Jews? What is a Jew?

[Deano!]

Always confused by what is meant by the term Jew, the more I think about it the less sure I am. People from almost all races and countries of birth can claim to be Jewish.

Nor have I ever understood why they can be so hated. What the hell did they ever do? - apart from confuse me with the definition of Jewish. Is it fast becoming an obsolete definition?

[max_tranmere]

Being Jewish is like being a Christian, in that it's not ethnic-specific, just a religion.

In terms of where Jewish people are from they were scattered all over Europe for centuries, especially in central Europe. Because of the unspeakable evils of World War 2 there are virtually none left in Poland or Germany and many in neighbouring countries to those places are no longer around either. Some were fortunate enough to be able to emigrate and quite a few came to Britain and went to the USA. I have heard there were Jewish comminuties in London and Manchester for centuries but the big Jewish communities in London that people refer to as being such - Golders Green, Temple Fortune, Finchley, Hendon, and Stamford Hill have really only been big Jewish commuities since the migrations that occured because of what was happening in World War 2.

Stamford Hill is very Orthodox Jewish, you can tell a Jewish family in that area from their dress and their hairstyle (long platts), in the other areas I have mentioned they are Liberal Jewish and are non distinct, other than the wearing of skull caps on Friday and Saturday each week. The Liberal Jewish communities here are non 'practising' in the strict sense, they will attend Synagogue, have Barmitzva's (the celbration of a young man 'coming of age' at 13) and so on, but those communities are just like any other middle class Anglo community you would find in other urban areas. I am not Jewish but have lived in north London all my life, although not in a Jewish area, but near them, and know about this.

Israel has always been viewed as the one Jewish nation of the world, but that (as far as I know) has only really been since World War 2 also. There have been problems with neighbouring areas to that ever since. You have the Zionists who want changes and there have been issues locally with the Palestinians and so on. That (Israel) is a subject I only know bits about and there are other people who would know more about that than me.

[max_tranmere]

I forgot to include the following in my last comment...

You asked why Jewish people were so hated. There was obviously never any justification for anyone hating them, and I'm not suggesting you were implying that there was, but the reasons why some very nasty people (the Nazi's) took a dislike to them was as follows:

After World War 1, and Germany having to pay unbelieveable amounts of money in war damages to France, Germany was absolutely broke. It was skint to an extent that is barely imaginable and the one community in Germany who were viewed as not feeling the effects of it, and were also viewed as the people who were helping to prolong the problems, were the Jewish people. Prices in the 1920's in Germany literally increased more than a billion times (no joke) and the country was on its knees. People walked around with wheel-barrows full of money, which was what was required to buy the smallest item, people burnt money on the fire as it was so worthless it was cheaper than wood, and you would hear stories of people leaving their wheel-barrow full of cash outside a shop, they would go in, then emerge a minute later to find the wheel-barrow had been nicked and all the money was left on the pavement.

A huge rise in Nationalism happened in Germany in the 1920's and 30's which eventually brought Hitler to power. The Jewish community there remained quite a close-knit middle class and (as far as I know) were the only middle-class, reasonably well-off, people in the country when everyone else was struggling. It was viewed that many Jewish people would only patronise Jewish shops, many had savings that were unaffected by the bankrupt mess the nation was in following them having to give many times more money to France than Germany actually had (this was achieved by just printing as much money as was required which sent inflation sky-rocketing and, literally, caused prices to increase more than a billion-fold in subsequent years, as I mentioned). The Jewish people seemed less affected, and better-off aswell. This brought about resentment amongst some people, as I said, and the Nazi's when they had a hold on power felt these people should be gotten-rid of.

The Nazi's were insane evil people as we know and a lot of what they did to the Jews in Germany was out of that resentment and also as a way of punishing them for (as they saw it in their warped minds) helping make the economic problems of the nation worse by just partonising their own community's business and shops. Nothing that the Nazi's did could ever be justified and 'evil' is barely a big enough word for what followed, but that is why they did what they did. After Hitler started invading neighouring countries he did it to the Jews in those places as he just didn't like them. Nasty, right-wing, Nazi-like people the world over have always disliked Jews ever since as they follow Hitler's views on things. There was no logic in Hitler's evil thinking, and there is even less logic in the thinking of neo-Nazi's in the years that have followed.

[max_tranmere]

Reggie, what the hell are you on about?

[Sam Slater]

What the hell? It all stemmed from the Jews killing Jesus. Christendom has demonized the Jews and indoctrinated their flocks with that for nigh on 2000 years. I think that this brain-washing of Europeans was a big reason the Nazis didn't find too much opposition from the German people about their policies regarding the Jews.

[max_tranmere]

Sam, the dislike that some very nasty people across the world have had towards Jews are because of what I have outlined in my last comment. I stress again that none of it could ever be justified and 'evil' is barely a big enough word for what happened to the Jewish people in central Europe in the 30s and 40s but that is where the disliking of Jewish people (by some very nasty individuals) stems from on a big scale. It may have originated from the Jews originally killing Jesus 2,000 years ago, but the large-scale dislike (by some vile, horrible people) around that time in Germany was the start of it on a large scale. Otherwise why do people in the modern-day, who dislike Jewish people, get called 'Nazi's' and are viewed as being alligned with the thinkings of Hitler?

[Sam Slater]

[quote]It may have originated from the Jews originally killing Jesus 2,000 years ago, but the large-scale dislike (by some vile, horrible people) around that time in Germany was the start of it on a large scale.[/quote]

Large-scale anti-semitism has plagued Europe plenty of times over the last 1500 years, and all of it was based around religion. Of course, over time it become more about economics as many Jews were seen to be rich, crafty money lenders. Even this has it's roots start with religious prejudice due to the killing of Jesus. Because of the distrust of Jews due to the killing of Christ, many Christian nations made it illegal for Jews to buy and farm land, the main source of a person's income up until the industrial revolution. Jews in Europe moved into commerce and prospered.

Take the following quotes from Bertrand Russell (from 'History of Western Philosophy')

"Throughout the Middle Ages, the [Muslims] were more civilized and more humane than the Christians. Christians persecuted Jews, especially at times of religious excitement; the Crusades were associated with appalling pogroms. In Mohammedan countries, on the contrary, Jews at most times were not in any way ill treated. Especially in Moorish Spain."

"Christian armies began to advance into Germany, and the first to feel the edge of their weapons were the peaceful Jewish communities long-settled in the trading cities along the river-valleys of the Rhineland and the Danube."

"Those [Jews] who were not massacred were often despoiled of their property and forcibly baptized. There were large-scale murders of Jews in Germany at the time of the first Crusade and in England, at the time of the third Crusade, on the accession of Richard Coeur de Lion. York, where the first Christian emperor had begun his reign, was the scene of one of the most appalling mass-atrocities against Jews. The Jews, before the Crusades, had almost a monopoly of the trade in Eastern goods throughout Europe; after the Crusades, as a result of the persecution of Jews, this trade was largely in Christian hands."

And from Andrew McCall (in 'The Medieval Underworld):

"By early 1096, they [including "monks who had absconded from their monasteries"] were already beginning to move south-eastwards, in bands large and small. [They] butchered as many Jews as they could lay their hands on and looted their property."

And another quote in a book by Micheal Foss (in, 'People of the First Crusade'):

"Nor were the Muslims the only ones to hope for a return to Islam. For generations, apart for some years of madness under Caliph al-Hakim, the Jews of the land and the city had, on the whole, been treated with tolerance by the Muslim rulers of Palestine. Yet what had the Christians done? Among the first monstrous acts of their presence in Jerusalem they had shut Jews in a synagogue and burnt them alive."

All these quotes are talking about Jewish hatred, distrust and prejudice 1000 years after Christ's death and 900 years before Hitler. Like I said, Christendom has brain-washed the Europeans for centuries. It's no wonder many saw Jews as a people they could blame for all the ills in society and it sure made it easier for everyday folk to turn a blind eye to what the nazis were doing.

[quote]Otherwise why do people in the modern-day, who dislike Jewish people, get called 'Nazi's' and are viewed as being alligned with the thinkings of Hitler?[/quote]

Because the death camps and Nazism is still etched in everyone's consciousness.

[Brooksie]

"After World War 1, and Germany having to pay unbelieveable amounts of money in war damages to France, Germany was absolutely broke. It was skint to an extent that is barely imaginable and the one community in Germany who were viewed as not feeling the effects of it, and were also viewed as the people who were helping to prolong the problems, were the Jewish people. Prices in the 1920's in Germany literally increased more than a billion times (no joke) and the country was on its knees. People walked around with wheel-barrows full of money, which was what was required to buy the smallest item, people burnt money on the fire as it was so worthless it was cheaper than wood, and you would hear stories of people leaving their wheel-barrow full of cash outside a shop, they would go in, then emerge a minute later to find the wheel-barrow had been nicked and all the money was left on the pavement."

That's only partly true. The Germans were doing just fine paying off the war debt in the 20's, it was only when the world depression hit that it struggled. Until then the Nazis were seen as a fringe party of nutters, whose only use was to keep Communism from gaining too much ground. After the depression many people turned to the extremist parties. The Nazis told the Germans that the Jews were the reason they lost the war, and they pointed out how much better off Jews were at the time than the average German. It was true then (as it still is to some extent now) that the Jews tended to stay in Jewish communities, inter-marry less with non-Jews, and - this being the worst thing - circulate Jewish money through Jewish banks. The (distorted) perception at the time was of tight-fisted Jews profiting from German people's misery, and not giving any money back. Fear of Communism, dislike of the Jews, resentment for paying costs over a war that many Germans felt they hadn't lost; all of those things contributed to the rise of the Nazis.

It's interesting to note that the final solution was a direct result of Germany taking over other countries and finding that (when other countries wouldn't take any more Jews) they had too many to export 'legally' (loose term), or to lock up in camps. They started killing them ('ethnic cleansing') a process which sped up as the war got worse and worse.