Why were tens of million of Jews massacred in the past 2000 years?

Question

Why were tens of million of Jews persecuted, killed and massacred right through Europe and the Middle East for the past 2000 years?

Even today, many people would like to see Israel and its people wiped of the map. Why?

I am surprised at you people.

Usually we have religious people jumping all over the place. But in this case, the silence from the catholics is defeaning.

As for the jews, they seem to be in denial. Their wealth only played a small role in their persecution.

Answer 1

God said we would be persecuted and hated for no reason... its more spiritual than anything

we have many blessings and promises... like wealth...

i will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you... any one who has ever just given me random money for being a jew... (christians) have been super super blessed in their finances two people i can think of off hand... one is now the ceo of a large christian book publishing company and can buy jags like candy.... and the other never has to worry about a dime... God said it... so it must be true

Answer 2

They did flourish in Muslim international places yet there have been extremely some kinds of persecution in Europe. No jewish historian that i recognize of has ever even approached the element you strengthen. we are able to basically assume there became into money to be made in Europe. In any adventure,to pass by the history of Palestine when you consider that 1920 jews might have an inclination to incredibly savour being the place they do no longer seem to be needed. apparently there is a few cultural tendency to masochism; all of those jews in Tel Aviv and environs are completely able to living commonplace lives in manhattan State or - incredibly - everywhere else on earth. yet they insist on displacing a rustic's human beings and then wail that the folk get mad approximately being displaced. I presume as nicely as earnings they have been in Europe for 2000 years to have something to wail approximately.

Answer 3

It's called 'anti-semitism'. For various reasons related to religious bigotry, economics, social patterns, etc., people through the centuries have found it convenient to kill Jews.

The answer from the person who claims Jews have no concern for the other genocides and mass murders throughout history is offensive and borders on being antisemitic. Obviously Jews have a serious ongoing concern with the murders inflicted on their people -- anyone who has suffered so much would have to have such a concern. Moreover Jews tend to be better educated than many other ethnic groups (including white Christians), so they are able to articulate what has happened to them more effectively than many others.

On the other hand, it is necessary to remember that indeed, mass murder has been a very frequent occurrence especially in the 20th century, and many of those occurrences are practically unknown even to educated people. (Look at the recent histories of Indonesia, East Timor and the Congo for examples.) But blaming the Jews for this ignorance is a grotesque injustice.

Another error to be avoided is confusing 'Jews' with 'the state of Israel'. The state of Israel is an extremely powerful, violent, racist, militaristic nation that has for many years systematically deprived Palestinians (i.e., the Arab population that lived in that region before the establishment of Israel) of basic human rights. Israel is mostly composed of Jews, but there are many Jews outside Israel (obviously) and a significant number of both Jews and non-Jews within Israel strongly oppose their nation's insane addiction to violence.

Those who hate the state of Israel are mostly Muslims and Arabs who regard Israel's existence as an extension of the western world's colonial history -- and unfortunately Israel has done little to counteract this view. The result is that a minority of Muslims have developed a lunatic ideology that combines anti-semitism with nationalism and religion in a blend that produces numerous acts of nihilistic violence and a general attitude of hatred for Israel and the west.

Answer 4

Jews are not the only ones who have been massacred in large numbers. It is the Jews, because of their overbearing persecution complex, who have made the most noise about it. Many tens of millions of others, all non-Jews, have been massacred but to the egotistical viewpoint of Jews it is only the Jews that matter and only the Jews that count. To Jews the mass killings of others are of absolutely no account and therefore deserve not even to be mentioned.

Josef Stalin killed upwads of 25 million Russians, Mao killed maybe even a higher number of Chinese, The Turks killed the Armenians, the Japanese killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese in a very short period during the Rape of Nanking in the 1930s, the racially-motivated mass killings in Africa over many years have wiped out an untold number, the Conquistadores killed entire cities of native Central and South American Indians, and ten times as many civilians died in the Nazi seige of Leningrad in WW2 than died in the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima. Yet to the Jews, none of these are even worth mentioning as if the death of one Jew is more significant than all the others put together.

So the question really needs to be rephrased in light of history, since the Jews are really only a drop in the bucket when it comes to mass genocide and far from the greatest victims of persecution and murder. Other people have suffered an equal or even more horrendous fate.

Answer 5

When you cover that big a span of time, one is addressing a multiple of varied reasons depending on location and time in history.

The Jewish people invaded Canaan and forcefully took their land and killed or drove the inhabitants from the land. Variably over time, this land became Israel/Judah, Judea, Palestine and finally Israel again. The location as a strip of land between the area known as Mesopotamia (later Assyria and Babylon) made invasion tempting. Assyria invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and scattered the "Lost 10 Tribes" of Israel, never to be seen or heard from again. Later Babylon invaded Judah and took all the Jews as slaves. They stayed in captivity for 100 years until Persia invaded Babylon and they were set free. They returned to Judah. Later they were captured and enslaved by the Egyptians and returned over a span of 400 years. Judah became Judea. The Romans invaded and secured Judea as a province and a restless peace ensued. There were several Jewish revolts against the Romans, and finally in 70 AD, the Roman army tried to destroy the entire Jewish civilization, killing thousands and scattering thousands of others to the four winds, never to return to that area until after WWII, but at that time, the land was Palestine and had been occupied for the last 2000 years. To the Palestinians, it was their homeland and they were "invaded" by the Jews. They were divided by religion from the Islamists and by politics. The Arab world saw the Jews as invaders and destroyers of Islam and all the Middle East wars and conflicts have ensued as a result. Now there is a long "blood history" between them and the hatred runs deep. This is both religious and political and also cultural.

After the Romans scattered them in 70 AD, the Jews ended up becoming small groups and spread all over Europe and the Balkans and Russia. Most groups will eventually "melt" into the new culture of the new land, but the Jews have keep a strong separate identity with intermarriage forbidden, strong religious and cultural differences from the new country the moved to. This creates an entire people (spread in groups in thousands of miles) who became a perpetual minority clearly identified as "different" from the civilization they inhabited. They kept to themselves, helped their own people, and assumed roles as shopkeepers, traders, small businessmen, and trades people.

Instinctually, humans dislike those (especially minorities) who are different than them. Distrust and hate build between the general population and the Jewish population and eventually recrimination and racism breaks out in various places through history. The general population distrusted the Jews, and also the Jews appear to become more prosperous than the general population causing envy, jealousy, resentment, distrust, fear. Being a minority, they were convenient scapegoats when society or the economy went wrong. They conveniently blamed the Jews and racism made it all the easier. As a result, uprisings would happen among the general population who would kill or drive out the Jews. It was the Jewish identity as a misunderstood minority that placed themselves in this situation. They did not welcome outsiders into their group, they had very strange cultural differences and a different religion from the general population. They were considered to get the upper hand in commerce and trade, and resentment and racism were always brewing and seething wherever they were. Remember that they refused to intermarry and refused to allow outsiders into their group and refused to melt into the general community. And this caused Jews to be identified as perpetual outsiders who could not be trusted, who carried a racial stigma, and eventually a reputation as a "bad people" because of the dislike of them and the fighting and killing that followed Jews wherever they went. Any problems in Europe and Russia were blamed on the Jews. They became the perpetual villains to be hated wherever they go. And they were clearly identified because of their separation, culture, religion, dress, and economics.

Societies eventually assimilate other smaller cultures so that they melt into the society and do not keep a separate identity. The Jews never melted into the culture and maintained a highly visible separate identity. This process kept repeating itself all over the world. Majorities no not like minorities who are different, but he Jews never would change.

The big massacre came in Europe during WWII when Hitler identified Jews as "the villains" who caused Germany's economic problems. Hitler had a great hatred for Jews and used them as scapegoats for his political ends. And, of course, Hitler had great destructive power and he managed to kill 6 million Jews before being destroyed himself. He wanted to rid Europe of Jews for all eternity. He failed.

Answer 6

The short answer to your question is that there are a lot of jerks in the world, and some of them hate Jews.

Answer 7

2000 years, try 4-5,000 years, beginning with Pharoahs who enslaved them, the Babylonians who conquered them and hauled them off to Babylon.

Answer 8

If you really want to understand this, you need to study these resources:

Online seminar:
http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews

Audio lectures on the material in MP3:
http://www.aishaudio.com/search/results.php?directkw=semitism&catlink=Anti-Semitism&sid=5019ytf7r05oz9w

Good luck.

Answer 9

Because nobody liked to hear them whining all the time.

Answer 10

because people have always seen us as economic threats