Anti-semitism, any grounds for that?

Question

OK. We all hear about ant -semitism and hate for jews. The question is why there is this hate for jews.... Almost every nation among which jews live and lived before have large group of people that hate them.

There is no anti-spanish, anti-german, anti-indian, anti-japanese thing.... May be there is BUT it is not as wide spread as anti-semitism. WHY?

I did not kill Jesus! as someone says there. Also, I am not a jew.

Answer 1

I guess the whole idea of being the "Chosen People" strikes non-Jews as being a bit arrogant.

Another thing is the distribution of wealth. I don't want to perpetuate any stereotypes, but I will say that Jews, proportionately by population, have more power than other ethnic groups. Anytime that a minority population has more power than a majority group, then tensions arise.

And, of course, Christians think that Jews killed Jesus.

I will add that it is Christians who are historically responsible for most of the persecution of Jews. Other religions, including Islam, have been much more tolerant. In the case of Islam, this tolerance changed only after the formation of Israel in 1948.

Answer 2

I'd like to point out that the Jews in India have not been hated! Hindus are very tolerant of other religions, and have welcomed the persecuted minorities to their country for the most part.

Anyways, the reason that Christian nations have hated Jews is directly related to their theology, or skewed version of it. It has to do with pride. Christians who have hated Jews have thought that Jews practiced an outdated religion that no longer carried the blessing of God. They have thought that Jews were somehow responsible for the death of Christ.

They have hated the very existence of Jews, because in a way, the Jew's very existence can be seen as a possible witness against Christianity's claim that Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.
If Jesus was truly the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies, then who should have recognized him the most? The Jews, who were the most familiar with those prophecies! So this is a credibility problem for the Christian claim. So to deal with this problem, some early Christian writers said the reason Jews don't "recognize" the "Messiah" is that they are Satanic! Or worse, it was claimed that they DO recognize him, and reject him anyway. That is something so evil, only Satan could do that.

That's what many came to believe, because they didn't know how else to deal with the credibility problem.

In Muslim countries, Jews have sometimes been hated because they did not accept Islam. According to Islam, Muhammad is told about in the Torah. If so, then Jews should have recognized him, but they didn't. So it's the same thing as with the Christians. It's a credibility problem. So they demonize the Jews.
Muslims originally did not treat Jews nearly as badly as Christians had treated them.
But with the founding of Israel, this changed. Muslims who hate Jews today usually are anti-Zionist. They feel that Jews have taken over a Muslim land. So the hatred is fueled by land wars.

Throughout history, leaders have blamed easy targets. Jews were easy targets. People already had a degree of hatred for them, so the leaders could get by with making outlandish claims about them, to blame them for all the evils of society. So with each lie they told against the Jews, the hatred increased yet more, until people were able to commit terrible atrocities against them.

Answer 3

No, it is not the fault of the Jews, as you imply. You should consider that almost all nations in which Jews live and lived are either predominantly Christian or predominantly Muslim, and both religions have not become famous for tolerance. Keep in mind that Christians have often even persecuted Christians of other denominations, wiped out the Pagan religions of Europe and massacred Muslims in the crusades.

And such hatred does not disappear easily. Once a group of people is hated for their different religion, or there are at least certain negative sentiments for them and they are mistrusted because people don't know them, they become convenient scapegoats for everything and the hate can becomes worse.



And the Spanish, the Germans, the Indians and Japanese always had their own countries, they did not live as minorities among others. Minorities are always the first victim of bigotry.

Answer 4

First of all, anti-semitism is kind of misnomer since many Arabs are semites as well.

In ancient times, Jews were seen as different. They only worshiped one God, and that God did not allow them to perform rituals that included sex acts and human sacrifice. They were the ultimate party poopers. They were further set apart by different dietary laws and circumcision. We all know about groups outside of the mainstream are considered with suspicion.

After the fall of the Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judah to foreign invaders, their occupiers were forever fearful of a Jewish uprising. Once the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans, a mass transplantation and spreading of the Jews throughout the Roman empire was enforced. This helped decentralize them.

By the time of Hitler, there were a few things going on. First of all their was an economic crisis stemming from the stock market crash in 1929. Where as FDR used this drum up support for new ideas and innovation, Hitler used it to gain power by giving the German people a target for their unhappiness, the Jews. Plus, by killing the Jews, the government could seize their assets and redistribute them.

Secondly, eugenics and the quest for the superior ruling class was big all over the world, even the U.S. Hitler decided to test eugenics by doing biological experiments and eliminating a race that he had marked inferior. In the U.S. this led to the formation of compulsory public schooling. Public schooling was designed to make a lower class workforce that would not be too innovative or question authority. The biological and financial elite would receive special schooling to rise above.

There was also this silly idea of holding all Jews responsible for Jesus' death. This lead to a lot of suspicion and hatred for Jews. But mainly the Jews have been used as scapegoats for when things go wrong.

Answer 5

people don't just hate jews people hate anyone and anything they can, we are all one race and that race is the human race,
and its funny that people are using the word "anti-Semitic" more and more now it is plainly called racism. as to why there is hate i don't really know, but not everyone is a saint or a perfect individual when it comes to this topic.
but if you can answer me this. why do people hate Mexicans?
or black people? or even native Americans?

last time i checked the native Americans were raped slaughtered and left for dead, now we live on that very land that was coverd in their blood.

Latinos experienced the same thing except everyone forgot about it, the Spaniard's came did the same to the Mayans which later became the Aztecs then raped and killed them as well.

as for the blacks we all know what happend and yet everyone doesn't accept it.

so it is not just the jews who get negative vibes sent their way
it is allot of nationalities that experience them same sh.it if not worse.

but they aren't white so why should we care right?

Answer 6

Hi,
OK here's the answer you're looking for. Satan is the God of this world...He doesn't own it, but he thinks he does. He really hate God's chosen people, and has made it as difficult as possible for them, and will continue to until the 2nd coming of Christ. Jesus was a Jew, and Jesus took this planet back from Satan, and Satan hates the Jews because Jesus was a Jew. Yes, it's that simple.

Answer 7

so which you have taken one man or woman and generalised approximately tens of millions of Jews...? i assumed you have been relatively brighter than that, D. the relatively answer is the different. Jews are continuously very reluctant to accuse everyone of anti semitism, because of the fact to us it relatively is a serious accusation. i'd say 8 situations out of ten, if we alledge anti semitism, we are real. definite, there are *occasional* examples of hyper sensitivity - yet good day, blame that on thousands of years OF rabid hatred in direction of us.

Answer 8

Because God has plans for them, satan opposes those plans and he influences people to hate them. He tried to get Pharoah to kill all the Jewish babies so Moses wouldn't lead them out of slavery, tried to get haman to kill them all so Jesus wouldn't be born, tried to get herod to kill all the babies so he could get Jesus before he had a chance to enter into his ministry, tried to get Hitler to kill all the Jews so there would be no Israel and no Jesus returning as per prophecy, etc. etc. etc

Answer 9

well in every group around the world there are groups that hate each other. Its human nature to instantly conclude us and them.

Answer 10

You killed Jesus.

Plus Jews are a very uncompromising people and they have been throughout history. When you were a kid you hated the kid who always made up the rules and had to have it his/her way- same thing.