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Life Talk!

Where Does Antisemitism Come From?

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

Recently a user who named himself “i hate israel” got banned from this website, because of the antisemitic things he posted in here. The following is more or less the same text I once posted in one of his racist forums. It already explains what was the content of his forum message:


i hate isr
ael


United States


You are US-American and you dislike the Israeli people for being involved in wars?


It goes without saying that this wasn’t meant to be a discrimination against US-American citizens, – after all I’m German – but rather an indication to the fact that every country’s history has its dark and its bright moments.


You consider it to be a good thing that Hitler committed this genocide, because “the world doesn’t need” the Jews?


If the fact that we don’t need somebody justified the crimes the nazis did, we shouldn’t punish any murderer at all, because the world doesn’t really depend on the individual he murdered. Then it even is okay when unborn children get aborted or murdered right after their birth, because humanity was able to survive without them for millions of years. Oh…And by the way: Why don’t we murder all US-citizens then? We don’t need them, because firstly they lost some of their power during the last few years and although they still are considered to be a superpower it’s easy to replace them by another superpower – like China for example.


I know what I say here is cruel, but I just try to explain why your theory doesn’t make much sense to me.


->Now to my actual question: What do you think where antisemitism comes from?

04:41 PM Mar 27 2011 |

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Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

I think I know why some people hate Muslims: They are afraid of the unknown and unusual and in Europe it just is a rare sight to see a veiled lady for example. It doesn't happen too often that a German non-Muslim gets to know a Muslim and thus they have to depend on the media that tell them about terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, women who get mistreated in Afghanistan etc.

History also proves that fear of the neighboured people or of ethnic minorities causes some tension, because after all an ethnic group or even a whole foreign people could easily start a war to take over one's country.

But Jews assimilate. Most Jewish women living in Western countries don't adapt the lifestyle of their ancestors who still wore veils. They assimilate! In addition Judaism is the smallest of the three world religions, also making it unlikely that they could conquer the world if they wanted to.

I know that in the Middle Ages Christians hated Jews, because Jesus Christ, our most important prophet, got executed by Jews. As it seems the church of back then didn't teach its people that Jesus himself was a Jew.

But where does modern antisemitism come from? Adolf Hitler and his most important henchmen weren't religious Christians, at school and in church we learn that Jesus Christ was Jewish and some Christian sources-like a priest I know, a book of religious education we read in secondary school and perhaps some others aswell-even go so far as to call them our "elder brothers". Apart from that I doubt that every neonazi and anti-Semite who hasn't learned from history and still bullies every Jew he meets, tries to justify his deeds religiously.

Thus I seriously don't have any idea where antisemitism comes from!

 

06:40 PM Apr 21 2011 |

Nasim

Nasim

India

Sometimes even the multiculturalists and religious apologists are far worse than racists. At least the racists are being frank about their world view, narrow though it maybe.

03:16 AM Apr 24 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

I thank both of you for your informative contributions.

03:06 PM May 01 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

Nu Pogodi,


These are a lot of comments and questions of yours, so I’ll try to answer them one by one, beginning with the first comment/question:


1) Sometimes fear can result in hatred, so I think that here both expressions are acceptable and yes, this is also a political matter, since most non-Muslims neglect Sharia-law and even are shocked by its rules, while Muslims living in Islamic countries seem to be content with it.


If you talk about the Charles Martel (also called Karl Martell) I know, then the answer is that he was a son of  Karl II. of Anjou, king of Sicily and Jerusalem.


 2) Yes, of course this isn’t only a religious, but also a cultural and even a political matter. Apart from that we don’t even have one whole group of Muslims, but they are split into Shia and Sunnah – just as Christianity is split into protestants, Catholics and orthodox Christians. Also Judaism is split in at least 13 ethnic groups – some of them smaller, some bigger.


3) Actually I don’t feel like discussing this in greater detail, since I just want to stick to my original question,but yes: That’s what I was trying to say. This form of xenophobia can also be explained politically. In some cases politics get influenced by xenophobia and vice versa.


4) and 5) This may be some kind of prejudice and I don’t say that it counts for all Muslims or Jews, since I want to stereotype neither of them, but I think that for a Jew whose ancestors went from Israel to…Europe for example it’s easier to abandon the lifestyle of his ancestors than for a German Muslim whose ancestors came from a country like Algeria. Don’t get me wrong! I don’t consider this to be negative and according to me it’s even good to stick to your roots, but I’m just telling you what I think about it: Namely that most Algerians, Turks, Pakistanis, Iranians etc. are very attached to the cultural and political world they left behind.


By the way: Yes, I know examples of Jewish women marrying non-Jewish men. The Jewish law says that a child whose mother is Jewish has to be considered as a Jew aswell and thus this actually shouldn’t cause too much trouble. I don’t see the negative aspects of this either, but the Sunah-Muslims I met so far (and I only know one single Shia-Muslim) are stricter about that and they say that a Muslim lady shall not marry a non-Muslim one. The Bible also condemns mixed marriage and thus Christians actually aren’t allowed to marry a non-Christian either. This isn’t a prejudice, but I only tell you about personal experiences and what I learned.


6) Yes, I think that size matters! I mean: Why would a minority try to conquer the country they live in. In countries where they are opressed this would be understandable, but why should a Jewish minority try to conquer a country that recognizes them as its own citizens and thus treats them like any other ethnic group? Trying to defeat the larger majority would be madness in this case!


7) Yes, of course it was his destiny, but still most clerics living in the Middle Ages seemed to forget about that and founded their persecution of Jews on this event. Why do you say Christians don’t see him as their prophet? You mean, because most of them believe in trinity and thus even consider him to be the incarnation of God?


This doesn’t mean they don’t see him as their prophet: A prophet is someone who got sent to earth to teach people how to live their religion and that’s exactly what he did. I know Christians who call him both: A prophet and God.


8) I’m sorry, but I don’t see the link between the quote and your question. I know the Zealot’s, the Essenes, the Pharisees and the Levites, as religious Jewish groups that existed back then. Also I’m informed about the fact that several other prophets – or people who claimed to be prophets – had followers of their doctrine as well.


9) I think that when the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu got written, Christianity and Islam didn’t exist yet and thus I – although I never read them – doubt they say concrete things about these two religious groups. All I know that especially the Second, the Third and the Fourth book of Moses…don’t talk to positive about atheists. (Jesus Christ later taught us something else, but since he’s not a part of Judaism, I’ll just leave it at that.)


On the other hand you’ll also find the picture of a meciful God in the Old Testament, – which is part of Judaism – too. These passages already talk about charity and love even towards atheists as well.


10) Hitler was born to Catholic parents and thus he got educated in the doctrine of the Catholic church.


11) Some say these interpretations got influenced by John the Baptist and that especially the prophet Amos played an important role for him, but actually he still made his own interpretations of scriptures like the Talmud and taught his followers what he thought about it.


12) As I said before some parts of the Five Books of Moses are really cruel and it is described that they even murdered children during their “crusades” against the infidel – because God told them to do so. However the Bible isn’t a history book and thus it isn’t said that this is an exact description of how their battles really were like. It isn’t even said that all of them actually took place.


By the way I thank you for your link!

08:36 AM May 02 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

The following is an open letter indicated to some users of this website who already posted thoughtless things like that Jews deserved what Hitler did to them or that they were going to kill or enslave all Jews. Just yesterday I read some comments like that from three different users while they had a discussion about the Israeli – Palestinian conflict:


Dear Sir or Madam,


First of all please let me explain to you why I don’t understand how one can hate the whole Jewish people. At the moment there are 13.4 millions of Jews living on our planet and not even 42% of them live in the state you seem to hate most – Israel. I even was told that you will find more Jews in some states outside of Israel – for example the USA – than inside of Israel. Now to the people of Israel itself: Yes, I heard about that several parts of the country of Westjordan as well as the Gaza – Stripe are occupied by Israel and I also heard that the troups sent by Israel already did many things there you can consider as war crimes. On the other hand this brings up three questions:


1.) Is there anybody out there who deserves death?


2.) Can you condemn a whole people for the political course of its government?


3.) The majority of Brazil is Catholic, so would you talk about killing all Catholics if Brazil committed a war crime?


You may hear very different opinions considering the first question. Personally I am against death penalty and I don’t think that there is a single individual out there who deserves death more than any other human being. It would have been better if several people – terrorists, dictators etc. – had died before they could harm anybody, but this doesn’t mean they deserved death. However I know that a lot of people out there have an opinion different than that.


For the second question however I can give you a clearer answer and this answer is “No!” At first some of you may be surprised to read such a clear “No!” considering this question,but I hope the surprise will vanish as soon as you take a look at Rockyy01’s comment in the forum “Mickey’s Furor in the Land of Pyramids”. ( Here I should thank him for allowing me to mention his name here. Thnk you! )This forum is another proof of the theory that of course not all of the more than 7.602.400 Israelis can be in favor or against something. Even though the Torah – which Christians call the Old Testament – calls Jews God’s chosen people who have a right on “Erez Israel” it seems that some Israelis begg to differ. Perhaps they think that since Christians and Arabs descede from Judaism – After all the three of them have many prophets in common and even have a very similar imagination of God. – they should have the same rights as Jews. Perhaps they aren’t that religious that they let Judaism influence their opinion on a political subject like that or perhaps…I don’t know what exactly the motivation of these Jewish men and women was, but these photos show clearly that there are different types of men in all ethnic and religious groups which forcibly results in the fact that condemning a whole people or religious group never makes sense. Under no circumstances!


This also answers my third question: On the Internet you may find many people who write crazy things like killing a whole people or something, but I presume that the eradication of a whole people has become…very unlikely now that we live in the 21st century. I know that after the discovery of America many people got extermined by white men who either executed them or infected them and I also know a more modern example…After World War 2 many people were so full of hate against the German people that they talked about doing to them the same things Germans once did to the Jews. There are many texts and tapes that prove this. Considering the many war crimes Germany did back then, it is understandable that these men had thoughts like that. None can really blame them. Once I got to see a Holocaust – memorial saying “To honor the dead; to warn the living!” and I think we – the living – should take this literally. You may find many antisemite slogans like the ones mentioned above not only on the Internet, but also in other non – virtual public places like schools. When I hear these sentences it always occurs to me that the people who say so actually aren’t even really informed about Hitler’s genocide and thus don’t even know what they are just saying. I always tell myself that one day they will find out what Holocaust really meant and then they will be ashamed of themselves for saying things like that. After all it is not only madness, but the pure incarnation of madness to say that the many innocent men who died back then deserved getting exploited and brutally murdered simply bcause of sticking to the doctrine of a prophet Christians actually believe in as well. Let alone the fact that millions of these Jews were still infants or children who didn’t have a real faith, but due to their young age just stuck to the things they learned from their parents, teachers etc. Let alone the fact that millions of men amongst these victims of the most cruel genocide that has ever been weren’t even real Jews, but either had some Jewish ancestors or were just born from a Jewish mother and didn’t care that much about faith.


It may be true and understandable that historical facts like these can be forgotten easily while reading reports about Palestinians who got attacked by Israeli settlers from a settlement that actually got reacted under violation of the international law  or when hearing about another Palestinian who turned to the terrorist organisation Hamas and even committed a suicide attack killing innocent civilians – perhaps even children – because he hates his personal situation as well as the situation of his people in general. Of course it is shocking to hear that some Palestinians meanwhile keep so much hate towards the Israeli occupying forces inside that they seek for revenge by attacking Israeli settlers ( civilians ) or let themselves get influenced by organisations like the Hisbollah* who according to Wikipedia aren’t only intolerant towards Israel because of the occupation of Palestine, – which would be understandable – but also want the extermination of a Jewish state simply for being Jewish. Yes, reactions like these on the Palestinian side may be condonable, but this doesn’t mean that we have the right to condon a genocide – in this case Holocaust – as well. I hope you already realized that what you posted back then was simply wrong and why I’m so glad that these comments got removed. As I indicated before, it occured to me that you just weren’t informed well enough about the things the nationalsocialistic ideology resulted in and thus I’m sure that by getting better information about Holocaust – Wikipedia is a reliable source and you may find some more interesting movies on youtube as I personally can highly recommend you the movie “Holocaust” that although it’s a very long one, it’s definetly worth seeing. – you will change your mind immediately. Comments like the ones I read that day make me feel glad that I live in Germany – a country where everybody who says, types or writes something like that gets punished. As the memorial I talked about before says we shall honor the dead and learn from history.                       


Yours faithfully,                                   


                         ....                                


 * Some Muslim people already called me racist in here and I actually don’t understand where they got this idea from. Perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding. To avoid anything like that in here – and I’m afraid some may misinterprete what I wrote about Hisbollah. – I’ll just tell you the following fact: I heard they used to be against any ethnic minority living in their country and even wanted to exterminate the non – Muslims living in their country, Lebanon. However throughout the decades they went through some reformations and meanwhile they turned away from their ideology of a theocracy and they also argue for equality of religion. In addition they criticize terrorist organisations like Al Quaida. In fine I think that meanwhile they are tolerable.

07:39 AM Jul 06 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

I contacted the admin and as you can see, he already solved the problem I recently had trying to post texts.

07:51 AM Jul 06 2011 |

Rockyy01

Rockyy01

Pakistan

My Dear Dorothee…

Don’t thank me for allowing you to use my name… :)
I thank you for asking about my permission for using that… :)

I wanna say something for when you said about you that…
‘Some people called me Racist… may be they misunderstood me…’

You’re right my dear…
I agree with you that they must have misunderstood you…
Cuz you’re not a Racist… you’re positively different from them… :)

Now I wanna be just in the topic of your forum…
I read it & I agree that it’s impossible for the whole nation to be alike positevely or negatively…
Good & Bad people are everywhere & among every nation…
& I said this same thing everywhere I talked on this topic that…

‘For me… Israel is a country like every other country…

& Israelis are a nation like every other nation…
They’re also Human Beings… They’ve hearts too…
so being a human They… & We… both should do & say the things that could praise the Humanity…’

The problem I have is just with their Leader’s Policies…
but still that has NOTHING to do with Common Israeli People…

I wanna add something in my comment that…
everytime when a Muslim says to me that all the Jewish are bad… & responsible for the Chaos in the world…
Then I reply to all of them that…

‘You can’t paint them all with the Same Brush…

You can’t blame whole the nation for ‘A FEW NATIONALS
but If you think that you’re right when you say they ALL are bad…
Then you must dare to hear & believe when they say that ALL THE MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS
When they blame you then you say that WHOLE NATION CAN’T BE THE SAME
SO WHY & HOW CAN YOU APPLY THIS RULE OPPOSITELY ON THEM?’

So I condemn the Anti-Semitism…
& I’m against of being against of ANY OTHER NATION TOO

& Now in the end…
As a reply of your question…
what you asked in your Last Line of your forum that…

‘Where Does Anti-Semitism Come From…?’


I wanna refer my forum… ‘We’ve Had Enough…’ to you…


Here is the link…
http://www.englishbaby.com/forum/LifeTalk/thread/458513-we-ve-had-enough


This forum I posted against ‘THE GLOBAL INNOCENT KILLINGS…’
See it… Read it… Feel it… & Understand it that…

WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR ME TO DO THAT FORUM

WHERE I WANTED IT TO GO
WHAT I WANTED IT TO BE
WHAT I WANTED TO SAY THROUGH THAT FORUM


&...
Then see… THE VERY FIRST COMMENTS

HOW DID SOMEONE TAKE THE REASON
WHERE HAS HE TAKEN IT

WHO MADE IT SO
& HOW DID HE HEAR & UNDERSTOOD ME…???

You will surely get your answer…

Thanx for giving me an opportunity to comment here…
Take Care… Stay Blessed My Dear Dorothee… :)

02:14 PM Jul 13 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

Rockyy01,


I thank you for your comment and the link you posted here as well as – since it occured to me that the users I’m talking about didn’t really believe me when I tried to explain to them that I do not have any prejudice against them fot being Muslims - for confessing that I’m anything but intolerant.


As you know I highly appreciate every form of criticism and thus I also thank you for telling me what you think about my last forum post. Thank you!


P.S. At the moment I have some proper comments I’ve been wanting to post since Monday, – or even longer – but as soon as I’m done with my own duties I may read this forum of yours, too. Thanks for inviting me to do so!


Have a nce day!

06:30 AM Jul 14 2011 |

Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

I just read that a user from this website posted a forum in which he encourages people to boycott Jewish products and in the end he thanked a Jewish user of this website ironically for making him dislike this Jew so much that he finally created a forum like that.


I can’t tell this user whom to like and whom to dislike. Nor can I force any political opinion upon him, but seriously: Doesn’t this sound familiar? Isn’t this exactly what the nazi’s did a few steps before sending Jews into concentration and extermination camps?


Perhaps I would have had understanding if he encouraged people not to buy Israeli products anymore, – As I said before I can’t force any political opinion upon him. – but do you really want 13,5 millions of ( Jewish ) people to end up in poverty simply because of a country that only 40% more or less of the world’s Jews call their home?


I really was shocked when I read that some of englishbaby’s users actually condoned what this user wrote in his forum!!!

03:29 PM Jul 30 2011 |