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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (14515)	2/25/2007 8:34:28 AM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Elroy > my question is, was there some ongoing Jewish radicalism in early years which produced the anti-Jewish behaviour? Jews have always had radicals amongst them, indeed, radicals of every description. The Wikipedia article in fact states that Jews were associated with radical movements which were concerned with overthrow of the established order. But, of course, there were non-Jews as well so that doesn't bring one closer to the answer you seek. My own particular view is that there were two very important influences at work: 1. Within the Jewish community itself, religious versus secular movements -- in other words, assimilation versus separatism. 2. Between the Jews and non-Jews, religious hatred because of the "Jesus story" and jealousy because of Jewish shrewdness and success, on the one hand, and, on the other, demonization of non-Jews by the Jewish rabbis with the intention of keeping the Jews separate and preventing assimilation. Remember that for hundreds of years the Jews had to live in ghettos and this was not only because of anti-Semitism but because it enabled the rabbis to keep their community separate. I think you can see that even today the assimilation versus separatism battle is alive and well in the Jewish community and no better example is seen than those Jews who prefer to live in the diaspora rather than in the state of Israel. Moreover, amongst individual Jews there is no uniform consensus on what it means to be a Jew, even in Israel. Some are religious, some are atheists, some Zionistic, others anti-Zionist. For what it's worth, I'm an atheist Jew who believes in assimilation. Both my parents were Jewish and so is my wife but my children have married out of the faith. Go figure.