There are many reasons for people to hate Jews. In fact, the Talmud says that hate for Jews began immediately upon the Jews receiving the Ten Commandments and the Torah. Just as children are jealous when father gives one child something but not the others, so are the nations of the world envious and angry at Jews for receiving the Torah instead of them.
And yet, during biblical times, true hate for Jews, or modern anti-Semitism, did not exist. The ancient pagans never murdered Jews because they were Jews. The ancient pagans conquered Israel and taxed and oppressed the Jews, but did not disdain their value as people. The problem in the biblical eras was just the opposite. The surrounding nations got along so well with Jews that Jews imitated them, worshipped their idols and intermarried with them, to the deep chagrin of the prophets and rabbis.
Some ancient nations, such as Babylonia, conquered Israel and exiled the Jews. But Nebuchadnezzar greatly valued the rabbis of Israel and appointed them his senior advisers. He was close to Jeremiah the Prophet, and Daniel was his adviser. The Persians conquered the Babylonians and helped the Jews return to Israel and even supported these efforts.
Alexander the Great was very good to the Jews of Israel, but upon his death, the Hellenists tormented the Jews without mercy. This period, about 2300 years ago, was a new level of hate for Jews. We thus demarcate between the pre-Hellenistic era and the post-Hellenistic era in anti-Semitism. Before the rise of Greece, nobody hated Jews, nobody raped Jewish women, nobody forced them to convert to another religion. The Greeks introduced the idea of forcing everyone to worship one way. The Greeks divided the world into the elite and the inferior. The elite did what they wanted and the inferior were slaves. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle accorded elitist status to people who thought the right way. Thus, unlike the Biblical Era, the post-Biblical Era, beginning with the Greeks, taught the powerful and the elitist to enslave others and destroy their capacity for independence. Thus religious freedom was now limited.
By its nature, paganism did not foist one belief upon others. Paganism allowed each person the freedom to find worship in a unique and individualistic manner. The Greeks, however, felt that any democracy and freedom of the masses threatened society, because society could only survive as an extension of the superior ideas of the philosopher-kings and elite. The Jews therefore thrived under the pagans, but suffered under the Greeks.
After the Greeks, the world's great religions accepted the social need for a unifying religion and philosophy. Judaism was then mortally threatened. By the fourth century the Church seized control of the Roman Empire. Saints Ambrose decreed that all who refused his religion must die. This would have been the end of the Jewish people, but for two events. One, the Roman Empire began to collapse, thus weakening its capacity or interest in fighting with Jews. Two, after Ambrose the senior prelate, Saint Augustine, decreed that Jews must be coerced to convert, not killed. This coercion was to treat them as inferior to other people, to oppress them, ghettoize them, and employ all kinds of torture and torment until Jews would surrender their religion. Without the conversion of the Jews, said Augustine, the Church has failed.
Five hundred years ago in Germany, Martin Luther raised the standard of the Reformation. First he attempted to attract Jews to his cause, but when they refused it, he became a furious hater of Israel. Thus, it is no accident that Germany eventually did what it did to Jews.
Religious hatred of Jews lasted as official Church Doctrine until after the Second World War. The horrors of the Holocaust forced the various facets of Western religion to re-think their theology. The Catholic Church made some changes in its theology. The Protestants did not, but many of them embraced a new behavior relative to the Jews. Thus, today, Israel's best friends are Protestants, although their churches never changed their theology. This leads many people to question the sincerity of the new warmth to Israel. It may serve to lessen the pressure to change the anti-Semitic theology of the Church. It may also open the door to converting Jews. The church works furiously to convert Jews, and such a policy would probably not exist if the church did not deprecate Judaism. If Judaism is acceptable to heaven, why convert them? Obviously, the converters do not accept Judaism.
The refusal of the Jews to accept Christianity is a major factor in anti-Semitism. However, G-d made a covenant with Israel and promised it would never stop. Christianity therefore believes that G-d changed His mind, something the Jews will not accept. At any rate, Jews believe in G-d because He gave us the Ten Commandments and the Torah at Sinai, and because of the many generations of prophets and their revealed prophecy. No mortal can come forward and instruct us to desert our religion. Thus, the religious differences between Israel and the nations is quite serious.
Many Jews broke, as Augustine said they would, and became fervent enemies of Israel. Some of the great anti-Semites were born Jews. This was true in recent times when large amounts of Jews embraced Communism and tormented religious Jews.
All of this hate is quite frightening. On the other hand, the Talmud says, "How can a sheep survive among seventy wolves?" Obviously, G-d and only G-d saved us from the nations of the world who try to devour us. This is our great solace. G-d is with us. In the future, surely, the near future, the Messiah will come and reveal the role of Israel and the supremacy of the Torah. Then all those who tormented them will have to answer to a very angry Creator, who proclaimed to the nations His love of Israel.
Why Some Caucasians are Becoming Nazis
Here we explore the explosion of hate in present times among American and European Caucasians. As Caucasians increasingly refuse to marry or to have children, demographically, they fall behind others. Inevitably, as happened in Europe, others come to do the work the Caucasians are not available to do, and racial and religious conflict begins. This leads to hate, which often is directed at Jews, among others.
This article originally appeared in our sister website, www.gendercentral.com, that explores family issues. But one of its tenets is relevant to our topic.
No
Fun Without Family
By
Rabbi David Eidensohn
The
successful doctor up the block from me just took a second mortgage on his
house. Without it, he can’t keep up with the
HMOs, pay his insurance, and feed his family.
A
friend of mine worked thirty years for IBM. When he neared retirement age, IBM
fired him. He now lives on a tiny pension, and is not getting any younger.
Another friend told me a year before he was fired,
“The computer industry drains you until you reach fifty, and then they let
you go. They don’t want to support you in your old age.”
What
he predicted came true. Everybody knows it is true. The Global companies and
billionaires get rich while most people struggle. Today, a family cannot
survive unless the wife leaves her children and works. This is because the
pursuit of fun has doubled consumption since the fifties. Double consumption
means double people working.
If
we could devote the time we spend on “fun” to developing financial
stability and security, we would have much more real fun.
Instead,
we are becoming a society of very rich global business people and fun stars,
and an increasingly oppressed everyone else.
Pulitzer
Prize winning columnist David Broder of the
Does
this sound important? If so, why do people sit for a few hours every night
watching television or videos? Why are they not
worried about an impending financial collapse of state government
You
may think that the states will turn to the Federal government. However, the
Federal annual income is about a trillion or two dollars. The Federal deficit
is about 6 or 7 trillion. In a few years, that will
rise to 25 trillion dollars. How can a country, spending printed
paper with nothing to back it, survive? This is how they do it in the
banana republics. But, as Paul Krugman of the New
York Times observed, the financial debacle facing the Federal government is
far worse than faced by any banana republic. (On our website gendercentral.com
are various articles about the financial situation of the country.)
Does
anyone care? No. They are too busy watching Michael Jackson and anyone else
that provides “fun.”
You
may think that I am saying that entertainers should get less money. This is
not my message. I am not in favor of lessening anyone’s earnings. I want to
do away with the “fanaticism of fun.” Fun as we have it in
My
children, and nearly all of my neighbors, never heard of Shaq or
A
Presidential Commission on Fatherhood, during the
My
energy goes for my children and grandchildren. My walls are
lined with pictures, not of movie stars, not of sports stars, but of
grandchildren. Somebody said to me, “David, you are a billionaire.” What
billionaire has what I have? You can’t buy a
happy grandchild.
I
have fun. I get down on the rug and bark like a dog. My little grandchildren
go wild. Meanwhile, secular sir is out there drinking. What fun. Or
he has other fun. “Fun” ultimately leads to searching for what is not
available. Searching for fun leads to addictive and
compulsory behavior, even perversion. When you live for fun, you never
find it. Elvis Presley killed himself seeking a bigger dose of drugs. He no
longer had “fun” from the old dose.
When
you live for family, every day is heaven, even when a grandchild finds out
where you keep your financial records and throws them all over the floor.
A
child senses if a parent is dedicated. When a child realizes that parents live
only for them, the child responds and makes the parent happier than any fun.
When a child realizes that parents would rather be at the movies than
listening to his prattle, the child can make the parents so miserable that
there are no words for it.
Thus,
“fun” and family are mutually exclusive. Throughout the Western world,
people are into fun. They are not having children. Then they wonder why their
world is disappearing.
In
Europeans
have no young workers from their basic population. They have to import young
people from around the world. This leads to racial and religious problems,
even hate. It all begins from running after fun. Where it ends, nobody knows.
The power is from babies. Nothing else matters. Fun means no demographic
power. Family means demographic and ultimately political power.
As
Western whites realize they can’t have fun and
children, they go without children. They then import others or allow
immigration from areas that are totally different
or even opposing to what they want for their country. Seeing their world
disappearing, many of them become Nazis.
I
once met a financially successful woman in her forties who never married. She
told me how much fun she has in her life. She just went to
Once
my daughters sat in front of the house and played with a little nephew. A
woman walked by and asked them what they were doing. They replied, “We are
babysitting our nephew.” The woman huffed and said, “My children don’t
baby sit. They are not slaves!” My daughters had the proper upbringing, so
they held in their feelings until they got into the house. Then we all had a
good laugh.
In
those days, there was very little money in the house. However, that Passover I
bought little silver cups for my daughters. I said, “These cups are only for
slaves.” Every year at the Passover meal, those cups adorned the table, and
all of us thanked G-d that we were “slaves.”
I
am a slave to my children. My children are slaves to the family. Slaves?
By our standards, this is living, not slaving. But
to the “fun” person, doing anything for anyone but yourself is “slavery.”
When “fun” man meets “fun” woman, the first thing they do is have a
fight over who is the “slave.” Half of marriages end in divorce, and many
people just give up on marriage. They then have babies without marriage, which
damages the child. The main thing is to have fun. Fun?
Let me assure you. A broken child is no fun. A happy child is fun. And
to have a happy child, you have to be a “slave.”
Professional
“fun” is perverse. Family fun is real. Pleasure begins and ends with
complete dedication to family.
In
the sixties, rebellious college students took drugs and did sex. Some of them
got sick of it and became religious. One such man came to a Yeshiva and said,
“I was in
Once,
in a
I
once wrote a column that said, “Put your TV in the trash, or your child in
the trash.” One of them has to go.
If
you didn’t listen then, I tell you now, “Take
your child out of the trash, and stay out of it yourself.”
The
clock is ticking. I don’t mean the clock that
ends the half in basketball. I mean the clock that ticks the seconds until our
world disappears in fun.