What is the reason for anti-semitism?

Question

My theory is that our western values came from Rome, Greece, Egypt, Christianity and Jews. From Judaism came Christianity. Most of the western people, Europeans and Americans white, are descendants from the Barbarians, no insult intended, that dominated the Roman Empire 14 centuries ago, converting to Christianity after emperor Constantine the Great legalized it. Because of that, the Barbarians felt "cheated" by being civilized by Christians and its founder, Jesus, was a Jew. What do you think?

Answer 1

I disagree with your theory. Anti-semitism was institutionalized and promoted by the church throughout the middle ages. It is always convenient for individual people to go along with institutionalized prejudice as this allows them to benefit in tangible ways--they can cheat the prejudice targets, for example.

Answer 2

This has been the source of questions for the greatest minds in the world and no one really has a good answer. It seems that people just need a scapegoat, things go wrong, they can't compete with someone so they decide to kill them off and take their stuff by force. That was what happened during the Spanish Inquisition when the Christians demanded that all Jews convert or leave the country with nothing, not money or any possessions. If they refused they were tortured, or if they seemed to submit the inquisitor found some "evidence" that they were not true believers and they were put to death anyway and between the church and the Spanish king they divided the booty. And of course there is the ever popular reason to kill Jews which is "they killed Jesus".Think ahead to Hitler, things were going badly in Germany and the only people with any money it seemed were Jews. So what did they do, they herded them together, took their stuff, and then they killed them off.
It sounds simplistic and yet that is what was happening even before the Jews left their homeland,before Christianity. And yet, all these people, the Church, the Hitlers and other deviants and bullies of the world say they are doing "ethnic cleansing" or making their race pure. They forget the teachings of most religions if not all, the top commandment "though shalt not kill" in their zeal to supposedly make life better for the non Jew. Just for the record, I am not a Jew but I am human and not too many people can claim that when the chips are down.

Answer 3

It is all about a feeling of belonging and a feeling of empowerment. People fear what they don't know and hate what they don't want to accept. The reason a person hates another persons religion is because they are not the same as in they are differnt. That is it. If I have my belief in X then I will hang out with like minded people who also believe in X. We share the same idea, there is a certain metodology of doing things and thereofre a feeling of belonging. Then along comes Y. Y does things a bit different. Y is a bit contrary to the things X do. It doesn't matter if the difference is good or bad what matters is that Y is different. Therefore because I belong to the X group, any other group presents a treat to my X way of life and belief. In short Y must go.

This argument is the same for any type of group whether is religious in nature or not. I mean lok at the same belief system but with slightly different variations. The evangelist do not like the Catholics. The protestants definetly do not like the Catholics. Sunniis hate the shiites even though they are both muslims. So, go figure.

Answer 4

Anti-semitism is a tradition that has been encouraged by various governments and churches (christian and pre-christian alike) for centuries.
It would seem that one reason for the birth of anti-semitism is that Jews have often throughout history lived in various societies as a distinct minority. A minority that is unwilling (or unable) to fully assimilate for one reason or another. Thus, since in these situations the Jews have been distinctly different from the majority of the population of each particular country, it was easy for the rulers of such countries to single the Jews out as scape goats.
Scape goats have, unfortunately, always throughout history been required to quell popular discontent arising from time to time.
In places where Jews did not live in siginficant enough numbers, other distinct minorities (such as Armenians or Chinese) have been assigned the exact same role.

Answer 5

I think a lot of it stems from the Biblical passage, "His Blood be on us and upon our children." The Jews crucified Christ, and so many people see their descendants as directly responsible for that. Therefore (in their minds) the Jews deserve death. I think that's ridiculous; however, prejudice survives. There are many other reasons, and I'm not disputing the validity of yours. Sometimes races hate other races for reasons they've entirely forgotten: someone's great-great-great-great grandfather ran off with someone else's great-great-great-great grandfather's wife. Who knows? There's a lot that goes on that survives in racial memory but not in present memory.

Answer 6

the jews killed jesus, and since they didnt have any land and a lot of money they were good scapegoats for anything they happened wrong in the christian countries

Answer 7

In this century? Ignorance.

Answer 8

I like to keep things simple.Jewish culture is borderline isolationist,and people fear the unknown.