Why are Jews hated by so many people?

I agree. I'm also dismayed that the discussion immeadiately diverts to a discussion on Israel.

As a very short alien once said, "Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to suffering."

People that hate jews, fear them.

I don't say this to insult you, but i think it is nonsensical. No civilization in western culture has contributed as much across the board in terms of language, legal system, military organization, engineering and rhetorical method as the Roman empire, but not a single religion which nutured either the republican empire, or the principiate empire, survives today. Before you mention christianity, i will point out that what survives of roman language and culture survives in spite of, and not because of, christianity.

The Christian religion, almost from it's inception, has promulgated the idea that Jews, because they did not and do not accept Jesus as savior, can not only be persecuted with impunity but also that they are deserving of that persecution. The Shoah is but the worst, and most recent, example of an unbroken string of pogroms, murders and atrocities performed as required by, this is the oddest thing to say, Christian hatred.

Moreover the RC Church set back scientific advancement by 500 years....and that pisses me off. I could have been teleporting to Mars for the same cost as my DSL line if it wasn't for them.

I don't know about that, Boss, DSL lines are pretty damned expensive . . . seems teleportation would be a bargain in comparison . . .

LOL....OK, for the cost of a pizza...'K?

Luckily for us, scientists in Europe basically told church leaders to go back to their chapels while they continued work on human anatomy, chemistry, astronomy and other disciplines.

In a great irony, considering the title of this thread, the Renaissance was fueled by the discovery of ancient Greek texts, largely in Arabic translation, which the Reconquista found in the libararies of Andalusian cities, and those brought back by monks who had accompanied the crusaders. The irony is, those texts were translated for Europeans who could not read Arabic, and who had lost the use of classical Greek--by Jews.

Setanta - you almost sound as if you expect it all to make sense!

Here - take a large whiskey - it all works then!

Well, Boss, i find that it all makes for a sense of irony. Jews were very important to christians and muslims in the middle ages, because they were intermediaries able to travel in both worlds. In Venice, the Doges considered the Jews sufficiently valuable to have protected them by setting up a special community for them on the island of Ghetto. Sadly, the continued pogroms elsewhere in Europe lead the refugee Jews to Venice, and Ghetto became a synonym for the overcrowded, impoverished misery of a class of people. Similarly, when the city of Fez was created, the rulers there knew the value of Jews to their economy, and they set up a special, guarded district in which they could live. In the muslim world, Jews were skilled at crafts and trades which the Arabs did not possess (as were Syriac and Nestorian christians) such as gold- and silversmithy, and apothecary. As i have already mentioned, the prohibition on usury in christian society made Jews as moneylenders the obvious choice--and as i've also mentioned, they were even more attractive to the ruling class, who were able to stir up a pogrom if unable or unwilling to repay their debts.

Thanks for the offer of the Water of Life, Boss, but i no longer take strong drink. The food in jail sucks.

This is a contradiction I've never quite been able to figure out.



Move to Brighton, the cops are lovely...OK, the odd night in nick, but that's all

Setanta, Jews also went into moneylending because for a long time we weren't allowed to own land or engage in farming. Hence, there were few choices when it came to making a living. And then we were blamed for not engaging in moral occupations! Essentially, the issue was set up as a damned if you do, damned if you don't one - e. g. we won't let you do anything but lend money, and then we'll persecute you for doing that very thing (and of course if we didn't lend money and instead begged for food or did something similar, we'd be condemned for that). And, as you mentioned before - when the loans and interest become too high, Christian leaders would burn some villages and hold a pogrom (or look the other way while one occurred - hey, it was entertaining for the peasants and it diverted their attention from things like the inherent poverty that goes hand in hand with most tenant farming) so that nothing has to be paid back. Unfortunately, it's all too logical.

Two years after Charles I was executed, his son lead a Scots army in an invasion of England. The Parliament's army destroyed the Scots army at Worcester and Charles II escaped by the expedient of spending a few days in a "priest hole" in an English Catholic manor house. (Catholics were under political and religious debility, and priests were under an immediate sentence of death if found in the realm.) The Catholics then smuggled him out of England (no mean feat--the man was 6'3" tall, with long, curly black hair and an olive complexion!) through Lyme, which has been Lyme Regis ever since his restoration.

Charles tried to pass a Catholic relief bill (meaning relief from the politically institutionalized oppression of Catholics) in gratitude for the decency shown him by a despised minority (one which, nonetheless, comprised many wealthy members)--but it was killed quickly and brutally by the Whig ascendancy.

Later, some lowlife types in the City of London began attempting to extort money from the Jews there. They (the Jews) sent some of their leading men to appeal to the King. He was a man whose life had taught him many lessons, and he had learned from the Catholic relief bill episode--he didn't turn to Parliament, he just rounded up some of the boys and sent them to have a talk with the thugs who were harrassing the Jews. They may not have had a perfect life in England since those days, but they were never extorted nor expelled thereafer.

Perhaps a small thing, but it is evidence that injustice is not universal and eternal.

Good story, I like the ending. A story with a moral , something to tell the kids.

"One day, there were some Jews...."

Well, the British were much too busy subjugating the Irish, colonizing the New World while warring with the Dutch, the French and Spanish to be bothered with a few Jews. Besides the Germans and the Spanish were doing a mighty fine job of trying to wipe out Judaism themselves.

Some interesting posts Set.

It was Oliver Cromwell who allowed the Jews back into England I believe.

I think the biggest mistake the Jews made was turning West as they fled out of Palestine in 70AD and at later dates as well. Had they turned East in great numbers (a few did) they would have entered into the great sciences of Persia, Eurasia and India. They would have found much greater acceptance, as the few did, while living under Moslem rule than they ever did in any Christian place.
The Roman Catholic Church's denigration of the Jews as a people is well illustrated throughout European history with only the Lutherans coming in a close second as organized hate groups allied against Judaism. The question here is why do people hate the Jews? The answer is because the Church said it was permitted and, in many places, encouraged.

Not until nearly two thousand years had passed did a Roman Catholic Pope decree that the Church's position on the Jews had been wrong, that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus, that their denial of His divinity was without guilt or fault, and that multitudes of Jews had been persecuted unjustly for centuries due to the erroneous teachings of the Church. While standing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem he begged God's forgiveness.

Still, 2000 years of hate do not disappear so quickly, and today it's not difficult to find some yahoo, a descendant no doubt of the Inquisitioners, who still profess the odd notion that within Christian love there is no room for the Jew.
====
Of course, they don't understand that they themselves are Jews, the same as Jesus was, that's always a shocker that's hard for them to take. Yet, nothing Jesus taught would lead one to believe He was not a faithful Jew and intended his followers to be good Jews too. It was Paul, in his dotage, thirty years after Jesus rose into heaven, who had his dream releasing the Christian Jews from kosher and the other traditional bonds of Judaism. It was a great marketing ploy, freeing the Greeks and the others in Europe from the troublesome bother of following Leviticus too closely.

Joe Nation

Yes, i believe you are correct. Barbara Tuchman wrote an interesting book on the Jews and the English, entitled Bible and Sword, which i read many years ago. I read it for entertainment, and made no effort to recall the details. The incident with Charles II and the Jews of the City of London is to be found in Antonia Fraser's Royal Charles.

Thanks for the Jews/charles II reference. She who must be (but isnt always) obeyed in this household had not heard it before. (27 years history teacher)