Antisemitism

[BmorePat87]

(07-16-2020, 02:31 PM)samhain Wrote: I think Jews are just a convenient scapegoat for just about any political discontent imaginable.  The Jewish boogeyman is a classic and consistent political device that will probably never go away.

Why?  Idk.  I suppose that they, as an ethnic group just don't have the numbers to be as well-understood as others on a large scale.  I'm not talking about understanding their history or culture.  I'm talking about relating to them as just being Americans like everyone else.  No matter where you live in the US, rural, urban, or suburban, you probably know a few black people.  Probably more than a few.  You regularly see and interact with Hispanics, and probably Asians as well.  

Jews, not so much outside of urban areas and some suburbs.  I can't think of any that I work with, and my employer has 8000 people per day on site (no, I don't know them all).  My kid has one Jewish friend.  One of my best friends was Jewish when I was a kid, but his family was literally the only Jewish family I had ever met.  

I think large parts of America just don't interact with a lot of Jews and don't understand/identify with them.  That makes it easy for people who want to paint them as just about anything to influence folks who know little of the culture.

I think it's rooted in both the tradition of Christianity as well as European history. Early Christians distanced themselves from Judaism after the revolt in the first century and would continue to do so as they converted more and more. 

The meme of Jesus being killed by the Jewish people also became prevalent. 

Jewish people were scapegoats across Europe for centuries for a variety of reasons, sometimes religious and sometimes cultural. 

As you said, being such a small group plays a big role, as does their relative success. It breed resentment and ignorance.