Curiosity about anti-Semitism

[Pastor Gary]

Don't you have to marry your cousin or something to be Alabamian?

And what's your point?

[Mole_J]

This is from the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs. I don't think it tries to answer the question why, but I think is a good analysis what is happening in Europe today concerning anti-Antisemitism in Europe.

The Deep Roots of Anti-Semitism in European Society*1
Manfred Gerstenfeld


The resurgence of European anti-Semitism after the Holocaust suggests that it has deep roots in society. It has been fostered in a great variety of ways by so many, for such a long time, in all European countries that one might consider this form of hate and discrimination as inherent to European culture and a part of European "values." New European anti-Semitism often originates from a young age, which indicates that it is an anti-Semitism of the future rather than of the past.

The European Union's attitude toward anti-Semitism is double-handed. Through its discriminatory declarations and votes in international bodies the EU acts as an arsonist, fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in its anti-Israeli disguise. Simultaneously it also serves as fireman, trying to quench the flames of classic religious and ethnic anti-Semitism. France is paradigmatic of this approach. Although European anti-Semitism cannot be eradicated, certain steps can be taken to mitigate it. This requires a major change in discriminatory EU policies toward Israel. In the meantime there are increasing indications that the European battle against anti-Semitism may be used, to the contrary, to facilitate attacks on Israel.

The whole essay is here

[paul]

Dolfan, I know that the post here will not answer your question to the fullness it deserves. But drawing from my studies years ago in Jewish studies I offer the following.

For almost twenty one centuries before the re-birth of the Jewish state in 1948, Jews had been living in Europe. The European age of Jewish culture, representing as it does a span of some thousand years, lasted as long as the periods of the first and second temple.
The first Jewish settlement in Europe perhaps as early as the close of the Biblical age at the beginning of the second century, and they were to be found in Rome as well before its fall.
Their numbers increased as a result of the Romans’ large scale deportations of Palestinian prisoners of war, as well as peaceful migration to the Empire City. The Roman emperors treated the Jews with mild tolerance, tempered however with resentment at the fact that they persisted as no other group in adhering to their stubborn monotheistic religion and their paradoxical hope of national regeneration.
When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity in the fourth century, a novel and intolerant spirit began to establish itself to increase in strength in the new Europe as the Middle Ages advanced. In due course the Christian Church evolved an elaborate anti-Jewish code, which one may say reached its final form in the Fourth Lateran council of 1215.

Jews and Christians were not to dwell together, to trade together, and to work together. The unbelievers (Jews) were not allowed to engage in honorable professions such as medicine, lest they would have an improper influence over their patients...
They were excluded from handicrafts and many were reduced in many lands to pawn brokering and old clothes dealing. They were isolated and their children were sometimes seized and baptized by force. As a result of their isolation and unremitting propaganda against them, their physical security deteriorates. From the first crusade (1096) outbreaks of violence became frequent. ( It is important to note that many Europeans were selling all they had, going off to the crusades, many would loose their lives to free a land that the Jews persisted in vowing would be theirs again one day, not unlike the present).
The Jews would be expelled from England in 1290, France in 1306, and in 1394, Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1497 eventually they would congregate in Ashkenazim of Northern (literally Germany) Jews in Poland and Sephardim or Southern (literally Spanish) Jews in Turkey. By the close of the seventeenth century a more tolerant atmosphere would begin to spread over Western Europe. But the seeds of anti Jews would forever be embedded.
In 1648 more outbreaks of massacres in the area of Russia and Eastern Europe would result in herds of refugees. In the nineteenth century anti Jewish legislation brought about mass emigration of Jews to the U.S. The persecution ended in 1917 with the Russian Revolution. But the relics of the old anti-Jewish feeling has been given a new look on a pseudo-scientific basis under the name of anti-Semitism being fostered especially in Germany, through jealousy of the rapid progress made by emancipated Jews in that country.
The Jewish people as no other group in history has ever withstood such constant unremitting pressure, century after century. But the Jews experienced it, defined it, survived it, and emerged unbroken and unbowed, to achieve in our own day their greatest and most unbelievable triumph. A Re established home land and a nation. Throughout their suffering they were filled with unbounded certainty that in due course they would be restored, a free people again, to their own land. It is important to know that they believed that not as indivuals, but as a people they would be restored to their former land. What we see today in Gaza and we did in 1967 in the West Bank ) is the resolve of a people who have suffered beyond any ones imagination saying , we suffered, persevered, millions us our ancestors dies by massacre and in the gas chambers of Hitler. But we regained our homeland and it will never be taken away again. The Jews belief was that in this world a state of perfection would ultimately be attained. Steadfastness would ultimately receive its reward in this world.
The fear, jealousy and the prejudices that under line the anti-Semitism is deep rooted throughout Europe.

[dolfan]

In other words, "It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart", spoken by Ulysses Everett McGill in O, Brother Where Art Thou?

[Tim Elston]

I suspect that Mr. Elston will join this thread soon in great detail, but I have a question that has never been answered to my satisfaction: can you define for me "Palestinian"?

Burning ears, at your service. Do you remember what my answer to this question was last time? If so, what do you find dissatisfying about it?

[paul]

This thread has caused me to open a few books in my library that I have not oopened for more than a few years.

I came across a quote that I found interesting. I know for the youonger poster here much of the oponion is shaped by CNN, FOX and the media and of coourse google. But the following comes from one of my old textbooks " Great ages and Ideas of the jewish People" edited by Leo Schwarz

" Nor was the belief in the ultimate Jewish restoration to the Holy land limited to the Jews. Pious Christians of all denominations included genuine believers in such restoration as a necessary prerequisite for the second coming of Christ. ( still holds true for millions today in Christianity, not an argument just a fact). So convinced were even the medieval churchmen of the necessity of Keeping Jews until the end of days that Duns Scotus, for example, living in the hostile enviroment of pre-Expulsion England, suggested that the Christian world maintain some Jews at its expense on a distant land. Typical of their approach was a memorandum submitted to Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, by 320 Christian petitioners:

"Your memorialists beg leave futher to remind your Lordship that the Land of Palistine was bestowed by the Sovereign of the Universe upon the descendants of Abraham as a permanent and inalienatble possession nearly 4000 years ago, and that neither conquest nor treaties among men can possibly effect their title to it. He has also decreed that they shall again return to their Country and that the Gentiles shall be employed as the means of their restoration."

Just found this very interesting once again.

[Full Quiver]

Dolfan my answer or guess is that there are so many Arabs and Muslims residing in Europe that they do shape policy and opinion. Also as Paul pointed out the fact that so many Jews live there or did live there for so many centuries. Also a mass exodus of Jews back to Israel in the past century could be a sore spot. Jews are known for being creative, wealthy, and ingenious which certainly helps economies.

Pastor Gary, Iraqis are Arabs but they are still Iraqis. I am white but an American and a Tennessean at that.

I'd say many "Palestinians" were actually Israelis though they didn't claim it. Now that Israel has GIVEN them some land to have their own government and nation then they are Palestinians.

Many folks refuse to consider that there was ever a place or nation called Palestine but there certainly was and now is. Shoot, the place even appears in the Old Testament so it kills me that some say it never existed. How's that for mythology?


To add to this let's say Israel invaded modern day Jordan and took the land that God had given one or two of the tribes before they crossed over the Jordan (I'm talking about more than the West Bank; check the Scriptures). Would those Jordanians be Jordanians/Arabs or Israelis?

[Pastor Gary]

I suspect that Mr. Elston will join this thread soon in great detail, but I have a question that has never been answered to my satisfaction: can you define for me "Palestinian"?

Burning ears, at your service. Do you remember what my answer to this question was last time? If so, what do you find dissatisfying about it?

I confess that I am fuzzy-of-memory on the details, but my lack of closure centers upon the concept that nationality/ethnicity... people-hood, should be determined by more than the GPS coordinates of one's accidental birth location.

[Mister Ed]

Dolfan, and others:

This is a long article and contains a lot of stuff that I don’t agree with and I am sure no one else on here will either. I am definitely not anti-Jewish, and neither am I against taxation, but on down in this article, if it is actually true, there is some insight into why there is so much anti-Semitism in Europe and especially Germany;

I stumbled on this article while researching some comparisons of wood-working equipment;

http://www.truthaboutax.com/site/1515517/page/899476


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[Tim Elston]

I confess that I am fuzzy-of-memory on the details, but my lack of closure centers upon the concept that nationality/ethnicity... people-hood, should be determined by more than the GPS coordinates of one's accidental birth location.

In 1994 Israel recognized the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Peace Accords. It is an interim political organization with which Israel negotiates, with a view to recognizing it as the Palestinian state. A Palestinian is a person who is under the authority of the Palestinian Authority. Israel recognizes Palestinians as the citizens of the political territories to its west and south. Do you not recognize the Palestinian Authority, as Israel, the U.S., and almost all other nations do?

[oletimer]

When I first read the first post and the question that was asked the first thing that came to my mind was the "Ten Horns" in Rev. Their attitude makes me wonder if we aren't closter then we want to think to the "end time". If so then old saying "they can't help themselves" would be appropriate.

[bibleguy]

What's amazing to me is the "one country - one vote" policy of the U.N.
In my opinion, our most faithful ally in the entire world is Israel. And they have proven their support for the U.S. time and again, especially when they show incredible restraint against the constant onslaught from their hostile neighbors. That restraint is regularly based on our request that they do so, and their respect for us. But, when it comes to the U.N., we've only got 2 votes between us (and there is a tremendous effort to remove our veto power).

With the collapse of the U.S.S.R., which had one vote, not only were we left with a voter (with veto power) hostile to U.S. policy in the Russian Federation, we also saw 14 new votes in the general assembly, several of whom were sympathetic to Russia, giving them a larger voting bloc.

Worse yet, while Israel maintains their 1 vote, the Islamic vote gained 6 new votes with the newly liberated (formerly Soviet) republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaizhan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Add those to the rest of the predominantly Muslim nations and you have Israel's U.N. vote outnumbered 47 (or so) to 1.

To preserve fairness, America should separate into 50 sovereign states and give us 50 votes instead of the 1 we have now. (I know Poimen, "The South will Rise Again!")

Check out this excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson dealing with how Gaza's rules of engagement fly in the face of all that is just and true about war protocols.

[Full Quiver]

Great point BibleGuy but we must also consider that the US is allied with some of those Soviet bloc nations including some that are Islamic. Those that want in NATO would be more inclined to vote with the US and not against Israel.

[MacUser]

Thanks Paul, I enjoyed your post.

[Tim Elston]

In other words, "It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart", spoken by Ulysses Everett McGill in O, Brother Where Art Thou?

That pretty much sums it up, I think. Anti-semitism is as irrational and passionate as is American populist support for Israel. The Jewish people are shrowded in so much religious and malfeasant story that moderate Jews are about the only ones who have their head on straight about themselves as a topic and how to achieve a reasonable destiny.

Paul's research, above, seems to suggest (unless I'm misreading the implication) that both antisemitism and pro-zionism are spawned, in part, by Christianity. There's irony there. We are familiar with the Christian side of pro-zionism; we may have lost touch with the Christian history of antisemitism. (Which, of course, isn't "true Christianity," but what is? Uncritical Zionism?)