these voters being Jewish specifically. Other people of non-French descent heavily voted against separation too. Specifically identifying Jews in that statement was redundant. The person who explained this to me is a Jew, originally from Montreal, Quebec. His family moved out due to anti-Semitic incidents following that referendum, so this wasn’t just a single politician making a racist statement, although I’m sure that convinced at least a few losers to blame Jews for their loss. (His best friend at work was an Egyptian Muslim. They used to argue about discrimination … against smokers, because one of them smokes and one of them is very opposed to smoking.)
Christianity as a force is diminishing in the West, and some churches strongly support Israel or “the chosen people”, but Christianity has been hostile to Jews for a very long time, blaming them for killing Christ, or being usurers, and so forth.
Jews were routinely massacred in the Russian Empire prior to the Communist takeover. Iliodor (the real mad monk) led pogroms against Jews. Many Russian peasants were being oppressed by their Russian noble landlords, who hired middlemen (frequently Jews) to collect rents and evict peasants who didn’t pay up. The peasants aimed their hostility at these middlemen rather than the landlords. I had initially thought that evicted peasants headed to the cities and spread anti-Semitic ideas there, but it seems that anti-Semites from the cities traveled to the countryside to spread anti-Semitic ideas instead (and found an audience that believed what they were told).
Jews may be considered a “model minority” in North America, along with East Asians. They generally have higher levels of wealth than average, though of course there’s going to be a lot of variation. Envy is an ugly beast. Toronto’s former mayor Rob Ford made comments about East Asians saying they “work like dogs”. (I recall a report showing that the typical Muslim American actually makes more money than the average, mainly because many arrived in the US as educated immigrants, and they voted heavily for George W. Bush. I believe the opposite is the case in Europe, where Muslims mainly enter the EU via family reunification programs but many of these countries of origin have very poor education systems.)
Israel vs Palestine is an issue. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn supported Palestinian causes, and was repeatedly criticized for doing almost nothing to stop anti-Semitic incidents in his own party. (I am reminded of a “joke” that wasn’t funny, concerning how you make decisions in the UK election that recently occurred. If you hated Jews, you voted Labour. If you hated Muslims, you voted Conservative. Corbyn is accused of anti-Semitism, while Boris Johnson made numerous Islamophobic statements. The two largest parties had racist elements.)
In Europe, a large increase in Muslim immigration has led to significant increases in anti-Semitic incidents. The West doesn’t know how much anti-Semitism is promoted by Middle Eastern governments, and Europe has done a poor job of integrating Muslim immigrants, so these beliefs aren’t fading.
The saddest component is a combination of time and social media echo chambers. World War II ended long ago; there are still people alive today who escaped from or freed the concentration camps, but they are getting fewer and fewer. People get a lot of their information from social media. Even if you are given adequate information in school, social media echo chambers can convince people that the information they got from school is inaccurate, biased, etc. This is one reason why Holocaust denialism exists, even though the Nazis themselves recorded the Holocaust in detail. It’s only going to get worse. In 2045 neo-Nazis and other anti-Semites will be insisting the whole thing was a hoax, and will say “conveniently, there are no witnesses”.
I don’t have time to post all of my thoughts, but echoing what was said up-thread, left wing antipathy toward Jews is often a product of Israel’s displacement of Palestinians (often ignoring the fact that despots and militias in the region haven’t exactly been helpful to Palestinians either).
Most antisemitism, however, is rooted in centuries-old stereotypes that reflect suspicions about the perceived success of individual Jews and/or Jewish communities relative to the general population. My guess is that antisemitism is particularly virulent when you have visible Jewish communities that live around others who are economically distressed. This is not unique to Jews; Chinese and Indians have dealt with similar persecutions as minority communities in other parts of the world, but like Chinese and Indian immigrant populations, Jews move around the world, and they form strong communities.
Many Jewish communities - at least in my admittedly limited experience - value education and economic independence. So when their neighbors go through periods of economic distress, Jews (like other “model minorities”) become targets.
Insert 3(a): But it IS working for some of “those outsiders” (with the implicit: which should never happen as long as one of “us” is not making it). Somehow the antisemite never seems to summon forth the image of some Jewish guy who’s just some workaday bloke like you or I, it’s always someone getting an advantage.
In the case of the West, this then of course gets tied in with the element of the Jews going through centuries retaining a distinct religiocultural identity, so they never stop being “different” and they are always there for the next wave of scapegoating. Which has the perverse self-reinforcing effect of some people then arguing “well, the accusation that they’re up to no good has been going on for centuries; there’s got to be something about it” :rolleyes:
Which combines, noxiously, with the idea that in Western societies you can’t tell “the Jew” on sight on the street if they’re not wearing traditional garments/styles, so there’s the feeling that they are “infiltrated” among the “Real (Insert Nationality Here)” population who are the only ones who should count… which ties in with…
Yet, they are seen as violating the “Model Minority” archetype by not “knowing their place” WRT the reservation of influence and power to the majority identity group, and of course, even though it may not be mentioned in polite company, by the failure to fully assimilate and melt into the base. “But couldn’t you try not being Jewish?” as it were.
Thank you Kimera757.
“. Many Russian peasants were being oppressed by their Russian noble landlords, who hired middlemen (frequently Jews) to collect rents and evict peasants who didn’t pay up. The peasants aimed their hostility at these middlemen rather than the landlords. I had initially thought that evicted peasants headed to the cities and spread anti-Semitic ideas there, but it seems that anti-Semites from the cities traveled to the countryside to spread anti-Semitic ideas instead (and found an audience that believed what they were told).”
I have never come across any reference to Jews collecting taxes from anyone other than Jews in Russia. Can you tell me where I can find information on Jews as middlemen outside of the Pale of Settlement or under Lenin or Stalin collecting taxes from peasants outside of Jewish settlements? I’s be very interested.
Once I heard a citizen of Israel (not Jewish ethnically or otherwise; I have no idea of his religion, if any, but he was an immigrant from the Soviet Union) start ranting that Jewish communities specifically did not value education and economic independence- rather religious studies and mooching off the state- and that they should not be amazed that people do not like them. He had some choice words for Muslims and secular Jews as well, not to mention the local government; I do not recall his exact lines of reasoning, but apparently there are very few people he does like.
There is some spill over from the political problem around Israel because the ignorant don’t understand what is happening. However in general what is expressed as hatred for Jews by Muslims in the middle east refers to Israelis. Even in Iran the local Jewish community is protected and honored because they are the good ones, not-Israeli non-Zionists who the Iranians would have no reason to hate. I have seen this kind of thing in US liberal circles because weak minded people are easy prey to anti-Semitism. And that is for this unusual case of hatred based on inferiority. It is something that happens in this country with Asians also, who are perceived as smarter than ‘white people’.
All of this is based on ancient hatred that is really simple tribalistic unity created by hatred of others. How many non-Jewish money middlemen were there in Europe? Only Jews? Where’s the hate for Christians who did the same thing. Why is any group of people described as ‘over-represented’ in some field even though they’ve had to achieve that status in the face of discrimination. Aren’t the members of the majority actually over-represented because they haven’t had to exceed the normal level of merit to obtain their positions? There are very few fields in the US that aren’t over-represented by ‘white’ Christians, but any one that is not is immediately suspect.
It is all mythology created and maintained in the name of hatred, not in any way caused by it’s victims.
Why? Because it’s ancient. Maybe the oldest and most widespread racial animus in the world.
It goes deeper than ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’ antisemitism because that implies that antisemitism rises from political ideologies. It doesn’t. It was already there. Right wing and left wing politics are only the lenses through which they present in this particular period of history in this particular part of the world.
If you’re a xenophobe then you distrust Jews because they’re not alien enough. You can more readily identify other groups because they’re noticeably different. But most Jews have assimilated into their societies and you don’t know they’re Jewish unless the subject comes up. Xenophobes can then project this into a secret conspiracy by “them” to infiltrate “us”.
For the first part, that’s from a book I read about Grigori Rasputin. That was a few years ago. I don’t have the cite at present, as that was a library book I read a few years ago (and it was a physical book).
As for the second, I was talking specifically about pre-Soviet Russia.
As has been pointed out Jews have been and continue to be a very convenient “other.” Sure most Western modern societies have other others too, but that is just more to scapegoat. It isn’t like those who are demonizing “immigrants”, Muslims, Blacks, so on, don’t have enough fear and loathing to spread around.
And then there is the simple fact that there is an over-representation of Jews as almost anything that you want to hate on. Neocons to socialists, civil rights advocates to those who oppose such rights, anarchist to capitalist pig, me-too villains to leaders in the me-too movement. A hater of anything can find Jews over-represented as thought leaders or of influence or as cardboard cut-outs in that thing to blame, so the Jewish conspiracy is simultaneously to mutually exclusive goals. And from the POV of those who want an other to blame, how else but conspiring with each other (and keeping you down) can you explain their relative success?
The Left and the Right both have plenty of elements that unite around hating the Jew, each blaming the Jew for opposite things.
I have no idea how to fight its rise. That Tablet article linked by NAF1138 is interesting enough, yes part of what has driven Jewish culture to be what it is as a force in the cultures that it is a part of has been the response to how it has been othered. But it does not give a great roadmap of how to effectively respond to it.