What makes people anti-Semitic? Exactly why are Jews so hated?

Question

There are so FEW of us (only about 15 million worldwide), and so many people seem to have an issue with our existance....we are not militant, we are not all millionaires (contary to popular belief, but dont even get me STARTED on that particular stereotype, it arose during a time period when people believed that herbs in your pocket protected against the plague and that Jews had horns and tails), and we are fairly unobtrusive--most people have never even MET jew, so why do they all seem to hate us? It is a really sad state of affairs, and I want to hear people's opinions on the matter, because I am quite confused. What did we do wrong???

OK, just for the record: i know that anti-Semitism technically means hatred of anyone of the Semitic race. I am not an absolute moron, much to the surprise of many. I was merely using the phrase becasue it is the most common way of expressing "Jew-hating." Also, we are actually .02% of world population, and about 2% (i believe)of the american population. There are pockets of Jews all around the world, but we are almost fully centralized in America and Israel (which happens to be about the size of New Jersey and shrinking fast, as it continiues to give back its land. Also, it is surrounded by so many Muslim states that you think they could give us a break! But whatever, that is not what this is about.) The penny-pinching Jew stereotype stems from the middle-ages when the only profession allowed to Jews was money-lending, and they needed to charge interest to stay alive. I believe that I have now covered all of teh common knowledge needed to respond to this Q. without being repetitive :)

Answer 1

I'm not sure. I personally have any problem with people who are Jewish, and have had a few friends who were. But for some reason anti-Semiticism seems to be growing. All that I can advised is not to let it get you down.

Blessed Be.

Answer 2

Jews are hated for several reasons.

First, the bible mentions Jews wanting Jesus to be crucified. A lot of people take the bible literally, and see that as a reason to hate Jews.

Second, Jews have been in military conflict with other people of the Middle East for thousands of years, on and off. That's enough time for a lot of irrational hatred to build up.

Third, part of the Jewish culture is being industrious and thrifty, which causes Jews to become wealthy more often than other people. It's almost natural to the human race, whenever anyone suffers, to blame people who seem to be better off, even if they had nothing to do with the suffering.

But just keep in mind that the people who hate Jews are a small vocal minority. Ask a WASP father if he would feel OK about his daughter marrying a black person, a Mexican, a Chinese person, a Muslim, or a Jew, and he would probably tell you he's not prejudiced but would rather have her marry the Jew than any of the others.

So it's not really true that Jews are generally hated. They aren't. Only by a small vocal minority.

Answer 3

Why do some people hate Muslims? Why do many Muslims hate Americans? Why do some Catholics hate all other Christian religions? I guess in some ways you can see what my point is here. There are so many differences with people. Age, race, religion, ethnic backgrounds, sexuality, gender, etc. Some people hate the unknown. They are afraid of it. Others were just brought up that way. Even more do it because of peer pressure from friends. There are so many reasons to hate and despise, but none of those reasons are right by any means.

Personally, I am a Christian. But I do not look down upon people of other religions. In ways the Jewish religion stemmed my religion, and for that I am thankful. If people could just accept that others are not like them, and embrace the person behind it all, the world would be a better place to live. I have friends that come from many different religions and lifestyles. I do not understand where the hatred comes from either.

Answer 4

You want to know the REAL reason why the Jews are hated in this day and age? Because we cannot separate the Jews from the Zionists. The Zionists are the political troublemakers.

I cannot beleive that in over 20 answers - not one person has mentioned that stupid damned holocaust. If this answer gets reported, well that will confirm my theory that the zionists do not like hearing the truth.

For the last 60 years the zionists have constantly complained about how badly they were treated in the holocaust of world war 2 and how the rest of the world owes them. For 60 years the zionists have been complaining and whining that they are the victims.

Now the truth is slowly starting to come out. Yes the holocaust happened. But I do not believe 6 million jews died. I think it was probably closer to 3 million. Even the Auschwitz memorial has revised their numbers downwards. The other 3 million were of other minoirites such as gypsies, hungarians, poles, russians, czechs & slovaks and anyone else the Nazi's didnt like.

As for the gas chambers - well theres not a lot of proof of those. Sure some jews were gassed, but again, so were the gypsies, the poles, the hungarians, etc

Most jews died in the camps of diseases such as typhus. Anne Frank and her family (except her father) all died of typhus. They were not gassed.

But for the last 60 years the zionists have constantly whined - "you let us be gassed to death, you owe us" - and yep America is paying through the nose for what happened 60 years ago. America is also paying through the nose for what happened 5 years ago as well. Thats called BLACKMAIL.

Did you know there were other holocausts last century? No, I didnt think so. The Zionists make sure you dont hear about those in school.

The Soviet Holocaust of Christian Russian Kulak farmers. (1924 - 1930) - 15 million exterminated!

The Holocaust of the Ukranian farmers, (1930- 1933) - 7 million starved to death.

The Holocaust of Russian political prisoners, (1919 - 1949) - 12 million perished.

The Pol Pot Communist Holocaust in Cambodia (1975) - 2.5 million slaughtered.

Armenian Holocaust by the Turks, (1915) - 1.5 million people killed.


And lastly the reason why

Why is the Holocaust story important to Israel?
a) Israel's 1948 declaration of independence states the reason that state was being founded was the Holocaust had shown there was a need for a Jewish state as a place of refuge for Jews suffering persecution. Without the Holocaust, there is no demonstrated need for a Jewish state. The Israeli government therefore considers any questioning of the Holocaust to be a questioning of Israel's right to exist. It passed a law in the early 1980's making questioning, or minimizing the Holocaust a crime punishable by a sentence of five years in prison-a sentence more severe than the one in Israeli law for questioning God's existence.

Answer 5

I think that it is cognitive dissonance and transferrence/projection.

Religions/Political Movements/Ideologies all have human flaws in them.

People that can't accept the flaws in their core values (and where those values stem from) may project the negative characteristics to the "other," often times the Jews.

Some examples would include a greedy person blaming Jews for controlling the money, a person with extremely unpopular views blaming the lack of acceptance on the "Jew controlled media," or a violent/controlling person projecting their violent/controlling tendencies onto Jews in order to rationalize their own impulses as self defense.

These things are attack on Jews, which is different than legitimate theological debate on the merits and problems within the religion of Judaism.

Answer 6

First off, learn what the term anti-Semitic means. The term Semitic refers to a group of languages, they are the Semitic languages, which includes Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc. The media has mis-used that term for so long.
I think that some people have questioned the overall loyalty of Jews and that may be the problem. The US being the largest supporter (financial, military, and otherwise) of Israel, yet they have spied on the US and sold US military secrets. And with the spies that were caught, there was huge pressure on Washington to release the spies from Jewish groups in America.
For myself, I do not hate you for your religious beliefs, you are Jewish and that is your religious choice. No difference to me Christian, Jew (Judaism), or Muslim (Islam), or any other religion.

Answer 7

Evidently, it's because we're rich and control the media. I believe the rich stereotype may have been started when the Xtian Polish forced us to be money changers because any other job was too clean for a dirty Jew. I honestly don't know why nobody likes us.

But I do know I spend too much time thinking of the day when my children run to me with tears in their eyes asking "why do they hate us Ima?"

Layla:
an·ti-Sem·ite /ˌæntiˈsɛmaɪt, ˌæntaɪ- or, especially Brit., -ˈsimaɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[an-tee-sem-ahyt, an-tahy- or, especially Brit., -see-mahyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
a person who discriminates against or is prejudiced or hostile toward Jews.

Arabs are semitic peoples, but for some reason the definition of antisemitism means against Jews only. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Judaism. Zionism is a political movement and not all Jews are for it, either.


David T contradicts himself: "i am not an active evangelist for Jews....I stand by Jews in their walk with Y*shua"
Also...Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism.

Nd Jayma: yep it's true.
"Although the total number of Jews is difficult to measure and is controversial, most authorities place the number between 12 and 14 million, the majority of whom live in the United States and Israel. (see Jewish population)" We make up .02% of the world's population.

Answer 8

For starters, as a Muslim, I would have to say that it is also a popular but false perception - a misconception - a misunderstanding - for anyone to say that Muslims are anti-Semitic. Muslims are only against the tyranny of the Zionist regime of Israel, not the peaceful Jews.

God knows best

Peace and Love

Answer 9

It is sad. I remember growing we taught in school (Catholic) to avoid Jews. Never really understood at that young age what it was all about.

As an adult I traveled the world and met many people of your faith. People are just ignorant, intolerant, and unable to distinguish the truth from myth. Unfortunately there are many directed at your culture.

In this day and age I believe the root cause still to be stereotypes, misinformation that is promulgated by zealot bigots and hate mongers.

Answer 10

I love the Jews with all my heart. Even though the traditional Jews hate me because I am messianic. I am a Christian who likes to celebrate the feasts and stand by the Jews in their walk with Yeshua. I pray for Isreal and Shalom in Jerusalem alot.

I am the biggest Zionist ever, and not an active evangelist to Jews. I just support and love the ones that come in. Hope you dont hate me, but if you do, praise G-d anyhow.

To answer, people will always hate what G-d loves. It is the desire of the flesh. Spiritual people will always love the Jews.

Bless you, hope u had a Shabbat Shalom
David

EDIT: I am not contradicting....I dont go out and grab people and bring them in...thats evangalism.

I stand by any brother or sister that walks in....thats just love not evangelism. Oh, well.

Answer 11

It is because Jehovah used your race because of a promise he made to Abraham that the Messiah would come threw his chosen people.
The Jewish people as a nation have had to contend with other nations who were jealous of this favored standing with Jehovah and the world today are still under Satan the Devil’s influence.
Jealousy is an ugly tool Satan uses to divide and conquer mankind.
Also is the fact that most rejected Jesus as the Messiah during the years of 29 CE to 70 CE when the Jewish nation was invited to become and exclusive member of that 144,000 that were to be bought from mankind.
The Jewish nation as a whole, rejected that invitation at Pentecost 33 CE but that hasn’t stopped the jealousy of having Gods favor before that and the fact that if they themselves were in that crowd when Pilot was trying to keep Jesus alive, how many of them would have been brave enough to fight the crowd and stand up for what is right?
To many people do not want to be faced with that kind of peer pressure.