AGW Supporters always ignore this question

[CaptainBeowulf]

I can't understand this incipient anti-semitism that keeps coming back around, decade after decade, century after century. I'm not Jewish, my ethnic ancestry is north European gentile (Brit and some other stuff), but I still don't get it.

In the Middle Ages, Christians were prohibited from "usery" - that is, lending money and collecting interest - on religious grounds. So, Jews filled that necessary economic gap in society. For that, they were often viewed as some sort of secretive money-grubbing cabal. Of course a disproportionate number of Jews got rich and worked with each other in financial circles - there was little competition from gentiles. Eventually the Christians kicked off their religious constraints, but the image about Jews persisted.

Dislike of Jews due to their financial success was, of course, combined with religious intolerance - the Catholic church used to like to say that the "Jews" crucified Jesus and to pray for the souls of the Jews (nevermind that Jesus was a Jew, and that it was the Romans who actually carried out the crucifixion, which was itself a standard Roman punishment for a wide array of what they considered crimes).

Sure, they were obnoxious Jews who called in their debts, and acted in other obnoxious ways. There are obnoxious people in every ethnic group. How does this add up to "the Jews were in everyone's faces for four millenia"? Surely we have enough historical perspective to now see why Jews were hated by elements of Western society.

Alex and others, please either support your arguments in this respect or quit trying to bait people.

[KitemanSA]

The Jews in much of Europe during the middle ages paid handsomely to create their own ghettos (places where jewish law prevailed) and isolated themselves within them. They isolated themselves in Poland so well that their language (Yiddish) stayed the same while its roots (German) changed without it. Mistrust built as "everyone (the Poles) knew" that the jews cheated their suppliers, and "everyone knew" that the jews sacrificed Christian babies. And everyone knew (the Jews this time) that the goim poisoned the milk sold to the Jews. (Enter Kosher).

The self imposed segregation didn't do them much good in the middle ages. Its not working real well now either. It is too bad, really. The Jews I know are freindly folk. Not all that different, really, than the Palestinians I know.

[alexjrgreen]

They found plenty of other ways to get themselves hated...

Yeah. Like craftsmanship, trade, and banking.

Like charging 43.3 per cent interest per annum on loans in France under Philip II Augustus (1180-1223), and double that under King John II (1350-1364).

[KitemanSA]

Like charging 43.3 per cent interest per annum on loans in France under Philip II Augustus (1180-1223), and double that under King John II (1350-1364).

Nobody ever said they were stupid! They knew a bad credit risk when they saw one; in this case, two!

[Helius]

Like charging 43.3 per cent interest per annum on loans in France under Philip II Augustus (1180-1223), and double that under King John II (1350-1364).

I'm confused. Why does disdain fall on the lenders while the borrowers get a pass?
If someone pays ~~ 18% on revolving credit, is the lender the dufus and not the borrower?

[MSimon]

The Jews in much of Europe during the middle ages paid handsomely to create their own ghettos (places where jewish law prevailed) and isolated themselves within them. They isolated themselves in Poland so well that their language (Yiddish) stayed the same while its roots (German) changed without it. Mistrust built as "everyone (the Poles) knew" that the jews cheated their suppliers, and "everyone knew" that the jews sacrificed Christian babies. And everyone knew (the Jews this time) that the goim poisoned the milk sold to the Jews. (Enter Kosher).

The self imposed segregation didn't do them much good in the middle ages. Its not working real well now either. It is too bad, really. The Jews I know are freindly folk. Not all that different, really, than the Palestinians I know.

The Kosher laws preceded the rumors by millenia.

I suppose the Jew's self isolation had nothing to do with the regular murder of Jews on the loose when the PTB needed a scapegoat.

There is even a word for it pogrom.

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

A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers. The term was originally used to denote extensive violence against Jews – either spontaneous or premeditated – but in English it is also applied to similar incidents against other minority groups.

The word "pogrom" (Russian: погром) came from the verb громить, Russian pronunciation: [ɡroˈmʲitʲ] "to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently". In Russian the word pogrom has a much wider application than in English, and can be applied to any incident of wanton and unrestrained destruction on a mass scale, such as occur during wartime. The word pogrom may have come into English via Yiddish.

There were tensions between Hellenism and Judaism following the conquests of Alexander the Great, see for example the Maccabean Revolt of 167 BC. Particularly disputed were circumcision and antinomianism.

There were antisemitic riots in Alexandria under Roman rule in AD 38 during the reign of Caligula.[3][4]

Evidence of communal violence against Jews and Early Christians, who were seen as a Jewish sect, exists dating from the second century AD in Rome. These riots were generally precipitated by the Romans because Jews refused to accept Roman rule over Palestine[citation needed] and early Christians were seen as a Jewish sect that proselytized actively. It should be noted that Romans were generally quite tolerant of other religions, yet they conducted several wars against the Jews, see Jewish-Roman Wars, and, before the Edict of Milan, persecuted Christians.

Massive violent attacks against Jews date back at least to the Crusades such as the Pogrom of 1096 in France and Germany (the first to be officially recorded), as well as the massacres of Jews at London and York in 1189–1190.

During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, beginning in the ninth century, Islamic Spain was very welcoming towards Jews.[5] The eleventh century, however, saw several Muslim pogroms against Jews; those that occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[6] In the 1066 Granada massacre, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews.[7] In 1033 about 6,000 Jews were killed in Fez, Morocco by Muslim mobs.[8][9] Mobs in Fez murdered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, in 1465.[10][citation needed]

In 1348, because of the hysteria surrounding the Black Plague, Jews were massacred in Chillon, Basle, Stuttgart, Ulm, Speyer, Dresden, Strasbourg, and Mainz. By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed.[11] A large number of the surviving Jews fled to Poland, which was very welcoming to Jews at the time.[12]

In 1543, Martin Luther wrote On the Jews and Their Lies, a treatise in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people, up to what are now called pogroms. He advocated that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated.

There are pages more and other links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewis ... ian_Empire

My ancestors (on one side) left Russia in the early 1900s. On the other side Romania about the same time. Thank the Maker I missed out on all the European fun from the mid 30s to the mid 40s.

And in the news from 6 Jan 2010:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephill ... ound.thtml

Which is more objectionable – George Galloway’s behaviour in Gaza, or the way the Guardian chose to report it?

It appears that clashes took place in Gaza today between Egyptian forces and a Viva Palestina ‘aid’ convoy, including George Galloway, which was bringing supplies to Gaza. In Hamas-inspired riots following the delay to the convoy, an Egyptian border guard was shot dead and several others injured, along with a number of Palestinians. It appears that Egypt has finally decide to put an end to the smuggling of weapons (along with food, electrical goods and just about everything under the sun) through the tunnels under its security wall with Gaza, and is trying to seal the border by constructing an underground steel wall to cut these tunnels off.

Note: Egypt’s security wall; Egypt’s attempt to seal it; because Egypt controls that border with Gaza; Egypt is ‘blockading’ Gaza.

And who is blamed by Galloway? You will never guess.

[bcglorf]

George is evil. It's almost unfair to associate him with anything as it automatically paints it evil as well, though he usually chooses to associate with those that deserve the taint. Saddam, Bashar al-Assad and Hamas are or have been his friends and allies. I just wanted to point out both how evil he is, and that it isn't particularly conclusive to point at the absolute worst examples from different sides of an issue. It's about as fair as judging the American soldiers in Iraq by pointing at the guys on court martial over the Abu Ghraib abuses. Yes they were American soldiers, put they were certainly not a representative group. I'm willing to bet a lot of the people sending aid to Galloway's convoy aren't as keen to see western and Israeli blood split as he is.

[KitemanSA]

The Kosher laws preceded the rumors by millenia.

They were more what you might call "guidelines" than actual laws until the troubles started. Most American Jews hold that opinion now. Kosher LAWS were a seperation mechanism.

I suppose the Jew's self isolation had nothing to do with the regular murder of Jews on the loose when the PTB needed a scapegoat.

Nope. The ghettos (if not the term) PRECEDED the pogroms. See below. They were places that Jews PAID the PTB (powers that be) to set aside for them so that Jewish law would prevail. They had their own police, courts, etc. They were a PRIVILEDGE. They also seemed to help create the "us" vs "them" attitude that often results in violence against the smaller of the "usses".

There is even a word for it pogrom.

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

Massive violent attacks against Jews date back at least to the Crusades such as the Pogrom of 1096 in France and Germany (the first to be officially recorded), as well as the massacres of Jews at London and York in 1189–1190.

During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, beginning in the ninth century, Islamic Spain was very welcoming towards Jews.[5] The eleventh century, however, saw several Muslim pogroms against Jews; those that occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[6] In the 1066 Granada massacre, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews.[7] In 1033 about 6,000 Jews were killed in Fez, Morocco by Muslim mobs.[8][9] Mobs in Fez murdered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, in 1465.[10][citation needed]

In 1348, because of the hysteria surrounding the Black Plague, Jews were massacred in Chillon, Basle, Stuttgart, Ulm, Speyer, Dresden, Strasbourg, and Mainz. By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed.[11] A large number of the surviving Jews fled to Poland, which was very welcoming to Jews at the time.[12] {{Communities = ghettos: emphasis added}}

[KitemanSA]

Oh, and I should point out that the ghettos were generally a WHOLE lot richer and better off than the non-ghetto surroundings, which didn't help the "us vs "them" attitudes either. This was mainly due to a lack of the idiotic usery laws that the Catholic Church foisted off on the rest of western Europe at the time.
When the Jews got rich (due to non-Jew stupidity in this case) off the sweat of the goim's brow, the goim got mad, then got "even". Not a good mark on either group's history.

[alexjrgreen]

...
{examples from a period of more than two thousand years of Jews being persecuted by their neighbours}
...

Racism and anti-semitism are alive and well in Europe, as a trawl through any newspaper archive quickly shows.

People who are different are easy targets, and racism is a tempting mob card for morally bankrupt politicians. Blacks, gays, gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses were among the five million non-Jews who died alongside six million Jews in the Holocaust.

That said, after two thousand years of persecution of Jews by just about every society that ever welcomed them, you have to ask a question:

When does such a smart group of people stop saying "they hate me because I'm a Jew" and start wondering whether their own behaviour has anything to do with it?

[Skipjack]

One reason why jews are hated so much by other people is because they are (almost without exception), smarter than most people. There is no problem with that, except that they know it and make others feel that too.
Noone likes being told that he is an idiot by a whole people, over and over again. That builds up hate.
So basically they are hated for being better than others and showing it.

[Skipjack]

On the racism thing: I dont think that it is as present anymore in Europe, IMHO there is less in Europe than in the US.
There is some anti judaism (I refuse to say anti semitism because that would be a paradoxon since technically arabs are semites too) which is mostly fired by the quickly growing muslim population.

[CaptainBeowulf]

Oh, and I should point out that the ghettos were generally a WHOLE lot richer and better off than the non-ghetto surroundings, which didn't help the "us vs "them" attitudes either. This was mainly due to a lack of the idiotic usery laws that the Catholic Church foisted off on the rest of western Europe at the time.
When the Jews got rich (due to non-Jew stupidity in this case) off the sweat of the goim's brow, the goim got mad, then got "even". Not a good mark on either group's history.

This is a more reasonable statement. The anti-usery laws provided a separation mechanism, which was reinforced by the Church's insistence on blaming the "Jews" for Jesus' crucifixion. Remember that that message was being reinforced at Mass every Sunday for centuries.

The core of Jewish society also had a strong cultural/religious tradition, which pressured Jews to marry other Jews and not lose the culture and assimilate into the general population. (However, if you go through history with a fine tooth comb you will find that there were always Jews who left the Jewish communities and assimilated.) Add that self-imposed separation mechanism, and you have even more reason for ghettoization.

As discussed already, Jewish communities could become quite rich because the anti-usery laws meant there was little to no competition from the Christians. As for isolation and retention of Yiddish in Poland and Ukraine, they'd already been persecuted in France and Germany during the plague; this probably just increased a desire to seek protection in numbers in separate communities when they fled east.

In other words, both the Jewish and Christian communities of late Classical to early Modern Europe are equally to blame/equally blameless for what happened. Religious intolerance, and what we would see as fundamentalism, was far more widespread and accepted than it is for us today. What I object to is implying that the Jews were somehow to blame - it doesn't strike me as historically honest. Understanding and discussing the separation mechanisms is honest.

As for Jews being smarter, well, Jews as a group do seem to include a large number of smarter than average people. Most Jews I know don't seem to me to be trying to act like they're smarter than me. But once again, there are obnoxious people in any ethnic group.

[MSimon]

As for Jews being smarter, well, Jews as a group do seem to include a large number of smarter than average people. Most Jews I know don't seem to me to be trying to act like they're smarter than me. But once again, there are obnoxious people in any ethnic group.

It has been my experience that Israelis are particularly obnoxious. And this coming from a Jew who is no stranger to arrogance.

[MSimon]

George is evil. It's almost unfair to associate him with anything as it automatically paints it evil as well, though he usually chooses to associate with those that deserve the taint. Saddam, Bashar al-Assad and Hamas are or have been his friends and allies. I just wanted to point out both how evil he is, and that it isn't particularly conclusive to point at the absolute worst examples from different sides of an issue. It's about as fair as judging the American soldiers in Iraq by pointing at the guys on court martial over the Abu Ghraib abuses. Yes they were American soldiers, put they were certainly not a representative group. I'm willing to bet a lot of the people sending aid to Galloway's convoy aren't as keen to see western and Israeli blood split as he is.

Yeah. My comment was unfair.

My point though is that Egypt is practicing apartheid against the Gazans. So it is not just the Israelis that have it in for them.

As I said - the ME has been infected with all the worst politics Europe had to offer. And they are not getting over it any time soon.