In their epic eleven volume “The Story of Civilization,” Will and Ariel Durant devote a full chapter to the persecution of Jews throughout Europe for centuries. “The Age of Rousseau” notes that the French philosopher marveled at the Jewish people’s resilience and brilliance despite being banished, murdered, and robbed of a home land, “…Zion, destroyed, has not lost its children; they are preserved, they multiply, they spread throughout the world…they mingle with all people yet are not confused with them; they have no rulers, yet they are always a people…” The authors point out that almost every nation and group in Christendom at one time or another had persecuted the Jews as heretics “by wholesale massacre, inquisitions or pograms” by the 18th Century.
In that century, the Jews had no civil rights in France before the Revolution. Jews had to pretend to be Christians if they hoped to survive in Spain, where they would be killed. The Inquisition in Portugal burned 27 Jews in 1717 for refusing to convert. Rome banned Jews from most trades, which is how the Jewish tailor stereotype was born: that was one of the few occupations open to them. By 1700, 75% of Jewish adults in Rome were tailors. In 1775, the Pope, Pius VI, decreed that Jews could not ride in carriages or erect tombstones over their dead. Austria banned Jews from owning property, holding office, or engaging in crafts. Russia’s empress in 1742 ordered that every Jew must be deported from the country unless they agreed to become Christian. Poland had 621,000 Jews in 1766, and they were taxed at a higher rate than Christian Poles, and also prevented from building new synagogues. There were massacres of Jews in Poland in 1734, 1750, and 1768.
Jews were banned from universities in every European nation, so they were forced to educate themselves.
Germany in the 18th Century was one of the least oppressive places for Jews to live, which is why the Jewish population there became the largest in Europe by the time Hitler was looking for scapegoats. They still were taxed at higher rates than Christians. England was also relatively accommodating to Jews, though they could not hold military or civil office without taking a Christian oath. The Jews had to establish their own hospitals because the English hospitals wouldn’t treat them. The Durants wrote that “jewbaiting was a popular sport.” In 1754 there was an outbreak of intense anti-Semitism, with people wearing badges reading “No Jews.” This was in the European nation where Jews were relatively welcome.
The Durants end their chapter by saluting the armies of the French Revolution and Napoleon, which brought freedom and civil rights to the Jews in France in 1789, Holland (1796), Venice (1797), Rome (1810), and Frankfort (1811). “For the Jews the Middle Ages had at last come to an end,” the historians conclude. Well, at least for a while. “The History of Civilization” ends with “The Age of Napoleon.” The Durants died before they could write “The Age of Hitler.”
It is often noted that as the signs of the approaching Holocaust seemed, in hindsight, to be obvious, Germany’s Jews refused to believe that the clock could be turned back to the Middle Ages, when they were driven out of nations or massacred in them. This will pass, they believed, and their people would, as always, persevere, suffer, and eventually survive and flourish because of their vigorous culture. It did not pass, however, not before millions of Jews had been exterminated and every nation, including the United States under Liberal icon FDR, deliberately engaged in wilful blindness to their existential plight.
Zionism is typically described as Jewish nationalism, a movement that holds that
the only solution to anti-Semitism is for Jews to have a permanent state where they govern themselves, defend themselves, and welcome all Jews who seek refuge there. The only explanation for non-Jews opposing Zionism is outright ignorance of history, or a desire to see Jews marginalized, persecuted or killed. (The explanation for Jews opposing Zionism is estrangement from their religion and culture and a desire to signal their progressive virtue.)This is, as Rousseau correctly observed, a practical, astute, resilient culture. It would be stunningly obtuse, after the experience of the centuries since Christ’s crucifixion, for Jews not to conclude that the rest of the world cannot be trusted, and that the only safe option is a separate nation that is ready, willing and able to defend itself against the bigots, blood libelers and haters who clearly go into strategic passivity from time to time, only to emerge again with their deadly animus intact.
The Hamas terrorist attack in 2023 succeeded in one of its goals, which was to awaken virulent anti-Semitism around the world. In this respect the Palestinians won, making it clear to all but the most naive (or anti-Jewish) that Israel’s only responsible course is to destroy Hamas or force an unconditional surrender. The Mad Left, which has in its simple-minded reduction of human relations to Bad Whites vs Good People of Color, somehow decided to cast the Jews as “whites” and so-called Palestinians as “people of color” though they are genetically indistinguishable. Israel is not “apartheid,” for non-Jews can live there, are not partitioned from the rest of the population, can become citizens, and have all civil rights. The war against Gaza is not “genocide,” any more than the U.S.’s war with Japan was genocide, in fact even less so, since Hebrews and Arabs are not different races. Israel is not an “occupation,” not after nearly 80 years as a sovereign nation.
Perhaps the Jews should start reciting land acknowledgments.
Those words—genocide, apartheid, occupation—and statements that one is anti-Zionist or “Pro Palestine” are markers of the anti-Semitic, the knee-jerk progressive, and/or the historical and ethical dunce. Only the Jews among all the peoples of the Earth have had the long nightmare of hate and persecution world-wide based on who they are rather than what they have done. To not be Zionists following such lessons of history would mark them as a race of fools, and that they most certainly are not; if anything, the Jewish people are the opposite, one of the most brilliant, ambitious, creative, productive cultures extant. They know what is in their best interests, and it should be obvious to any fair-minded human being that their conclusion is beyond debate. The current outbreak of world Jew hate is evidence; the treatment of the Israeli Prime Minister at the U.N. is evidence; the fact that a major American political party is on the brink of taking over the government while infected by anti-Semitism is evidence.
For the Jewish people, Zionism is survival, and nothing less.
Bravo, bravo, bravo! And the Jews in their ancestral homeland will never ever give it up.
[From your host—this banned commenter showed promise, and I initially thought kicking him off the comments may have been rash. But, as usual, my judgment was correct. Apparently EA is always going to be beset by one frustrated troll or another: just when I thought “A Friend” was finally gone for good, this asshole digs in.
I kind of wish I could leave this particularly damning post up, but when you are banned, you are banned. He refers to the commenters as “Boomers” and “geriatrics”—nice, ad hominem attacks. He calls me a “moron,” which would guaranteed banning from anyone (check the commenting rules). He relies on the hoary “The Jews control American policy” trope, a claim that marks the speaker as an anti-Semite—earlier bigots blamed the Rothschilds for everything from WWI to the sinking of the Titanic.Of course he doesn’t deal with the substance of the post, and makes it clear that he thinks the US should abandon the only democracy in the Middle East to nuclear Armageddon by the Iranians. I’m a “Neocon,” you see.]
Just what type of influence do these nefarious Jews right out of the “Protocols” have on American policy? Americans want to encourage democracy in the world, especially in the Middle East. They also want to prevent another Holocaust of the Jews and believe it is in the best interests of everyone that Israel be allowed to exist. These are not unreasonable policies.
[From your host: Another banned comment. If you don’t reply to the asshole, I don’t have to keep doing this, I can just spam the post.]
Why are you so persistent to harass where you’re not wanted? Is your life that sad?
He can’t answer. Banned, you know.
When the people we’re talking about make that distinction themselves.
It’s comically easy to find examples of people using “Zionist” and Jewish” interchangeably, to the point where I don’t think it’s reasonable to give people who don’t understand that the benefit of the doubt anymore. While there might actually be people out there with principled Anti-Zionist positions independent from a deep-seated hatred of Jews, the language they use is functionally identical to that of the people who just hate the Jews. I don’t know what you reasonably expect us to do with that.
Ken White, before his recent bout of insanity, originally coined the rule of goats:
Even if you’re fucking the goat ironically to prove a point, you’re still a goat-fucker.
The other problem is that of all the possible things the world over to care about, I think it’s at least suspect that so much effort goes into scrutinizing the one country that just so happens to be majority Jewish. All the horrible things happening, all the atrocities, all the genocides actually happening… And there’s this intense hyperfocus on Israel. A continuing spotlight on Israel requires a myopic lens towards the things that people criticizing Israel pretend to care about. You’re tripping over dollars to pick up nickels, and I feel like there’s probably a reason for that that isn’t “principled”.
[From your host: this asshole is sneaking comments in while I am trying to make a living. Don’t dignify him with a response. Once you reply, I can’t spam his comment without erasing yours.]
Ya think???
Jews are one of the worst self defeaters in this regards in several ways. Their overwhelming belief that Hitler was “far right” leads them down several paths, to their own detriment. They view the left as their “safe place” to be.
So many Jews are anti-gun. October 7th is a great example. I didn’t know until that attack that Israel had disarmed its civilians. Shocking, given their history. Very different than the attitude in Switzerland. A handgun is a poor defense against someone with a machine gun, but it is far from worthless. The attackers were outnumbered. Some people were attacked in their homes, where they could have been armed with semi-automatic rifles, used to great effect. Would it have ended the attack? No. Would it have shifted the body count and greatly reduced the hostages? Absolutely. Jews tend to congregate in blue states, and have a hand in making them blue. Things like the attack outside the DC Israel embassy would have gone very different if the two were both armed.
As I said in the paragraph above, so many Jews are what makes blue states blue. It is true that there are racists that are far right, but the media overplays that and too many Jews buy it. Not so on the left; anti-Semites are the mainstream. We have the largest city in the country run by a terrorist supporter. Trump is the most pro Israel president ever, yet many Jews hate him.
Chuck Schumer is a coward and a weenie. If he had any principles at all, he would openly oppose the Jew-hating drift in his party.
Yes, I was absolutely astounded to read that Israelis are not armed. Given their history, when did this happen? I cannot believe that the early Israelis did not have guns in their homes.
It’s especially weird given that I also thought that Israel had universal service, so all citizens would have training in firearms.
I wonder if Israel has rethought this policy in the aftermath of Oct 7th.
It’s because the Jewish people are also prey to leftist delusions, as wise and as astute as so many of them are.
I guess so.
So, does survival trump delusions now?
I know they blame the Army for not defending them better, but still if 1 of 3 of those 1200 had had AR-15s, how much different would it have gone?
This outcome was obvious and everyone should have seen it coming. For 4 decades (at least), the left has had a ‘victim hierarchy’ which determined who was ‘most oppressed’ and who could criticize who. Since Ashkenazi Jews are predominantly Caucasian, they are precariously close to and subject to being labelled ‘white’ whenever convenient. They basically are only slightly above the ‘white’ people on the diversity scale, so they only rated as ‘diverse’ compared to white male conservatives. With more and more Muslims entering the ‘big tent’ of the Democratic Party, it was inevitable that the Party and the left in general would turn on even Jewish families that have been loyal party members for generations.
The left and the Democratic Party have tolerated and excused anti-Semitism in their midst for decades. From Louis Farrakhan claiming that Jewish doctors invented HIV to kill Blacks on, this has been tolerated, if not celebrated on the left and the Jewish community allowed it to pass with little mention to keep what protection they had in the diversity hierarchy. It was obvious that eventually, that protection would end.
Zerohedge used to be a website I would visit daily. No more.
So many of the commenters there run immediately to anti-Semitic tropes. That, along with hyperbolic articles, has ruined the site for me. Everything is the fault of Jews according to a vast majority of the commenters and comments.
Even my wife’s family has devolved into this absolute non-sense.
Anti-Semitism is becoming quite common and even mainstream. That’s more than dangerous for all of us, not just Jews.
I have zeroed out Zero Hedge for the same reason.
I would be happy to debate anyone who wants to make an honest, history-based, coherent argument against Israel defending itself and the legal and moral legitimacy of the Jewish state, but I honestly haven’t encountered such a person. Every one uses a tell that signals ignorance, stupidity, or bad faith. Don’t make demands about “Palestine,” for there is no such place. Don’t keep returning to the unfairness of the international decision to give what is now Israel to the Jews in 1948…it’s like arguing that we should give Texas back to Mexico, and one should know that. Don’t keep blathering about “two state solutions” when the so-called Palestinians have rejected such schemes and have locked in “From the river to the sea.” Don’t call terrorists “freedom fighters” and appeal to the authority of Jew haters and the UN.
And don’t say Israel trains dogs to rape Hamas prisoners.
I think one of the strongest supporting arguments for Israel’s existence is that Jewish communities that existed in Iran, Iraq, and other Arab countries were expelled wholesale in the 1950’s. Their property was confiscated and they were expelled, with only Israel as a probably destination. Many of these communities had been important (even ruling) groups in their area since before Islam even existed and they are all gone. No such purge happened in Israel and in territories Israel conquered.
I am wondering why? Why for thousands of years have Jewish people been scapegoated and persecuted? I haven’t read anywhere that Israelites persecuted others, that they acted violently against others except in self-defense, that they have marginalized or dominated others. Why has there been such hostility to a cultural group that is barely .2% of the world’s population? Other than Biblical prophesies, I haven’t found explanations, just timelines and descriptions. Thoughts?
The Durants state as fact that the reason for the original persecution of the Jews is that “they” killed Christ. Simple as that.
(They were persecuted by non-Christians long before a section of Christianity found the “blood libel” as a useful medieval excuse to acquire Jewish wealth)
(Non-Christians still felt killing Jesus wasn’t a badge of honor. Of course, that’s not an accurate description of what transpired, assuming there is an accurate description of what transpired.)
I meant to reply to you directly, but WordPress was being difficult. See my full-length response below.
Jews, being so uniquely reviled, of all the people-groups on this planet, for the better part of 2,500 years, should cause every one interested in genuine, incisive introspection to ask themselves: “Why?”
Which, with no interest in digging into the connecting questions, eventually lead the self-asker to ask “maybe there is a God and it’s the God associated initially with the Jews, and therefore, maybe it’s a God we should take at His Word that He isn’t like the other man-made wooden gods who notionally would lead a people to worldly conquest.”
In ancient times, the “land of milk and honey” was in the crosshairs of imperial powers from Babylon to Rome, as these empires sought to expand their reach around the Meditteranean and the Middle East. Having not built a true multi-state empire of their own, Israel basically had to rely on divine intervention (or the benevolence of the great powers around them) to have any semblance of independence.
As the diaspora took effect from the Babylonian conquest onward, the Jews maintained their culture by declining to fully assimilate to their host countries’ culture, creating their own enclaves instead. As this very blog has discussed, this approach never sits well with a nation’s dominant population. During the Middle Ages, aside from the obvious competition between Judaism and Christianity, people would witness Jewish culture standing firm while the nations Jews lived in rose and fell around them. At the same time, Jews were becoming known as bankers and moneylenders, the “rich capitalist” class that everyone loves to hate. It’s also worth noting that, even without the Jews, this kind of class hatred was more pronounced and instutionalized in the pre-modern era than it is today. The standard attitude then was that you needed to be born into wealth in order to be worthy of it. Going from rags-to-riches outside the various aristocratic systems meant forgetting your place in the world. Hence merchants and bankers tended to be kept out of politics, and could only even begin to penentrate the aristocrat ranks by marriage (and then only to desperate aristocrats).
To sum up, when you’ve got enclaves of (relatively) rich people who maintain their wealth outside the normal political and economic systems, who have more in common with other enclaves thousands of miles away than with their own non-Jewish neighbors, and they keep surviving disaster after disaster, then it becomes tempting to believe they’re responsible for such disasters occurring. Let this run for thousands of years and anti-Semitism becomes the norm.
But don’t forget: The Jews became money-lenders (and tailors!) because it was one of the few occupations they were allowed to engage in. Talk about a Catch 22!
That is helpful.