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 by Laureen Moe SUMMARY:
There can be economic and social or racial anti-Semitism. It didn't reach epidemic proportions until 175 B.C. Previous uprisings against Jews were not really anti-Semitic. It began almost exclusively in countries which later became part of the Roman Empire. Prejudice flared it seems because Jewish people in honouring their Jewish laws, appeared to be in defiance of Gentile governments. The false assumption began to emerge that Jews didn't have any respect for whatever was held in esteem by the rest of humanity. In the Greek Hellenistic period no other nation denied the gods of it's neighbours; on the contrary they recognized those gods, identifying them with their own deities. These heathen "gods" created a social bond between people in their domains. None of the people refrained from dining at table with their neighbours and from partaking of the sacrifices offered to their gods except the Jews. None of the peoples refused to send gifts to its neighbours temples, except the Jews. None of the peoples was unequivocally hostile to intermarriage except the Jews. In the eastern Mediterranean area friction arose over the difference in occupations between Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish population was engaged primarily in small scale farming; the non-Jewish population occupied itself primarily in commerce. The sea trade was almost entirely in the hands of the trans-Jordanian cities, which connected Syria, Asia Minor and the regions of the Euphrates with the Arabian countries. The inhabitants of Eretz Israel had connections abroad. Non-Jews also knew that Jews looked upon their land as their divine inheritance. The first serious manifestation of anti-Semitism was in the days of the Syrian, Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C. Hellenistic rulers saw the unfriendliness of the Jews as obstacles to the cultural scene. He undertook to destroy those laws of the Talmud that he regarded as unacceptable to humanity. To this end he desecrated their place of worship by sacrificing a pig on their altar in Jerusalem, and ordered that the residual juices be sprinkled over the Holy Books containing these Jewish laws. Greek authors in the first century portrayed the Jewish people as descendants of a mob of lepers. They further stated that because of this uncleanness Jews shunned the flesh of pigs, since pigs were more prone to contract disease. The Gentiles knew that their own pagan religions and practices rendered them unclean in the eyes of the Jews. The fact remains that even after four thousand years the idea of a covenant between the Jews and Jehovah is still alive; and is mentioned daily in prayers in synagogues throughout the world. The idea of a covenant with God has remained constant. Because Jehovah is immortal He never dies and because He never dies He never has to be reincarnated. Thus the Jews dispensed with the reincarnation rites of the pagans. The Jews' God was invisible. The concept of "one God", Jehovah, being completely withdrawn from sexuality led to a curb of licentious impulses through inner discipline. By contrast ,the Greek gods themselves set the pattern for the unbridled lust and perversion which finally weakened the moral fibre of that people; whereas the Jews, even when they later came in contact with the Greeks, refused to indulge in the Grecian sexual excesses, which included even temple prostitution. The Jewish religion did away with all fertility rites. As a consequence of the Jewish dietary laws, intermarriage was forbidden and no real social intercourse with gentiles was possible. Also, Jews refused to enter into Emperor worship. It was considered to be an expression of loyalty to the state. About their own religious practices a libel began to circulate that Jews actually sacrificed humans on their altars, allegedly using the blood for Passover rites. Further it was said that the sacrificed person must be a Christian or one of their children. This became known as the "Blood Libel" against the Jews. It mattered not that it was a total fabrication. Another libel circulating was that unclean leprous people were expelled from Egypt, and that the Jews were these people. Therefore, being foreigners, it was stated that the Jews had no right to claim ancient Israel as their divinely given land. The destruction of the temple by Titus in 70 AD was seen as hatred by God of the Jews, and as punishment. Jews in Rome felt the barbs of Roman writers. Nero's teacher was anti-Semitic. Cornelius Tacitus wrote about every libellous fabrication against Jews that he could find in Greek anti-Semitic literature. Juvenal wrote a poem revealing that to him the Jews were hateful not only to man but to the gods as well. In the fourth century AD, when Constantine became the Roman Emperor and supposedly converted to Christianity, he harnessed Political power to Religion and passed anti-Jewish laws, whereby Jews were excluded from every sphere of political influence, and denied civic rights. The Gospel accounts began to be the source from which wrong teachings grew, until the word "Deicide" meant the Jews killed God, and were labelled "Christ-killers". Matthew 27:25 which spoke of some Jewish leaders was used instead to apply to all Jews: "His blood be on us and on our children...Ye are of your father the devil." Converts to Christianity and converts to Judaism sparked a seriously divisive rivalry. Religious competition began between the Greek fathers of the Church, and Jews. Church laws were passed whereby Jewish relations with Christian women was now punishable by death. Anti-Semitism at this time was mainly limited to the clergy, who were the educated minority. Islam arose in the seventh century AD, and also attacked the Jews because the Jews did not recognize Muhammad as a legitimate Prophet. The Koran contained their writings; and many statements in it were hostile to Jews. In the Middle Ages church councils legislated to prevent contact with the Jews because Christians were saying after visiting synagogues that the Jews were better priests. This historical background of centuries of anti-Semitism eventually exploded in the 20th century "Holocaust". The hostility and hatred manifested in the holocaust was therefore not new. As we have stated ancient writings contain much anti-Semitism. In pre-Roman times most people did not read or write. At times, Rome tried to eradicate Judaism and "Jewishness". Followers were assumed to be treasonous and subversive. This in turn led to major revolts on the part of the Jewish community. The following link is a brief summary of Incidents involving Jews in History...
The above catalogue is only the tip of the iceberg! One
would think that anti-Jewish atrocities would have ended with the nightmare
of the Holocaust. One-third of the world's Jews were murdered by an ungodly
German conspiracy that had accused the Jews of "conspiracy". It is not
often emphasized that two-thirds of the world's Jews survived; and that
due to the faithfulness of their G-d. God has again, as in times past,
protected them from total extermination, as He promised. (the Book of Esther,
and Jeremiah 31:35-37)
Alfred Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Alsatian family in France. He entered the French Army in 1892 and became a Captain, and the only Jew. He was framed by a fellow officer for allegedly giving secrets to the enemy, arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Eventually Emile Zola took up the fight proclaiming the man's innocence and published an open letter to the President of France titled "I ACCUSE." Dreyfus was eventually declared unjustly convicted by the Parliament of France. The injustice was totally motivated by Jew-hatred. During the course of the trumped-up trial a Jewish journalist became involved; and he was the man that was to lead the Jews back to their Land. His name was THEODORE HERZL (1860 - 1904 A.D.) and he called European Jewry together in Basle, Switzerland in 1897 at the now famous "First World Zionist Congress". There in 1897 he publicly predicted to friend and foe alike that the Jews would be back in "the Land" of Palestine "within 50 years". In 1947, exactly fifty years later the United Nations passed the "Resolution For the Partition of Palestine", which lead to the declaration of Statehood on May 14,1948. With the shouts of "death" to the Jews still ringing in his ears from the Dreyfus Trial, Herzl became convinced that the only solution was the mass exodus of the Jews from their present places of residence to a territory of their own... So out of the suffering of the Dreyfus family came the State of Israel. Herzl became the father of Political Zionism and founder of the World Zionist organization. Herzl was born in Budapest. He left a German students society in 1883 in protest against his first encounter with anti-Semitism. He came across this "Jewish problem" again and again in his life. Although he graduated in 1884 with a doctorate of law he left the legal profession and became a famous writer. He wrote many literary works, some of them plays. In 1891 he became the Paris correspondent of a Vienna newspaper. He pursued politics and organized the first Zionist Congress is Basle in 1897. (In 1960, Israel issued a centenary stamp with a well known painting of Herzl on the bridge at Basle.) The World Zionist organization was formed. He was chairman and remained so for the next five congresses. He knew Great Britain would be the deciding factor in the realization of Zionist aims. In 1917 the Balfour Declaration became the launching-pad for the founding of the modern Jewish state. Herzl did not have an easy task. Even his own people were difficult on this issue. His heart failed in 1904. He did not live to see the creation of Israel in 1948. But in 1949 he was laid to rest, reinterred in a place that was named in his honour Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem. A Herzl monument stands nearby. The anniversary of his death on the 20th of Tammuz was declared a National Memorial Day in Israel. In the April 1983 issue of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, following a report on Jerusalem there is a picture that could be titled: "The sorrow of the Jewish People". There are three young Israeli ladies, soldiers, who happen to be very beautiful standing or kneeling at the Herzl Tomb site where there are three new graves...the first soldiers to die in the 1982 conflict in Lebanon. 1983 was the 50th anniversary of Hitler's rise to power; since he was made chancellor in 1933. There was an extensive report on this subject in the April 1983 issue of the Jerusalem Post. Their man in Bonn stated: "There has been no substantial break with the past. Therefore West German Democracy must continue to be subject to question by Germans more than by anyone else." The Post also offered these words which are worth contemplating. Perhaps you never considered this. I had not... "The destruction that Hitler brought on his own people
ranks only after the mass murder he committed on the Jews and the destruction
and death rained upon the Soviet Union. He left Germany not only physically
ruined, but stripped of its' self respect, ashamed of its' place in human
history, uncertain of its' identity, seeking refuge in the compulsive reconstruction
of material damage."
The authors, Irving Abella and Harold Troper, published this book in 1982 and was on the Canadian Best Sellers List. They received an award early in 1983 for it. It is thoroughly researched and documented proof that our top bureaucrat in the Immigration Department, Fred Blair, a professing Christian, wanted no Jews in Canada and did everything he could in the way of roadblocks to prevent it. In studying it I find I want to scream with the agony of our shame. MacKenzie King didn't want them. Perhaps he was too busy talking to his dead mother and his dead dog as he gazed into his crystal ball (all told in his published diaries). The authors record that Canada's Prime Minister thought Hitler had a good face and that he was sweet. King was deathly afraid of what Quebec would do if he gave in and allowed in refugees. The French -Canadian press was very hostile to Jews (Le Devoir). There was also a very vocal fascist Party in Quebec; headed by Adrianne Arcand. Blair had the opportunity to rescue thousands, but wouldn't budge on his restrictive policy. He just didn't want any Jewish immigrants. Lester Pearson said that we didn't have a boat. Ottawa would not listen either to the pleas of George Vanier; even though he was Canadian Ambassador to France and was there on the scene. Conservative Robert Manion didn't want any either. In the midst of all of the obstruction the Toronto Globe & Mail asked at one point "Does Canada stand for anything?" Manion wanted no Jews as long as Canadians were unemployed. Ernest LaPointe of Quebec and the Le Devoir newspaper and Vincent Massey of External Affairs wanted Jews kept out of Canada. Massey was a fringe member of the Pro-German anti-Semitic Cliveden set centred around Lord and Lady Astor in London; where Vincent was Canadian High Commissioner. We had one social worker on the scene and her name was Charlotte Whitton, outspoken Mayor of Ottawa. She fiercely fought not to have Jewish children here as she favoured British children. She led a movement to evacuate endangered British mothers and children. The Canadian Jewish Congress saw her as an enemy of Jewish immigration. Oscar Cohen said she "almost broke up the inaugural meeting of the congress on Refugees by her insistent opposition and very apparent anti-Semitism." The saddest story I have ever read in my life is the whole chapter from the Abella book titled "The children that never came." It takes care of any pride we may have in being Canadians. It is documented evidence 25 pages in length of continuous pleading on behalf of officials in places like France and Poland to take children whose lives were in immediate danger. Blair's hard hearted efforts lead to the declaration in the end of that chapter that reads: "There were no more schemes to help...save the refugee children. None were needed." By the time of the allied invasion of France in June 1944 most of these children had been murdered. NOT ONE of them had made it to Canada! They had been talking at times about as many as 5000. I am happy to report that good has come out of the publishing of this book. The authors report that Lloyd Axworthy, current Minister of Immigration, apologized for the behaviour of predecessors and promised that it would never happen again. But also having read some papers by these authors prior to publication, Ron Atkey, former Conservative Minister of Immigration, took the responsibility and opened the doors to the BOAT PEOPLE because he did not want to be known as another Frederick Blair. In "Bridges for Peace", the 1983 issue from Tulsa, Oklahoma we read about the state of anti-Semitism as in this day, media coverage is slanted. "While some would have you believe the world is becoming
a better place and anti-Semitism is on the wane, I believe that careful
observation will prove otherwise. In the last two years, we have seen a
growing double standard used by the media in reporting events concerning
Israel. And as we saw this past summer in Greece, Italy, and France, this
very distorted, even false media reporting about Israel's involvement in
Lebanon resulted in attacks against local Jewish communities solely because
they were Jewish; regardless of their affiliation with Israel. For example:
In France a video tape of a Palestinian boy holding his bleeding, dying
sister was repeatedly shown as the result of an aggressive Jewish attack
on civilians in Lebanon. Local Frenchmen, incensed by this news, staged
an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish march which culminated in the bombing of synagogues
and Jewish owned businesses killing many. It was later proven that this
video tape was six years old and showing the destruction of the Tel-Zatar
refugee camp by the SYRIANS in 1976. Jews were NOT even involved but the
ugly head of Anti-Semitism had already shown itself."
If Canada's Joe Clark had kept his promise to move our
embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, he would have done better. Six months
after breaking his promise he ceased to be Prime Minister; and twelve months
later he was removed as Leader of the Progressive-Conservative Party.
SO IN CONCLUSION:
Anti-Semitism engages man in a conduct that is: inconceivable, unbelievable, shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible, unthinkable, inhumane and intolerable. This information has been gleaned from Alan Lazerte's course on anti-Semitism given at Fraserview Assembly, January, February and March 1983 as Director of the Canadian Friends of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bridges for Peace-current news direct from Christians
in Israel through Tulsa.
I dedicate this to the children that never came; and to my brother who died trying to stop a mad man that was on the loose in Germany.
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