May 9, 2014
Antisemitism is the discrimination of Jewish people based solely on their ethnicity (their being Jewish). It has no grounds in reality or reason, just in people's hatred and the easiest choice of scapegoat to blame. Antisemitism has been a common trend among most modern countries, not just the infamous Nazi German regime. There have been many reasons, or excuses, for this:
- With no country to call home for so many years, there has been no political voice or military power to speak out and support the
Jewish peoples.
- No matter what country they found to live in, Jewish peoples have tried to obey God and stay true to their own traditions and culture. This meant that they have always appeared to be different from the peoples that they live with. Differences cause a lack of understanding and thus suspicion, making them targets for ignorant hatred.
- Many Christians have promoted antisemitism through the ages based on the idea that it was the Jews who killed Jesus. However, Jesus was himself a Jew and came as the Messiah to be the Savior of all Jews. Non-Jewish peoples being included in Christianity is only an extension of Jesus teachings, not his first target group. Besides this, it was the Roman Governor Pilate who gave the order and the Roman soldiers who killed Jesus, not to mention that Jesus himself said for God to forgive those who killed him.
- With no country to call home for so many years, there has been no political voice or military power to speak out and support the
Jewish peoples.
- No matter what country they found to live in, Jewish peoples have tried to obey God and stay true to their own traditions and culture. This meant that they have always appeared to be different from the peoples that they live with. Differences cause a lack of understanding and thus suspicion, making them targets for ignorant hatred.
- Many Christians have promoted antisemitism through the ages based on the idea that it was the Jews who killed Jesus. However, Jesus was himself a Jew and came as the Messiah to be the Savior of all Jews. Non-Jewish peoples being included in Christianity is only an extension of Jesus teachings, not his first target group. Besides this, it was the Roman Governor Pilate who gave the order and the Roman soldiers who killed Jesus, not to mention that Jesus himself said for God to forgive those who killed him.
"Who knows -- it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. We will always remain Jews."
- Anne Frank, April 11, 1944
"Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race - but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness - and, when we do assimilate - for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can't win.
- Rabbi Kalman Packouz
- Rabbi Kalman Packouz