Talk:History of anti-Semitism

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Contents

1 Disputed 2 The entries in question 2.1 The continuation of this heated dispute is in /archive2 3 RFC interrupt 4 1274 Thomas Aquinas 1 The so-called "pogroms" of 1018 and 1113 did not occur 2 Definition 3 1274 Yellow Badge in England

Disputed

I believe that the article cannot possibly be NPOV, since it attributes everything in history of Jews to Anti-Semitism. This is not fair. Most of historical nations experienced ups and downs. Jews experienced ups and downs + diaspora + anti-Semitism in last 2 centuries. Nevertheless, one can hardly attribute Roman invasion to Anti-Semitism. Cautious 17:59, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

One sober glance at Timeline of Jewish History will show that it is totally untrue. No one attributes Roman invasion to A-S. However, their attempts to wipe out Jewish people, religion and even erase Jewish names from the map definitely is. See talk in the corresponding articles before exposing your ignorance again. --Humus sapiens|Talk 20:12, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

The entries in question

c. 250 BCE Egyptian writer Manetho alleges that Moses was not a Jew, but an Egyptian renegade priest, and portrays the Exodus as the expulsion of a leper colony. No AS. Simply 2 historians disagreed over historical events and their interpretantions.

% This was a step toward delegitimization of the Jews. This ancient libel persisted throughout the millenia. Try google and see for yourself.

Not being Christian nor Jew, I have no reason to believe in the Holy Bible oops, Holy Exodus Book. Not being historian I have no idea whether Exodus was right source or maybe Manetho was right. I would assume, that sceptic historian doubts in Exodus. For example there is no reason to believe in Gods hand behind Moses activity. Logic conclusion is that having doubts in Exodus version is and was perfectly right. From point of view of Egypt, Jews were small tribe. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% of lepers?

175 BCE-165 BCE Antiochus Epiphanes sacks Jerusalem, calls Judaism "inimical to humanity", prohibits brit milah, confiscates copies of Torah and erects an altar to Zeus in the Second Temple after plundering it. He is eventually expelled by the Maccabees, who were led by Judas Maccabeus. Jews celebrate Hanukkah in commemoration of their victory. No AS. Simply Hellenic imperialism.

% He bans Judaism. Not Antisemitic enough?

It depends on the reason behind the action. Antiochus simply belived that everybody must be Zeus, not Jahwe, followers. He didn't care if Jews were Semitic or not. Proper name would have been paganic religious fanatism. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% read the definition. Does it say that if hostilities are caused by "paganic religious fanatism", it doesn't count?

2nd century BCE: Mnaseas of Patros, a Greek author, reports that the Jews worship a donkey's head in the Holy of Holies. This legend was repeated by Apollonius Molon, Democritus, Apion, and Plutarch.

No AS. Simply ignorance.

% Sorry, "simply ignorance" is no excuse. See the definition of the term, it doesn't absolve ignorants.

I am sure that Mnaseas tried to show the top knowledge, Greeks had about Jewish culture. Do you have a proov that he did it deliberately to spread hate against Jews? Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% The "donkey's head in the Holy of Holies" is a generally accepted AS myth. But you're entitled to your own POV.

59 BCE Cicero denounces Judaism as barbara superstitio, describes Jews as people born to be slaves. No AS. Simply ignorance. Everyone except Romans were born to be slave, according to Romans (and vice versa).

% See above.

Normal in the era. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% Unlike other entries, I don't feel very strongly about Cicero.

66-73 Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans is crushed by Vespasian and Titus Flavius. Titus refuses to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God". (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii). This notion would accompany Jews throughout centuries.

No AS. Vae Victis=loosers must have been foresaken by their God. Romans didn't get the concept of martyrdom yet.

% "people forsaken by their own God" was a step to delegitimize the people and the religion. See supersessionism. The "concept of martyrdom" excuse is as irrelevant as ignorance here.

No. It simply stated the fact, that Jews were loosers. Romans believed in military strength, if Jews lost, meant their God failed to deliver help and the conclusion is that God turned out of Jews. Where do you see anti-Semitism? Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% Did the notion of the "people forsaken by their own God" contribute to the subsequent hatred of Jews? It's a Y/N question.

1st century Fabrications of Apion in Alexandria, Egypt, including the first recorded blood libel. Juvenal writes anti-Jewish poetry. Josephus picks apart contemporary and old anti-Semitic myths in his work Against Apion. (e-text at Project Gutenberg)

Late 1st–early 2nd century: Tacitus writes anti-Jewish polemic in his Historia (book 5). He picks apart and rejects several myths of ancient anti-Semitism (including that of the donkey's head in the Holy of Holies); instead, his explanation for his view that Jews "regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies" turns on an analysis of the extreme differences between monotheistic Judaism and the polytheism common throughout the Roman world. No AS. It seems to me as an attempt to critical analyse foreign religion

% The Nazis & Commies "critically analyzed" foreign religions and races too. So what? BTW, anti-Semitism article (as well as ocean of other sources) mentions Tacitus too.

Tacitus makes an effort to understand Jews, but at the end he believed it is Romans and pagans that are right. He had right to draw such a conclusions. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% Not everyone mentioned here is an AS. It is important to trace the development of AS thought.

117-138 Roman emperor Hadrian bans Judaism and crushes the revolt lead by Bar Kokhba. Judea is wiped off the map, Jews are left dispersed and stateless. (See Hadrian in Judea). No AS. Imperialism

% He attempts to wipe out not only the nation and religion, but even the memory of Jews' existence from the map. Not Antisemitic enough?

If Jews hadn't fought, Romans would be much nicer. Romans were extremely cruel to their enemies. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

% I see. It is all the Jews' fault. They "shouldn't have fought". BTW, Hadrian began with ban on brit milah, a crucial rite in Judaism.

c. 170 Melito of Sardis accuses the Jews of deicide, publishing a sermon On the Passion, in which he blames the Jews for the persecution and death of Jesus, absolves Pontius Pilate and the Romans from guilt or responsibility and thus encourages them to convert to Christianity.

The continuation of this heated dispute is in /archive2

RFC interrupt

I was asked for comments. I think that continuation of that personal discussion should stop (I am going to remove them to Archive) and we should focus on review of the listed entries in order to find out, what is their relations with the topic. Eon 22:39, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I inserted my comments above, on the lines beginning with % sign. See also archives. The User:Cautious' theory that AS began only in the late 19th century doesn't hold water. Please name any serious historian who supports it. It is silly to mix up the term's etymology and it's semantics. --Humus sapiens|Talk 00:59, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

answered. Cautious 01:16, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

So, when did it start? --Humus sapiens|Talk 02:25, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

1274 Thomas Aquinas

I moved this long and winding paragraph (the longest entry by far), full of POV to talk. Perhaps it may be salvaged in the separate page:

1274 March. St. Thomas Aquinas writes in a letter to the Duchess of Brabant: "...in consequence of their sin, Jews were destined to perpetual servitude, so that sovereigns of state may treat Jewish goods as their own property, save for the sole proviso that they do not deprive them of all that is necessary to sustain life". Since this letter is not widely published, and then only in Latin, it is difficult to verify the authenticity of the quotation. In light of the fact that St. Thomas wrote over 6,000 pages of text in his Summa Theologica alone, one wonders why this obscure letter is used. On the question of whether Jewish children should be baptized against the will of their parents, Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologica: "Injustice should be done to no man. Now it would be an injustice to Jews if their children were to be baptized against their will, since they would lose the rights of parental authority over their children as soon as these were Christians. Therefore these should not be baptized against their parents' will." It is doubtful that Aquinas was promoting the idea of punishment for deicide, as implied by the fragment of the letter to the Duchess, since he nowhere else, in his many volumes of writings, ever hints at such an idea. It is more likely that the context of the letter to the Duchess was in regard to the complex question of whether it is lawful to deprive someone of property acquired through unlawful practices, such as usury. Another theory is that Aquinas was writing in response to a generally held principle of Kammerknehtschaft, or "Jewish servitude", common throughout Europe at the time of the Crusades. Originally intended as a protective measure bny the Holy Roman emperors against mob violence directed at Jews, it came to mean possession in the feudal sense. The idea is said to have been granted formal religious recognition by Pope Innocent III, who spoke frequently of the "eternal servitude" of the Jews, although no sources are cited. It is also proposed that the idea was apparently adopted in a moderated form by Aquinas, who cautioned the Ducchess to act in moderation regarding the Jews she possessed. --Humus sapiens|Talk 20:43, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

The so-called "pogroms" of 1018 and 1113 did not occur

A section that is now in dispute reads as follows:

"1113 First recorded anti-Jewish myatezh (riot) in Kiev occurred in short period between reigns of Svyatopolk II and Vladimir Monomakh. The Vladimir's council calls to expel all the Jews out of Kievan Rus. The records of big fire of 1124 in Jewish quarter suggest that this decision was not fully implemented."

The source text actually says rioters attacked Putyata's Palace and the Zhidove (Jewish) DISTRICT of Kiev, not Jews as individuals, and were also threatening to attack the boyars' residence, monasteries, and the palace of the centurions, and to return to do further damage to the Zhidove district as well. These were not members of "Vladimir's council" but, according to the text, just "the men of Kiev". Also, this was not an anti-Jewish action, and no expulsion of Jews from Kiev was either threatened or implemented in 12th-century Kiev. For full textual analysis of the original sources and modern history books that misinterpreted them, see Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath, _A Grin Without A Cat: Jews and Christians in Medieval Russia_ (Department of East and Central European Studies, Lund University, 2002), volume 2, pages 106-108. On the equally false contention of a pogrom in Kiev in the year 1018, based again on a misintrepretation of a text and a misquotation of Jan Dlugosz's chronicle, see Pereswetoff-Morath, volume 2, pages 105-106. Indeed, the existence of a district called "Jewish" in Kiev does suggest that Jews inhabited that part of Kiev at some point, though Pereswetoff-Morath notes that onomastic heritages like that can linger for a while after the original people have lived there. We know from the Kievan Letter that Jews lived in Kiev as early as the start of the 10th century, but this 1113 reference to Zhidove is two centuries later, as he notes. Jews may have still lived there but we cannot say for certain. (The 1124 reference to the fire again only speaks of Zhidove as a geographical term and not to "houses of Jews" for instance.) And the source document, I repeat, says nothing about anti-Jewish attitudes or activities. Hence I have removed the spurious entry for 1113 from the article, so we will not further perpetuate wrong information. - KAB (Kevin A. Brook)

In his 200 years together, Solzhenitsyn (not a big friend of Jews, I must say) quotes Vasily Tatishchev (1686-1750), Russian historiographer, ethnographer and the author of Russian History Dating Back to the Most Ancient Times and another famous Russian historian, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766–1826), as well as old chronicles. He actually calls it a pogrom and writes that Svyatopolk II used Kiyevan Jews to extract taxes and loan interest (BTW, a typical practice throughout Europe). The reason of the hostilities was "лихоимство" (usury), so some Jews must have lived there at the time. It is also mentioned that they tried to defend themselves in a synagogue. Later, in addition to the decision to expel the Jews, Vladimir's council also prohibited excessive interest rates. By your theory, Jews did not live in the Jewish quarter (there were also Jewish gates at the time). Do your sources say: when, where to and why did they leave the capital city? Both Karamzin and Tatishchev say that the expulsion orders were executed. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:34, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pereswetoff-Morath analyzes the works of Tatishchev and Karamzin and proves (by looking at the original texts) that they invented and misinterpreted a lot of things. An invention or lie repeated many times does not suddenly become truth. We must rely on actual documents, not on false statements of Tatishchev and Karamzin. See especially pages 111 and 112 of "A Grin Without a Cat" vol. 2 on Tatishchev's unreliability due to his embellishment of chronicles and facts. The bit about Jews being allegedly persecuted for allegedly practicing usury in Kievan Rus is also baseless; see Pereswetoff-Morath page 115. Solzhenitsyn (I read his book that you cite) can say whatever he wants, but it doesn't make it true. He copied his information from the other "authorities". And so the lies perpetuate themselves. We did not say that Jews "did not live" in Kiev at the time of Vladimir Monomakh, only that we cannot prove it, so maybe they did, maybe they did not. - KAB (Kevin A. Brook)

I appreciate your acknowledgement "maybe they did, maybe they did not", it is quite a departure from the title of this section. Let's try to analyze and sort out what we do and don't know:

• We know there was a Jewish community in Kiev before the described events: there was a Jewish quarter within the city walls, there was a synagogue and Jewish gates.
• Once again, do you have any evidence better than T's & K's as to when and why this community got destroyed? If you think it wasn't destroyed and the Jews just left on their own, please name me any warm place that Jews (or any other group for that matter) left for no good reason. At the time, Kiev was already a capital city, well situated at the trade intersection of Europe and Asia and let me assure you: before Chernobyl, the climate there was close to perfect.
• We don't know whether T's & K's chronicles about the 1113 events were indeed "false statements". We know that during Tatishchev times, Poland was not yet divided and Jews were officially forbidden to settle in Russia. Why would T. (or an earlier chronicler) make up stories to smear the founding fathers of Kievan Rus?
• Of course, Solzhenitsyn's book is not the last authority, as a matter of fact it is full of absurdities. However in this case he provides a quote which sounds convincing. I prefer to doubt everything and don't see a good reason just to believe your book beyond doubts. We still haven't heard any arguments. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:23, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Karamzin and Tatishchev artificially added to the storylines of several documents they worked with. That is why they cannot be trusted on this debate point - because the original document doesn't say what they claim it says. Now we know what the document really says. I did not say that Jews as a group left the city of Kiev voluntarily, and I understand the appeal of the city due to its climate, trade route connections, etc. Of course one of the problems that befell Kiev's Jewish community was the Mongol invasion of 1240, though a community was reconstituted shortly after that, and another problem came in 1655 when most of the Jews were expelled from Kiev for real (unlike the fantasy scenario of K. and T. from the 12th c.). I hope that you read the book under discussion because I am not going to reproduce all of its revelations and evaluations about K. and T. here except the one related to this direct point which I already spoke of. In short, I don't deny that Jews lived in various times in the Jewish districts of Kiev, but I am instead refuting that a pogrom happened in 1113 and that the events of that year were connected to anti-Jewish attitudes. - KAB (Kevin A. Brook)

Definition

How are you defining what is anti-Semitic and what is simply a usual hostility which would exist between two ethnic groups involved in strife with one another?

• Simple. Hatred of Jews, for whatever justified or unjustified reason, by whomever, has its own special classification. They try to make it out as some sort of unique form of irrational hatred rather than the usual distrust and animosity that exists between people of different beliefs, especially those who have wronged each other in the past. In short, it's designed to divert attention from why this or that people dislikes the Jews (because then you might be curious as to the reason, and discover the Jews are again up to no good) and instead classify it all as one combined "persecution" on a "meek, innocent, peace loving" people (haha).

---

I wrote a bunch of stuff but decided to retract as I'm not satisfied with my comments. Too focused on Jewish people. I'd rather offend across the board. I need to revise a bit so I can say more accurately what I see and feel. I've been writing for the better part of a day and gonna repost again if anyone is remotely interested.

1274 Yellow Badge in England

This article states that yellow badge requirements and usury prohibition was passed by Edward I of England in 1275. However, the yellow badge article states that this occurred in 1274. Could anybody check on this and resolve the discrepancy? Thanks. - Bryan is Bantman 23:37, May 22, 2005 (UTC)