12 ms·

Can someone please explain to me what the hell is the problem people have with Jews? The only thing I can tell is maybe they're disproportionately financially s

by cheez 15y ago

Can someone please explain to me what the hell is the problem people have with Jews? The only thing I can tell is maybe they're disproportionately financially successful? I guess that's a problem...

panza 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism
alecbenzer 15y ago
I've also always wondered why a specific group has been so apparently consistently persecuted against for so long. It seems like it's been too long of a time period for the hate to simply have been passed on from generation to generation.
- adrianwaj 15y ago
  Very good observation. I think it's metaphysical, unseen. I found this interesting, if not alarming. EXPOSE: The Vatican is Cozying Up to Iran's Ahmadinejad http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10701 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/1070...
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  The reason they have been persecuted for so long is because they have survived for so long. Most heavily persecuted groups don't last long.
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    5,772 years so far. Happy New Year.
    - jganetsk 15y ago
      The Jewish calendar year is 5772. That means 5,772 years after Biblical creation. The biblical patriarch Abraham was born in the Jewish calendar year 1948. Going by that as the inception of the Jewish people, they are 3,824 years old. Historians would put the inception of the ancient Israelites at 1200 BCE.
wtracy 15y ago
More so than almost any other culture, Jews have been consistently able to maintain their own cultural identity even when they are in the demographic minority or displaced abroad. A lot of this is due to their willingness to close themselves off from the surrounding population and maintain their own, separate, religious and social structures. So, from the outside, the local population sees a group of foreigners brought into the country. This group refuses to assimilate, actively shuts strangers out of their group, and maintains a certain aura of secrecy. This means that the perception of the Jews as "outsiders" never goes away, even several generations after their arrival. Throw the semi-legendary Jewish financial success into the mix, and you fuel suspicion that "those people are up to something."
- iskander 15y ago
  The "locals" still get grumpy even when Jews can't own land or amass much wealth. The pogroms and massacres in Ukraine, Poland, Russia, etc... were generally against very poor communities. On the other hand, Jewish communities were much more financially successful and culturally prominent across the Arab world and seem to have drawn a lot less antipathy.
- microarchitect 15y ago
  Very interesting. Muslim and Hindu communities in the West are also trying to be insular and maintain their own cultural identities, but I guess they're not so effective because they don't have the financial success backing them up that the Jews have. It's a lot harder to deride someone when you know they're making way more money than you, I suppose. those people are up to something I don't mean this in any negative way, but they ARE up to something. This something is maintaining their levels of privilege. Is this wrong? I don't know. Probably not, I guess. I come from an upper caste family in India and it's easy for me to see that this is game that we in India have been playing since independence. There's a lot of cultural and economic know-how that helps people succeed in life, and upper caste families have an abundance of this. On the one hand, these folks succeed only because they ace the admission tests, have extraordinary academic records and are excellent communicators. On the other hand, the reason they have these qualities is because they were born with privilege. Is this wrong? Unfair? I really don't know. I can't help thinking it's the same situation as the Jews, though.
iskander 15y ago
As much as the Soviet Union tried to keep down Jews, they were also trying to promote people who fit a nationalist narrative. So it wasn't just antisemitism, it was also affirmative action for Russians (especially those of peasant descent).
- mazuhl 15y ago
  And at the same time the Russians did much to preserve Yiddish (a Jewish language).
  - anghyflawn 15y ago
    I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, but this is at best only partially correct. Yiddish was supported along with pretty much all minority languages in the 1920s and early 1930s, but this support also ceased when the minority support policy was reversed (with token remnants such as the Yiddish being an official language in the Jewish "homeland" in the Far East). Following WWII and postwar persecutions of Jews Yiddish all but stopped being transferred from parents to children in the USSR. I remember how happy my grandfather (born 1928) was when it became possible to embrace one's Yiddish heritage again in the late 1980s); but he did not teach the language to his children.
  - vbtemp 15y ago
    The Russians (you mean Soviets) did nothing to preserve yiddish. They tried to exile the jews to a desolate remote corner on the fringes of siberia where they could practice their culture (not their religion) in a soviet communist framework. I took Yiddish in university for a while. During the soviet years they tried to neutralize any hebraic or biblical references. For example, in hebrew the word for friend is "Chaver". It's the same in yiddish. But the soviets insisted that it be changed to the more germanic "fraynd". Similiarly, they insisted even on the changing of spellings to make the language altogether less hebraic and jewish - and more neutralized and soviet.
TheDroids 15y ago
Probably has a lot to do with things like AIPAC (the largest lobby in the US) and Zionism. I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Stat...
- tkahn6 15y ago
  Except that Zionism has only existed as a coherent and codified ideology since 1896 and AIPAC has only existed since 1963. In fact Herzl published Der Judenstaat as a response to what he witnessed covering the Dreyfus Affair as a journalist.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - TheDroids 15y ago
    Except, er, so since AIPAC has only be around since 1963 and the concept of Zionism over 100 years, that couldn't possibly be a reason why people have a problem with Jews? shrugs
    - edanm 15y ago
      I think the point being made is that antisemitism has been around for thousands of years, and the groups you're talking about have been around for 100. So they don't explain anti-semitism.
      - TheDroids 15y ago
        Actually, they do. Assuming that OP hasn't been around for thousands of years himself, I could only point out modern day antisemitism which makes perfect sense. OP never asked for a complete history. However, if you're going to get to the root of things, you'd have to bring up religious prejudices passed down through the centuries as well as the origin of money lending and banking which undoubtedly cast Jews in a bad light. This documentary had some good examples as well as an overall interesting view of money itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money Edit: And this is now getting downvoted why? What the hell is going on here?
scotty79 15y ago
I guess they are too damn smart: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/mormons-have-higher-iq-than-average.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/mormons-have-highe... http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/12/religion-iq/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/12/religion-iq/ EDIT: Ouch. I know race, religion and intelligence are touchy subjects but I never thought I'll get downvoted on hackernews for (somewhat) sourced compliment. I myself am atheist in 95% catholic country where Jews are unrecognizable for anybody except antisemites. I personally have nothing against or for Jews.
mdasen 15y ago
Answering as someone Jewish. . . Jews don't assimilate (fully). In the Passover story, one of the things we note is that even living in Egypt for a long time, they didn't assimilate and they were disliked for it. Heck, how often do you hear people talking about other immigrants "not assimilating these days". For centuries, Jews even spoke a language other than the vernacular. We're a much more tolerant world today and yet there are plenty in this country (the US) that wish everyone "would just speak English". I have plenty of friends whose parents grew up speaking Yiddish in this country. Likewise, Jews were seen as people with divided loyalties. But this, again, isn't specific to Jews. Kennedy took plenty of hits as people questioned if he'd "just do what the pope told him to do." Were Jews really going to be loyal to the state they lived in? In an era when wars were often fought with what makes today's reasons seem air-tight, would Jews decide to sit on the sidelines (since they weren't really X nationality)? I mean, imagine if the US and Canada got into a war over who could call they're syrup "maple syrup". Would you fight in that? People have fought for some stupid things. Also, during a decent period of time, mercantilism became a big factor in economic thinking. If Jews didn't see a problem with cross-border trade, that was doing economic harm. For Christians, "you've heard the good news and yet you still reject Christ?!?" This is one of the more simplistic ones. People have killed (and continue to do so) for religious reasons. Jews were especially problematic for Christianity. Here you have the predecessor religion co-existing. If they thrive more than the Christians, does G-d like them better than the Christians? And there's plenty of "they killed Christ" to go around. Jews are, in some ways, refugees. I mean, there was an ancient state that existed and then diaspora as the Jews had to leave their homeland. First, people often don't like immigrants. How much scapegoating happens even today around immigrants and crime, jobs, culture, etc.? Heck, even things like sexuality come into play. In a lot of anti-Semitic literature, Jews were portrayed as ultra-sexual in the same "hide your daughters" way that can happen with African Americans today. Second, people really don't like refugees. I mean, these are people coming with nothing. These aren't university trained computer programmers coming over like H1-B visa getters. These are people who have it really hard. Beyond that, someone like Dawkins might point out that we try to propel our genes and like genes forward. A decent amount of history looks like people trying to force their culture, their nationality, and their genes forward through history. Jews were a different group. If you're under the impression that wealth cannot be created, then any wealth that Jews get is wealth that people like you don't have. So, it becomes competitive in that sense and people try to propel people like them forward through history. I guess I'll also touch on the fact that diaspora Judaism somewhat flies in the face of nationalism. I mean, if you're big into patriotism and nationalism, then the state should be the citizen's first priority, right? I think a lot of us now see the state as a tool meant to make our lives more stable and just. We don't live for the glory of our country. Our country is meant to help us have better lives. When we serve our country, it's to enhance the lives of the people and increase justice, not to enhance the country (although they sometimes go hand in hand). This is a big shift in modern thought (at least to me). But diaspora Judaism can fly in the face of "commitment to your country should take precedence over commitment to something else". I mean, to us it might sound ridiculous to say that your country should matter more than your morality - and I mean secular morality here. But in a Europe coming out of feudalism where they were trying to define national loyalties and borders, worried about losing territory to the neighboring country, worried about all sorts of things that look foolish from a modern perspective, well, if Jews weren't going to care if they were Polish or Russian, that was a huge problem. Frankly, this is one of the reasons that Jews came to America. While America has its nationalism, it's pluralistic, and it's often based off good governance and democratic principles more than the history of most places. Jews could also be insular. Kosher dietary laws meant that they didn't eat with non-Jews and that they bought their food from within the community. Again, it's easy to see how something like "those assholes won't buy meat from me saying my meat isn't clean!" turns into anti-semitism in the way rumors spread. Before cars, towns were organized for churches or shuls to be within walking distance which means segregation. Heck, even looking at the Harvard example, you see a private club that had a certain culture that was losing that culture. No longer would Harvard be almost all Wasp. I mean, they and their forefathers had put their money and effort into it. Shouldn't their progeny and the progeny of their religion and culture get the benefits of it? I'm not saying you should agree with that logic, but it is logic that is often used. I mean, there are people who don't want this country to become Spanish speaking or bi-lingual. Whether someone is the first person someplace or not, people and culture become entrenched and people don't want to see that culture change away from them. Heck, how much complaining do some people do that a lot of advertisements don't say "Merry Christmas"? Harvard was created by Wasps and now it was benefitting Jews and turning more Jewish. The identity of the institution was changing. It isn't that the hatred is that different from a lot of other ethnic hatred. A lot of it can be seen in a lot of the other ethno-religious hatred that has existed in the world. It's that the Jews hit a lot of different sore points in human history. There was religion, there was national identity, there was immigrant status, there was language, there was hope of another homeland, their was separateness/insular-ness, etc. I come from the point of view that nationalism is a bit outdated. People deserve to be justly governed in ways that make their lives better and that they should be allowed to choose how to live their lives in a way that makes them happy (clearly with restrictions on things that cannot be abided like murder). But providing good, just governance isn't why Europe has so many countries. Good governance and happy lives for citizens isn't why England subjugated Wales. Justice isn't what drove the Reconquista of Spain. Power, control, and the perpetuation of one's genes, culture, language, and religion have been a driving force in human history. I, for one, am happy that we at least see such injustice and hatred as a bad thing these days. I'm not sure if you were looking for an answer like this. I didn't mean for it to be long like this. Hatred can be a bit hard to wrap one's head around (at least for me) and yet it's defined a lot of human history. I can't imagine someone hating me without knowing me. I don't understand it. I'm nice (honest)! Yet, even without understanding it, I know there are people who wish I didn't exist who don't even know me. It's actually quite an odd feeling.
shn 15y ago
Probably they are gaining power/wealth not proportional to their numbers in the society they live in. That happens easily when a close knit society works hard while trading, doing business among themselves (e.g. buying goods and services from in-group rather than outside when they can) as well as favor community members over others in the larger society. This probably creates hatred of the majority towards Jewish people and that hatred directed more at times of distress like economic hardship or wars. I heard today that State of Alabama passed an immigration law recently that target immigrants. Probably people in Alabama do not want immigrants these days, since they are seen "stealing" jobs while jobs in US has been vanishing since 2008 economic crisis.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tlogan 15y ago
I don't think the discrimination is reserved for Jewish population. That is unfortunate story of our crazy world. Pick up any country in the world and you can find a story very similar to Jewish story... For example, Armenins in Turkey in 1915-16 (and latter on). Or Albanians in Serbia. Romas (Gypsies) in Nazi Germany. Palestinians in Israel. Tutsis in Rwanda. Etc. etc. We just need to always fight against things like this.
- adrianwaj 15y ago
  "Palestinians in Israel" Well, the big questions of our time are: are the Palestinians actually oppressed? Who's oppressing them? Does finding out the truth even matter?
  - iskander 15y ago
    Wrong site for this debate.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- edanm 15y ago
  The things you're describing are very different situations. Jews are citizens of certain countries that are discriminated against based on religion/race. As opposed to, for example, Palestinians, who are not citizens of Israel, and whose oppression or lack thereof is about other things. Note that I'm not saying anything about the morality of this or whether we need to fight it, just that the different things you talked about are objectively very different from anti-semitism.
  - tlogan 15y ago
    I agree that situations are not the same in all the above cases and they cannot be compared with anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is specific to cultures based on Abrahamic religions and it really does not exist outside it. However, if you talk with people which have been sufferings these injustices you will hear the same story regardless how we classify that discrimination.
known 15y ago
I think it is due to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Supremacism https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Supremacism
Tycho 15y ago
The only convincing reason I know of is that while from the middle ages onwards, Christians (and Muslims) were banned in the bible from issuing loans with payable interest, the book of Deuteronomy had a get-out clause for Jews: they were only barred from issuing such loans to their 'brothers. ie. eachother This would have three logical consequences: Jewish people becoming masters of finance; Jewish people helping their own community over others; and Jewish people obtaining all the disrepute that comes with being a loan shark. You can see how all 3 things would breed resentment/jealousy from other ethnic groups. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice cuts to the heart of the matter. Shylock offers the financing needed by the protagonists - but such financing by necessity comes with brutal collateral ('a pound of flesh'). People see the heartless lender exacting payment, but not the underlying laws of economics.

by cheez 15y ago

Can someone please explain to me what the hell is the problem people have with Jews? The only thing I can tell is maybe they're disproportionately financially successful? I guess that's a problem...

panza 15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism

alecbenzer 15y ago

I've also always wondered why a specific group has been so apparently consistently persecuted against for so long. It seems like it's been too long of a time period for the hate to simply have been passed on from generation to generation.

adrianwaj 15y ago
Very good observation. I think it's metaphysical, unseen. I found this interesting, if not alarming. EXPOSE: The Vatican is Cozying Up to Iran's Ahmadinejad http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10701 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/1070...
sliverstorm 15y ago
The reason they have been persecuted for so long is because they have survived for so long. Most heavily persecuted groups don't last long.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  5,772 years so far. Happy New Year.
  - jganetsk 15y ago
    The Jewish calendar year is 5772. That means 5,772 years after Biblical creation. The biblical patriarch Abraham was born in the Jewish calendar year 1948. Going by that as the inception of the Jewish people, they are 3,824 years old. Historians would put the inception of the ancient Israelites at 1200 BCE.

wtracy 15y ago

More so than almost any other culture, Jews have been consistently able to maintain their own cultural identity even when they are in the demographic minority or displaced abroad. A lot of this is due to their willingness to close themselves off from the surrounding population and maintain their own, separate, religious and social structures. So, from the outside, the local population sees a group of foreigners brought into the country. This group refuses to assimilate, actively shuts strangers out of their group, and maintains a certain aura of secrecy. This means that the perception of the Jews as "outsiders" never goes away, even several generations after their arrival. Throw the semi-legendary Jewish financial success into the mix, and you fuel suspicion that "those people are up to something."

iskander 15y ago
The "locals" still get grumpy even when Jews can't own land or amass much wealth. The pogroms and massacres in Ukraine, Poland, Russia, etc... were generally against very poor communities. On the other hand, Jewish communities were much more financially successful and culturally prominent across the Arab world and seem to have drawn a lot less antipathy.
microarchitect 15y ago
Very interesting. Muslim and Hindu communities in the West are also trying to be insular and maintain their own cultural identities, but I guess they're not so effective because they don't have the financial success backing them up that the Jews have. It's a lot harder to deride someone when you know they're making way more money than you, I suppose. those people are up to something I don't mean this in any negative way, but they ARE up to something. This something is maintaining their levels of privilege. Is this wrong? I don't know. Probably not, I guess. I come from an upper caste family in India and it's easy for me to see that this is game that we in India have been playing since independence. There's a lot of cultural and economic know-how that helps people succeed in life, and upper caste families have an abundance of this. On the one hand, these folks succeed only because they ace the admission tests, have extraordinary academic records and are excellent communicators. On the other hand, the reason they have these qualities is because they were born with privilege. Is this wrong? Unfair? I really don't know. I can't help thinking it's the same situation as the Jews, though.

iskander 15y ago

As much as the Soviet Union tried to keep down Jews, they were also trying to promote people who fit a nationalist narrative. So it wasn't just antisemitism, it was also affirmative action for Russians (especially those of peasant descent).

mazuhl 15y ago
And at the same time the Russians did much to preserve Yiddish (a Jewish language).
- anghyflawn 15y ago
  I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, but this is at best only partially correct. Yiddish was supported along with pretty much all minority languages in the 1920s and early 1930s, but this support also ceased when the minority support policy was reversed (with token remnants such as the Yiddish being an official language in the Jewish "homeland" in the Far East). Following WWII and postwar persecutions of Jews Yiddish all but stopped being transferred from parents to children in the USSR. I remember how happy my grandfather (born 1928) was when it became possible to embrace one's Yiddish heritage again in the late 1980s); but he did not teach the language to his children.
- vbtemp 15y ago
  The Russians (you mean Soviets) did nothing to preserve yiddish. They tried to exile the jews to a desolate remote corner on the fringes of siberia where they could practice their culture (not their religion) in a soviet communist framework. I took Yiddish in university for a while. During the soviet years they tried to neutralize any hebraic or biblical references. For example, in hebrew the word for friend is "Chaver". It's the same in yiddish. But the soviets insisted that it be changed to the more germanic "fraynd". Similiarly, they insisted even on the changing of spellings to make the language altogether less hebraic and jewish - and more neutralized and soviet.

TheDroids 15y ago

Probably has a lot to do with things like AIPAC (the largest lobby in the US) and Zionism. I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Stat...

tkahn6 15y ago
Except that Zionism has only existed as a coherent and codified ideology since 1896 and AIPAC has only existed since 1963. In fact Herzl published Der Judenstaat as a response to what he witnessed covering the Dreyfus Affair as a journalist.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- TheDroids 15y ago
  Except, er, so since AIPAC has only be around since 1963 and the concept of Zionism over 100 years, that couldn't possibly be a reason why people have a problem with Jews? shrugs
  - edanm 15y ago
    I think the point being made is that antisemitism has been around for thousands of years, and the groups you're talking about have been around for 100. So they don't explain anti-semitism.
    - TheDroids 15y ago
      Actually, they do. Assuming that OP hasn't been around for thousands of years himself, I could only point out modern day antisemitism which makes perfect sense. OP never asked for a complete history. However, if you're going to get to the root of things, you'd have to bring up religious prejudices passed down through the centuries as well as the origin of money lending and banking which undoubtedly cast Jews in a bad light. This documentary had some good examples as well as an overall interesting view of money itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money Edit: And this is now getting downvoted why? What the hell is going on here?

scotty79 15y ago

I guess they are too damn smart: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/mormons-have-higher-iq-than-average.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/mormons-have-highe... http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/12/religion-iq/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/12/religion-iq/ EDIT: Ouch. I know race, religion and intelligence are touchy subjects but I never thought I'll get downvoted on hackernews for (somewhat) sourced compliment. I myself am atheist in 95% catholic country where Jews are unrecognizable for anybody except antisemites. I personally have nothing against or for Jews.

mdasen 15y ago

Answering as someone Jewish. . . Jews don't assimilate (fully). In the Passover story, one of the things we note is that even living in Egypt for a long time, they didn't assimilate and they were disliked for it. Heck, how often do you hear people talking about other immigrants "not assimilating these days". For centuries, Jews even spoke a language other than the vernacular. We're a much more tolerant world today and yet there are plenty in this country (the US) that wish everyone "would just speak English". I have plenty of friends whose parents grew up speaking Yiddish in this country. Likewise, Jews were seen as people with divided loyalties. But this, again, isn't specific to Jews. Kennedy took plenty of hits as people questioned if he'd "just do what the pope told him to do." Were Jews really going to be loyal to the state they lived in? In an era when wars were often fought with what makes today's reasons seem air-tight, would Jews decide to sit on the sidelines (since they weren't really X nationality)? I mean, imagine if the US and Canada got into a war over who could call they're syrup "maple syrup". Would you fight in that? People have fought for some stupid things. Also, during a decent period of time, mercantilism became a big factor in economic thinking. If Jews didn't see a problem with cross-border trade, that was doing economic harm. For Christians, "you've heard the good news and yet you still reject Christ?!?" This is one of the more simplistic ones. People have killed (and continue to do so) for religious reasons. Jews were especially problematic for Christianity. Here you have the predecessor religion co-existing. If they thrive more than the Christians, does G-d like them better than the Christians? And there's plenty of "they killed Christ" to go around. Jews are, in some ways, refugees. I mean, there was an ancient state that existed and then diaspora as the Jews had to leave their homeland. First, people often don't like immigrants. How much scapegoating happens even today around immigrants and crime, jobs, culture, etc.? Heck, even things like sexuality come into play. In a lot of anti-Semitic literature, Jews were portrayed as ultra-sexual in the same "hide your daughters" way that can happen with African Americans today. Second, people really don't like refugees. I mean, these are people coming with nothing. These aren't university trained computer programmers coming over like H1-B visa getters. These are people who have it really hard. Beyond that, someone like Dawkins might point out that we try to propel our genes and like genes forward. A decent amount of history looks like people trying to force their culture, their nationality, and their genes forward through history. Jews were a different group. If you're under the impression that wealth cannot be created, then any wealth that Jews get is wealth that people like you don't have. So, it becomes competitive in that sense and people try to propel people like them forward through history. I guess I'll also touch on the fact that diaspora Judaism somewhat flies in the face of nationalism. I mean, if you're big into patriotism and nationalism, then the state should be the citizen's first priority, right? I think a lot of us now see the state as a tool meant to make our lives more stable and just. We don't live for the glory of our country. Our country is meant to help us have better lives. When we serve our country, it's to enhance the lives of the people and increase justice, not to enhance the country (although they sometimes go hand in hand). This is a big shift in modern thought (at least to me). But diaspora Judaism can fly in the face of "commitment to your country should take precedence over commitment to something else". I mean, to us it might sound ridiculous to say that your country should matter more than your morality - and I mean secular morality here. But in a Europe coming out of feudalism where they were trying to define national loyalties and borders, worried about losing territory to the neighboring country, worried about all sorts of things that look foolish from a modern perspective, well, if Jews weren't going to care if they were Polish or Russian, that was a huge problem. Frankly, this is one of the reasons that Jews came to America. While America has its nationalism, it's pluralistic, and it's often based off good governance and democratic principles more than the history of most places. Jews could also be insular. Kosher dietary laws meant that they didn't eat with non-Jews and that they bought their food from within the community. Again, it's easy to see how something like "those assholes won't buy meat from me saying my meat isn't clean!" turns into anti-semitism in the way rumors spread. Before cars, towns were organized for churches or shuls to be within walking distance which means segregation. Heck, even looking at the Harvard example, you see a private club that had a certain culture that was losing that culture. No longer would Harvard be almost all Wasp. I mean, they and their forefathers had put their money and effort into it. Shouldn't their progeny and the progeny of their religion and culture get the benefits of it? I'm not saying you should agree with that logic, but it is logic that is often used. I mean, there are people who don't want this country to become Spanish speaking or bi-lingual. Whether someone is the first person someplace or not, people and culture become entrenched and people don't want to see that culture change away from them. Heck, how much complaining do some people do that a lot of advertisements don't say "Merry Christmas"? Harvard was created by Wasps and now it was benefitting Jews and turning more Jewish. The identity of the institution was changing. It isn't that the hatred is that different from a lot of other ethnic hatred. A lot of it can be seen in a lot of the other ethno-religious hatred that has existed in the world. It's that the Jews hit a lot of different sore points in human history. There was religion, there was national identity, there was immigrant status, there was language, there was hope of another homeland, their was separateness/insular-ness, etc. I come from the point of view that nationalism is a bit outdated. People deserve to be justly governed in ways that make their lives better and that they should be allowed to choose how to live their lives in a way that makes them happy (clearly with restrictions on things that cannot be abided like murder). But providing good, just governance isn't why Europe has so many countries. Good governance and happy lives for citizens isn't why England subjugated Wales. Justice isn't what drove the Reconquista of Spain. Power, control, and the perpetuation of one's genes, culture, language, and religion have been a driving force in human history. I, for one, am happy that we at least see such injustice and hatred as a bad thing these days. I'm not sure if you were looking for an answer like this. I didn't mean for it to be long like this. Hatred can be a bit hard to wrap one's head around (at least for me) and yet it's defined a lot of human history. I can't imagine someone hating me without knowing me. I don't understand it. I'm nice (honest)! Yet, even without understanding it, I know there are people who wish I didn't exist who don't even know me. It's actually quite an odd feeling.

shn 15y ago

Probably they are gaining power/wealth not proportional to their numbers in the society they live in. That happens easily when a close knit society works hard while trading, doing business among themselves (e.g. buying goods and services from in-group rather than outside when they can) as well as favor community members over others in the larger society. This probably creates hatred of the majority towards Jewish people and that hatred directed more at times of distress like economic hardship or wars. I heard today that State of Alabama passed an immigration law recently that target immigrants. Probably people in Alabama do not want immigrants these days, since they are seen "stealing" jobs while jobs in US has been vanishing since 2008 economic crisis.

deleted 15y ago

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tlogan 15y ago

I don't think the discrimination is reserved for Jewish population. That is unfortunate story of our crazy world. Pick up any country in the world and you can find a story very similar to Jewish story... For example, Armenins in Turkey in 1915-16 (and latter on). Or Albanians in Serbia. Romas (Gypsies) in Nazi Germany. Palestinians in Israel. Tutsis in Rwanda. Etc. etc. We just need to always fight against things like this.

adrianwaj 15y ago
"Palestinians in Israel" Well, the big questions of our time are: are the Palestinians actually oppressed? Who's oppressing them? Does finding out the truth even matter?
- iskander 15y ago
  Wrong site for this debate.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
edanm 15y ago
The things you're describing are very different situations. Jews are citizens of certain countries that are discriminated against based on religion/race. As opposed to, for example, Palestinians, who are not citizens of Israel, and whose oppression or lack thereof is about other things. Note that I'm not saying anything about the morality of this or whether we need to fight it, just that the different things you talked about are objectively very different from anti-semitism.
- tlogan 15y ago
  I agree that situations are not the same in all the above cases and they cannot be compared with anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is specific to cultures based on Abrahamic religions and it really does not exist outside it. However, if you talk with people which have been sufferings these injustices you will hear the same story regardless how we classify that discrimination.

known 15y ago

I think it is due to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Supremacism https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Supremacism

Tycho 15y ago

The only convincing reason I know of is that while from the middle ages onwards, Christians (and Muslims) were banned in the bible from issuing loans with payable interest, the book of Deuteronomy had a get-out clause for Jews: they were only barred from issuing such loans to their 'brothers. ie. eachother This would have three logical consequences: Jewish people becoming masters of finance; Jewish people helping their own community over others; and Jewish people obtaining all the disrepute that comes with being a loan shark. You can see how all 3 things would breed resentment/jealousy from other ethnic groups. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice cuts to the heart of the matter. Shylock offers the financing needed by the protagonists - but such financing by necessity comes with brutal collateral ('a pound of flesh'). People see the heartless lender exacting payment, but not the underlying laws of economics.