Why the Jews?

[Nolan]

This might seem like a silly question, but why has antisemitism been such a big factor in history, from the Spanish expulsion to the Holocaust? What is it that makes hatred of Jewish people so popular among the right?

[Antifa94]

We supposedly killed Christ.
Considering the majority of the Western World is christian, that was a BIG problem.

[Antifa94]

Also, anti-semitism went WAY before the Spanish Expulsion.
We were expelled from England first in 1290.
Rightists claim to fight for Jesus.
Also, secular fascists think that we control finance and suppress them.
Capitalists think there is a Jewish-Bolshevik theory to destroy them.

White supremacists think that we defile their racial purity.

[RED DAVE]

In general, in Europe, during the Middle Ages and in various stages of capitalist development, and to this day: Jews have, due first to restrictions and later because of custom and tradition, first played the role of the petit-bourgeoisie and later the role of bourgeoisie proper in certain fields (finance, light manufacturing, entertainment). This has frequently led to conflicts with the native petit-bougeoisie or bourgeoisie and/or made Jews the scapegoats in certain forms of class struggle or to head off class struggle.

Now that you're totally confused, try this short book, which is probably the best on the subject.

Abram Leon – The Jewish Question (http://www.marxists.de/religion/leon/)

RED DAVE

[Antifa94]

In general, in Europe, during the Middle Ages and in various stages of capitalist development, and to this day: Jews have, due first to restrictions and later because of custom and tradition, first played the role of the petit-bourgeoisie and later the role of bourgeoisie proper in certain fields (finance, light manufacturing, entertainment). This has frequently led to conflicts with the native petit-bougeoisie or bourgeoisie and/or made Jews the scapegoats in certain forms of class struggle or to head off class struggle.

Now that you're totally confused, try this short book, which is probably the best on the subject.

Abram Leon – The Jewish Question (http://www.marxists.de/religion/leon/)

RED DAVE
Why would that be confusing to anyone?

[cska]

This might seem like a silly question, but why has antisemitism been such a big factor in history, from the Spanish expulsion to the Holocaust? What is it that makes hatred of Jewish people so popular among the right?

I think anti-Islamism or anti-Christianism has been as big a factor as anti-semitism. The only difference is that since Jews didn't have a place where they were the majority, they were always discriminated against, whereas Christians and Muslims had countries in which they weren't the majority, and weren't discriminated against. Outside their own countries, they faced heavy discrimination just like the Jews.

[Nosotros]

Unfortunetly It's not just on the right, looking at history and also from my own experience anti-semitism is quite common on the left.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Unfortunetly It's not just on the right, looking at history and also from my own experience anti-semitism is quite common on the left.

If you're talking about the current problems with Isreal, I wouldn't count that as Anti-semitism, it's Anti-Zionism coupled with routing for the underdog. Nothing else comes instantly to mind with the Left being pissed at Jews, but bring them is there is.

[chegitz guevara]

The problem for Jews is that, having given birth to two of the world's great religions, the Jews failed to see the obvious superiority of their offspring. Very early in Christianity, the Christians turned on the Jews, not because of the Christ killer smear, which came later, but because the Jews didn't become Christians. The same thing happened in Islam, during Muhammad's lifetime.

In Christianity, certain sectors were off-limit to Christians, such as money-lending, and certain sectors were off-limit to Jews, such as owning land. Over time, Jews became more and more associated with parasitic trades, as they were generally prohibited from more "honest" work. People hate money-lenders and tax-collectors.

In Islam, persecution of the Jews was rather infrequent, but it did happen from time to time under especially fanatic states, but those were the exceptions, not the rule. For example, during the 2nd expulsion of the Jews from Spain (there were several), the ambassador to the Ottoman court said that the King and Queen of Spain were wise to send the Jews from their countries (Castile and Aragon at the time, Spain didn't exist yet). Most of them ended up going to the Ottoman Empire, so the Emperor Selim said, "Who calls this king wise who enriches my kingdom at the expense of his own?" The Ottomans welcomed the Jews, and their trades, and wealth with open arms. In fact, in Salonika, now in Greece, until the 20th Century, Ladino, a Spanish-Jewish language, was the majority language. It took the Holocaust to destroy the more than five hundred year old community there. The Jewish communities of Yemen, Iraq, Iran, etc. were thousands of years old.

Current Muslim ill-will towards the Jews has everything to do with Israel.

[Rjevan]

There are many reasons why anti-semitism was so acceptable (and is still acceptable in many cases) in the past, first of all "they" killed the "messiah and the saviour, God's son", Jesus Christ. According to the bible the Jewish priests agitated against Jesus for a long time and tried to expose his blasphemy several times. Finally the High Priest urged Pilate to charge Jesus and when Pilate let the Jewish people decide if they wanted Jesus to be free they decided for a convicted murderer and resistance leader to be freed and left Jesus to be crossed. So everything bad happening to the Jews was in orthodox Christian's eyes only naturally and more than justified. The chruch did of course its best to fuel this hate e.g. by texts labeled "adversus Judaeos" (against the Jews) and telling everybody that the Jews see themselves as the chosen people - pure blasphemy since the Christians are the chosen people!

This carried on into medieval times where Jews were accused of lots of ridiculous crimes against Christianity, such as desecrating altar bread, poisoning wells, eating Christian babies and most important: slaughtering Christians to get their blood (which is blessed by God...) to make themselves immortal, potent and fertile or to make their babies seeing (Christians believed Jews were born blind...). So whenever a Christian disappeared, was murdered or had bad luck people were sure it were the Jews next door who are responsible for all this.

The Jews were also forbidden to join guilds and thus to practice most jobs in medieval times. The Christians on the other hand were forbidden to take interest and deal with money. So it was only natural that the Jews were left to do the "banking" which resulted in more hate because now the Christians were in debt of the "deicides" who were immediately suspected of taking extorionate interest. This again led to frequent murder of Jews to get rid of your debts which was largely sanctioned by the courts.

All this went on throught the whole Middle Ages and Luther's reformation didn't change anything about this, in fact Luther labeled the Jews as the enemies of Christianity himself and called for them to be "expelled from all Protestant countries" (among many other unpleasant things).

The rise of nationalism and social Darwinism made things only worse for the "homeless" Jews who lived "like parasites" in other people's countries and according to the propaganda still had of course nothing better to do than harm Christians and natives in any possible way and rape girls from time to time to spoil the pure bloodline of the white race...

[A.R.Amistad]

Its really all about economics. During the middle ages, banking positions were given by the feudal lords of Europe to the Jews. Jews came to represent a sort of proto-middle class because many of them were involved in banking (at a time when banking seemed of little importance). It was considered sacreligious for Catholics to handle and distribute money, so the job was allocated to the Jews. As time went on and banking and capital became much more important. Whenever anything went wrong with the economy, it was far much easier for the ruling class to direct the blame on the Jews in banking, supplemented with the old-fashioned religious and cultural based prejudices. This is where the "Jewish conspiracy" bullshit came from. People believed (wrongly) that the Jews were in control (and some tink are still in control) of the world economy just because many had taken jobs as bankers.

There was anti-semitism before the middle ages, but the type of antisemitism that we know today origniated in the 1300's and the pinnacle of Catolic influence. Before that, anti-semitism was nothing more than cultural-national animosity. The Feudal-Catholic ruling classes felt no need to handle money (they claimed it ws against their reilgion) so they gave the job to the Jews. But whenever the ruling class screwed up or did something obviously corrupt, it was always those "devil worshipping Jews" who were responsible, because they handeled the money. Economics, economics. :rolleyes:

[cska]

Its really all about economics. During the middle ages, banking positions were given by the feudal lords of Europe to the Jews. Jews came to represent a sort of proto-middle class because many of them were involved in banking (at a time when banking seemed of little importance). It was considered sacreligious for Catholics to handle and distribute money, so the job was allocated to the Jews. As time went on and banking and capital became much more important. Whenever anything went wrong with the economy, it was far much easier for the ruling class to direct the blame on the Jews in banking, supplemented with the old-fashioned religious and cultural based prejudices. This is where the "Jewish conspiracy" bullshit came from. People believed (wrongly) that the Jews were in control (and some tink are still in control) of the world economy just because many had taken jobs as bankers.

There was anti-semitism before the middle ages, but the type of antisemitism that we know today origniated in the 1300's and the pinnacle of Catolic influence. Before that, anti-semitism was nothing more than cultural-national animosity. The Feudal-Catholic ruling classes felt no need to handle money (they claimed it ws against their reilgion) so they gave the job to the Jews. But whenever the ruling class screwed up or did something obviously corrupt, it was always those "devil worshipping Jews" who were responsible, because they handeled the money. Economics, economics. :rolleyes:

The same seems to be starting to happen with Asians in America. We take a lot of the upper middle class jobs, and work like shit to get them, while the white capitalists at the top sit on their asses and direct popular dissent at us for getting good jobs.

[khad]

The same seems to be starting to happen with Asians in America. We take a lot of the upper middle class jobs, and work like shit to get them, while the white capitalists at the top sit on their asses and direct popular dissent at us for getting good jobs.
In large part because it's conscious immigration policy to get skilled workers for American industries. Obviously not everyone in Asia is someone who skilled 17 different ways, but the people selected to get into the United States are usually well-educated and trained.

Why do immigrants from Asia do "well?" It's not really because of the "we work hard and shit" model minority lie. Compare these well-to-do East and South Asians with a group of Asian immigrants who weren't so selected, such as the refugee Hmong.

[cska]

In large part because it's conscious immigration policy to get skilled workers for American industries. Obviously not everyone in Asia is someone who skilled 17 different ways, but the people selected to get into the United States are usually well-educated and trained.

Why do immigrants from Asia do "well?" It's not really because of the "we work hard and shit" model minority lie. Compare these well-to-do East and South Asians with a group of Asian immigrants who weren't so selected, such as the refugee Hmong.

You misunderstand me. My point is that the Asians who are admitted to the United States might be better off than most Americans in terms of wages and position, but are still exploited by the capitalists, who try to deflect working class outrage at the Asians. While Asian immigrants do well, few of them are as well of as white capitalists. This is because the Asians let themselves get exploited, unlike other minorities.

As far as the model minority goes, I think it is a model that capitalists like to hold up so they can get people to work harder and demand less. It is a model we should seek to fight against.