Anti-semitic bigots

[sp1814]

There's something I've NEVER understood about certain bigots - where does anti-semitism come from?

http://www.dailymail....ined-6-000-euros.html

I mean think about it - the Jews in the 20th century have suffered more than any other people (blacks take that particular crown in the 19th century).

So WHY do some people hate Jews?

To paraphrase the Pet Shop Boys - what have they done to deserve this?

It literally makes no sense to me.

[Gromit]

There is a popular conspiracy that Jews run the world and take all the money. If someone is stupid enough to believe that then they are stupid enough to react against it

[sp1814]

Huh?

I thought it was the gay mafia that ran the world...I should really keep up with the latest conspiracy theories.

[Sqad]

sp1814

A good question and i tried some couple of years ago to get a thread going to see how common or prevalent anti-Semitism was, but the thread was "pulled" at the first post.........so no luck there.

I would guess that ant-Semitism is commoner than one would like to think.....Why?....many reasons i would suspect.

[Davethedog]

Tut Tut the Ilumminati run the world, I suppose that some of them might be Jewish...or Gay.....Or both.

Seriously I am loath to understand prejudice for colour, creed or religion.

[Noraq]

Bigotry and hatred don't make sense....it is real, it is wrong.

[bradcashman38]

Yes jewish people have suffered a lot in the 20th century. However, they had to suffer all that in Europe. It was europe which never gave them religious and economic freed for centuries. Europe needs to compensate that.

Muslims have no hitler in their history hence they are forced to compensate exploitation done by west in the past. Muslims hate Jews because they are forced to compensate what they never did. Unfortunately jews are trying to occupy muslim majority areas.

If west is so sad about its past about the jews, west should give them a few miles anywhere in Canada, america Australia or Europe.

Why muslims are being forced to "co-exist" with the Jews in Jerusalem. Why Europeans, Canadians, Australians and Americans can't live with a small jewish country in their areas??

I hope answerbank team respects my right of self expression and will not ban my account after this answer.

[Kromovaracun]

Not dissimilarly to the situation with immigrants now, people in the C20 observed (not necessarily wrongly) that Jews were disproportionately represented in the wealthiest and most influential parts of the economy - particularly finance*. If I remember right, for various and complex reasons that to be frank I don't really know enough about to understand, it was also not uncommon for Jews to be found (though not quite the same extent) as advisers and ministers to monarchs in the centuries before the C19/age of industry. In addition to all this throw in the whole promised land/chosen people aspect of Judaism with Hebrew as a fairly exclusive holy language and you have a fairly good recipe for resentment - a seemingly alien and unintelligible group of people who regularly recur in positions of authority or power with a common belief in their destiny. People like Hitler (the most obvious one but by no means the first) combined this view with the observation that Jews were also fairly disproportionately represented among writers and proponents of Marxism - hence coming up with an extensive conspiracy theory that from the outside looks extremely bizarre and incoherent but somehow managed to appeal to people.

Of course, the fact that this theory is derived from some not-untruthful observations does not make it less wrong - it's an incredibly simplistic line of reasoning. But people like that. It helps them feel like they understand the world, and it's behavior which in essence is still visible today.

*Nowadays this probably doesn't apply to finance but much the same kind of suspicion is levelled at Islam for reasons that for my money aren't by any means dissimilar.

[Snafu03]

thats more than likely the problem. Jews are not the sole franchise holders of suffering in the 20th century. In terms of death and suffering more innocent people died in the Russian revolution - also in the 20th century.

also why the term anti-semitism? is it more abhorrent than common or garden racism?

[Davethedog]

Sanfu - Judaism is a religion. The Jews are not a race. To some this is contentious but the Jews are no more a race than christians.

[Snafu03]

thanks for clearing that up Dave. But, to me anti-semitism seems to warrant more of a shocking response than racism when pretty much they're of the same ilk. This is in no small part due to the suffering the went through in WW2.

[ichkeria]

"Jews are not the sole franchise holders of suffering in the 20th century. In terms of death and suffering more innocent people died in the Russian revolution - also in the 20th century. "

A puzzling observation. It's interesting you should mention Russia because the Russian Empire was the scene of several pogroms against Jews in the 19th and early 20th century which, while not on the scale of death of the Nazi holocaust, caused more deaths than the "Russian Revolution" (assuming you mean the October/November 1917 one) which actually saw very few deaths.

[Snafu03]

without googling too heavy I found this;
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html

gives figures of 20th century genocides.

[ichkeria]

A list of shame indeed, of which at least two of the top three must contain many millions of Jews.
Arguably that list isn't really only "genocides" but deaths attributable to various dictators/terrorists. Pretty grim, no matter what you call it though.
And missing a few people off it, as well. Putin? Yeltsin? for example.

[jd_here]

I'm just so happy that I am a Born Again Agnostic and don't answer to any fairy tale prophet/god/ etc., etc. There are certain people and institutions I don't like, but I don't hate (horrible word) any race, creed, colour. I just wish we could all live together in love, peace and harmony.

[steg]

telling folk their god, prophet etc is fairy tales isn't a good start tho'

[bradcashman38]

My opinion is again the same why muslims should compensate atrocities of west?

[Davethedog]

Steg surely one can have a contrary opinion without being accused of an "ism"?

I don't believe in a deity and never will and I will argue the point. However I don't hate anyone for choosing to believe, let alone contemplate the annihilation of a group of believers.

[Brenden]

Wonder how much it would cost in compensation bradcashmanfor 9/11. As for occupying muslim lands, Kosovo was majority muslim but belonged to Serbia, it seems if you become the majority you feel it should be yours but that it wrong.

[dave50]

Nobody has yet explained the historical reasons for the persecution of Jews throughout history.

[steg]

yes dave, but it is how you put forward your "contrary opinion" and who mentioned "ism"?