Posted on 04/15/2014 3:33:13 PM PDT by MNDude
There's another possibility that doesn't assume that one side consists entirely of Angels and the other of Demons.
The alternative explanation is that anti-Semitism has the same underlying causes as any and all other ethnic conflicts, particularly majority vs. minority conflicts. Whenever you have different religions, races, and ethnicities pursuing their collective self-interest and competing for wealth and resources in the same place, there will be mutual distrust and resentments. That's just human nature. If one of the groups engaging in the competition is out-numbered or out-armed, it will be at the receiving end of most of the abuse when the competitions, conflicts, and resentments escalate to violence.
The Jewish experience was mirrored by many other diaspora people: Hindus in Uganda, Armenians in Turkey, Tutsis in Rwanda, Chinese in Indonesia, etc. What Jews experienced is more familiar to us because it occurred in Europe, including Western Europe, rather than being a phenomenon of third-world countries.
Agree with most of your points, see my post #61 where I point out that most of these characteristics (refusal to assimilate, religious differences, etc) apply to other diaspora people too.
It seems the Jews have always had an image problem. And if that isn’t bad enough, there are scum like Mayor BloomingIdiot throwing gasoline on the fire. Oy!
I agree. Prager has a point, but it's only part of the equation. But the question was what is Prager's take on the issue.
I think what golux was reacting to was the impression that Jews in the South behave in a fashion like the yankee variety from the northeast. You may not have intended to imply that but someone could have drawn that conclusion. He was offended as a Southerner, not as a Jew.
Ethnic conflicts are a good deal more complicated than that. The bottom line is that people, Jews included (or perhaps especially) are ethnocentric. Diaspora people are resented because its natural and normal for ethnocentric people to resent unassimilated "nations within a nation" who live among them but whose first loyalty is to one another rather than their own countrymen. It's a completely normal and natural reaction, and the situation would be reversed if there were a Jewish majority and a Christian minority.
There's also the fact that alienated diaspora people tend to gravitate towards radical politics.
You might have noticed by now that Southern Jews are just like any other variant of the Southern “Race,” - LOL - We don’t kiss ass, we go to war. May our LORD bless us all.
If I were to reduce to an irreducible minimum I’d say its their undeserved reputation as the killers of Christ. I think all other explanations stem from this. It is also interesting to note that some of the most virulent anti-Semitism in the 19th century was in France. (Sartre wrote a good book that’s worth a look - Anti-Semite and Jew.) There’s simply no way of denying their successes however. They’ve simply had to triumph over adversity wherever they settled. They have a disproportionate amount of Nobel Laureates. See below:
At least 193 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize,1 accounting for 23% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2013, and constituting 37% of all US recipients2 during the same period.3 In the research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine, the corresponding world and US percentages are 27% and 39%, respectively. Among women laureates in the four research fields, the Jewish percentages (world and US) are 38% and 50%, respectively. Of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 23% were founded principally by Jews or by people of half-Jewish descent. (Jews currently make up approximately 0.2% of the world’s population and 2% of the US population.)
• Chemistry (36 prize winners, 22% of world total, 33% of US total)
• Economics (29 prize winners, 39% of world total, 50% of US total)
• Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
• Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)4
• Physics (51 prize winners, 26% of world total, 37% of US total)
•Physiology or Medicine (55 prize winners, 27% of world total, 40% of US total)
This illustrates what Thomas Sowell wrote: over or underrepresentation in any field of human endeavor is the rule, not the exception. This seems unqualifiedly true. I don’t know why, but any list of the greatest composers who ever lived would include a very high percentage of Germans, perhaps three or four of the top five - Bach, Beethoven Brahms, Wagner, and Mozart.
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