The subconscious of anti-Semitism

A century ago, Vienna Chief Rabbi Moritz Guedemann, a liberal, educated man, explained that anti-Semitism derives from the psychological tension created within Christianity by its relations with Judaism.

Using the vocabulary of Sigmund Freud, who lived in the same city and period, Guedemann analyzed the "subconscious" of the anti-Semitism that prevailed in Vienna in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "The Christian kneels before a Jew's image, rubs his hands before a Jewess' (Mary) image, Jesus' apostles are Jews and so are the psalms he recites. Only few would be capable of overcoming these contrasts, and most of them seek to relieve the tension by means of anti-Semitic acts. Since they are obliged to worship a Jew as a god, they take revenge on the rest of the Jews, whom they describe as sons of Satan."

It was only in 1965, 20 years after the Holocaust, that the Catholic Church begin to deal seriously with the anti-Semitic components at the center of Christian theology. Today in Rome and next week at the President's residence in Jerusalem and in dozens of events throughout the world, Jews and Catholics will mark the 40th anniversary of the Vatican's adoption of Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the landmark document that launched a new relationship between the Church and the Jewish people.

The Vatican's declaration on the relationship of the Church with non-Christian religions established for the first time, following a historic gathering of the Vatican Council, that the Jews must be exonerated of the charge of deicide and that incitement against them must stop.

...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/638222.html

But before it does, a simple, honestly asked question:

Has the cultural and/or contextual meaning of "anti-semite" reached a point where it ONLY means anti-Hebrew?

Were not the actions of our United States "anti-semitic" when we willfully and wantonly and with full knowledge aforethought sent billions of dollars worth of bombs and missiles and gunfire and human beings into Iraq, killing, by some estimates, over a hundred thousand civilian semites?

Or are some semites more equal than other semites?

Generations and generations hence, I hope I can be reincarnated to be part of the generation that, once and for all, puts to rest the stupidity of Semites and Caucasians and Negroids and Mongoloids and Trapeziods and finally figures out once-and-for-goddamned-all that all we have here are HUMANOIDS.

Naaaaaaahhhhh! Wishful thinking.

THis is not I/P, but isn't interesting that you made that conclusion? It is almost as interesting as your demonstration of not knowing what the word "anti-Semitism" means. It has nothing to do with "Semites" or even "Hebrews," but Jews. The word was created in the late 1800's because the inventor needed a 'less crude' word to describe hating Jews. It is also pretty clear you didn't read the article, just the title. Otherwise, you would see that this is a Christan/Jew issue, thus my placing it in this forum.

Because it makes me think of North Africans and Middle Easterners in general as well.

Do you think about the relations between Christianity and Judaism, regardless of what term is used to describe the hatred that has frequently marked same?

Because all three major Abrahamic religions are the scourge of modernity.

It has not "caught on" as of yet. But, I have seen this word used more often now. There is a great piece about it (20 pages long), and if I find it again (my bookmarks are a mess), I will add it.

The word "Anti-Semite" was coined specifically to refer to hatred of Jews, a thing that, in the opinion of the coiners, was a good thing that ought to be encouraged for social health. "Semite" functioned as a sort of genteel circumlocution for the distasteful word "Jew" in the nineteenth century, rather like it was common to refer to Blacks as "Ethiops" or "Sons of Ham" in the lace-curtain circles where they put covers on piano legs in those days. By putting the thing in more polite form, it was hoped to increase its carry in conversation. The term has never refered to anything else, and never carried any association with Arabs or other Near Eastern peoples. It has become a popular game in certain circles now to try and blur the meaning, but is unlikely to carry the established usage out of general circulation. There may well be a need in the language for a word refering specifically to bigoted hate for Arabs, but so far no one has managed a coinage that has stuck.

You made and presented a wonderful argument. Although there is no word for "fear or hate against Arabs," there has been one established for "fear and hatred of Muslims," Islamophobia. Although not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs, this new term has become more mainstream. I don't know that any 'coinage' will come soon, anymore than there is one for Africans, South Americans, and others. To be honest, is there one for Christians? :shrug:

Thank you for giving an even more complete historical version of the word; I was being lazy tonight.

(BTW..."Islamophobia" is not in the DU dictionary. I would like to suggest it be added. :))

that we ALL stop using a racist term coined for racist purposes?

If "Semite" was coined to describe only one segment of a population the vast majority of whom carry a matrilineal commonality, may we quietly and quickly hustle "anti-Semitism" off to the dustbin of history?

How about we work from the standpoint of eliminating anti-humanism? Nobody should hate anybody just because they came from a particular part of the desert/jungle/mountains or because their skin is pink/chocolate/tan or because their earwax is a bubble off plumb.

I am disturbed by the notion that you feel "there may well be a need in the language for a word refering specifically to bigoted hate for Arabs."

As we rednecks say "Lord God, Billy Bob!" The word already exists. The name is "Republican."

And for the above-poster, I DID read the whole article. The Church can repeat as many "Mea Culpas" as it has breath for, but expiation is an idea of its own invention.

So, in the face of overwhelming evidence, I'll never, ever, suggest that middle eastern people who look like each other and are separated only by religion are all Semites. I also won't suggest that they're Sneetches. Or Star-bellied Sneetches, either.

I won't even suggest that they're non-Sneetches.

For my part, they're all just Humans. Born to die and dying to live.

Somebody save us all. 'Cause God's laying down on the job.

...but I don't know that it will "stick." I am trying to find a GREAT article that talks about using the term "Juedeophobia" instead, but I can't find the link. I will keep looking, but be warned....it is LONG...20 pages!

So, I have a question. If you read the article, why would you suggest that it would be subjected to being locked?

for any kind of definition of the wholesale slaughter of arabic innocents. We need a quickie. "Anti-sandmitic" Can the poor people who happen to be Arabic have THAT one? I realize now that they don't get to be Semites. I know they define themselves by the relative degree of their piety. Sunnis. Shi'a. Of course, that's NOTHING like the squabble between Israel and Judah. Nothing at all.

Back when I was a little boy and didn't understand anything and was growing up in what was once a very tolerant (don't laugh) Baptist Church in Alabama, we used to sit in rapt amazement at the stories from the Prophets all about how Israel quit worshipping God just so, and God whacked the crap out of 'em for it. Jeremiah. Micah. Samuel. Ezekiel (at least he got the ride). That's one pissed off God. And to hear it told, he was just as mad at us if we left our socks in the floor as he was at Moses when he hit that rock with that danged stick. That fit cost Moses the ticket to Tel Aviv. Or the later-to-be-built Jerusalem. And it just plain sucked not to get cobbler after dinner.

Is that not rather a tangent in a discussion purposed as an examination of relations between Christians and Jews?

to any single person who holds himself out as either Son of Abraham or Grandson of Yeshua's Daddy.

If you bother with history at all, you'll find that the Muslims LEARNED anti-semitism (within the narrow scope by which we're confined by popular opinion) from the Christians. Even before Mohammed's (PBUH) great-granddaddy thought about even having an idea about the Jews, Saul of Tarsus was marching into a room and telling Yeshua's OWN BROTHER he knew more about "the Christ" than James did.

Paul was the one who took Yeshua the brown-skinned Palestinian carpenter from the Palestinian Jews.

But there is a rule on Democratric underground against "hijacking" threads to one's own pet topics, and it pains me to have to piont it out to you....

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Live and learn....

within in its modern meaning.

Shalom.

Salaam.

Roll Tide!

I understand what you are saying...although not the topic here, this is a tangent thread, but, anti-Arabic is the only term I have ever seen. Although, "Islamophobia" is starting to catch on, it only describes hate against Muslims. However, this is still important because Islamophobia is what is fueling much of the acceptance by Americans of ME policies. Hate crimes in the US jumped after 9-11 against Muslims and Arabs. The funny (ironic...not "ha-ha") thing, so did hate against Jews! In 2002, hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs went back down, but not so with Jews.

So, as horrible as things are with the killing of innocent Arabs and Muslims, it still makes one wonder, why are Jews still the number one target (as far as religion goes...in the US...African-Americans are still THE number one target)?

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Though it seems fit to me that a racist doctrine be refered to by its proper name when it is on display. The hatred of Jews in Christendom is an odd and enduring phenomenon, that has had a powerful effect on events in the West for millenia. It is certainly the oldest and most deeply rooted form of bigotry in the West, detestation of Moslems necessarily having a shorter history, and detestation of Blacks and Orientals being even more recent than that.

Part of the difficulty may come from unawareness that Semite refers, in its origin as a term, not to an ethnic stock but to a family of languages sharing certain features. Linguistic families do not always overlap closely with ancestry among the peoples who speak them, as languages spread and predominate by a variety of means.

that I should be so thouroughly misunderstood.

I do not, nor ever would, dismiss the mistreatment of the Jewish People through the last three thousand years of history (no sense letting the Phoenicians ("philistines"), Lydians, Medes, Persians, and maybe een the Minoans and Mycennaeans off the hook).

I am loathe to call myself a "Christian." Wait a minute. I don't call myself one of those. I also don't call myself a Hindu, Jew, Buddhist or Zoroastrian.

I call myself a Human. But only because that's the handiest word.

Quite honestly, to describe the European treatment of Jewry as "odd" is as great an understatement as I've lately seen. I would have opted for "monstrous," myself. But you're absolutely correct, Mag, in your description of the linguistic origins of the terminology. Both Hebrew and Arabic are deemed "semitic tongues." Shalom. Salaam. They're more than just cognates. They're the same language turned at a phonemic 45 degree angle.

I suppose I made a mistake in my assumption about locking. Apparently, it's a slower trigger-finger in this forum. That's rather a refreshing change.

We do this kind of stuff all the time on "Head-On With Bob Kincaid." Probably more than is good for me. But faith and its sometimes toxic works can't help but fascinate me.

Would love to have you listen in and join me at www.whiterosesociety.org/Kincaid.html We stream live every night from 7-10 Eastern. Call in number is (877) 443-2366.

NOUN:

A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians

NOUN

1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.

none of his theory's hold water.. or air.. just wrong.

there was a group round table with the Dalai Lama on science and it was discovered that probably all the founding behavioral studies done in psychology and are the foundation of the science are tainted or totally invalid because none of the studies had a control.

they started doing new studies using trained meditates in Deep meditation as the control and are coming up with different results.

book is called 'Destructive Emotions' narrated by Daniel Goldman

I'm still a DU newbie and I learn so much by lurking on these threads. Many of us grew up in environments that weren't conducive to understanding or experiencing the enormous prejudices associated with religion or race.

Searching the internet for unbiased historical information about Judaism is daunting at best. I truly appreciate the "bickering" I find on DU threads. Makes me feel what that guy Bush said - "is our children learning?"

I'm tryin' to!

The relation between Christianity and Judaism, and the frequently hostile character of same, is a legitimate topic for conversation in a forum devoted to religion and theology. Doubtless people will be able to discuss the matter civilly and without displays of bigotry.

"Kill one, warn one hundred."

It's a great education!

And do let us.

Because there are more than enough crazies to go around.

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a mod has taken care of it! :applause:

there are not many Jewish people in this part of the country and diversity is fascinating to me. I've heard that any Jewish/Christian discussion gets locked. It's nice to see discussion that is educational and not disrespectful. I'd like to have more understanding of what gets people so upset about different cultures and religions. I don't get it.

on a Goy who makes the best potato pancakes in 17 counties and grows his own beets for borscht? Who understands that when a Roman Catholic crosses himself, he's imitating a Jewish sect at the time of Yeshua who made the same motion across their chests to invoke the Torah.

THIS is the beginning of dialogue. And reason.

DO you take your latkes with sour cream or applesauce.

We entered a chile cook-off this year and offered two chiles: one green and one red. I'm thinking next year we offer three: one red, one green, one matzoh ball.

The film Protocols of Zion opened recently in New York City. They're trying to get wider distribution for it, and if it shows up in your area, I highly recommend it.

The film is the director's personal journey of exploring contemporary anti-Semitism. He hears opinions about Jews from black nationalists, Arab-Americans, etc., and even has surprisingly cordial conversations with some neo-Nazis. He also draws on his own childhood experience, growing up in the only Jewish household in the neighborhood, and reminisces with his father. Some of the most frightening footage is from anti-Semitic propaganda on Egyptian state television.

Do you have any links? Who is the producer?

This would be so interesting for me! I grew up in the military. More often than not, my dad had to serve as Rabbi because none were around. I have been called a 'kike,' 'Christ-killer,' and 'Hebe' (I didn't get that one at first). In 5th grade, a classmate threatened to blow off my face with a shotgun because I was a Jew. Now, I love in a town with no synagogue, no Jews (I have yet to meet on after three years here), and no real diversity.

If you have a link or a number to call, I would be VERY interested in finding out more!

The film is from Blowback Productions. The website at http://www.blowbackproductions.com/ has contact information, and also a blog about the film from the director, Marc Levin.

By running "Marc Levin" and Protocols on a Yahoo! or Google search, you can find some interesting links. If the film doesn't reach Oklahoma soon -- and it probably won't -- you might want to read the interview with Levin at independentfilm.com: http://www.independentfilm.com/films/protocols-of-zion-marc-levin.shtml (includes picture of Levin chatting with a skinhead in the warehouse where the skinheads fill mail orders for Nazi material).

it seems to me. Judaism was the only significant religion apart from Christianity in many parts of Europe, and I think the bigotry was as much a 'fear and hatred of the other' than a specific reaction to what the New Testament claims about the death of Jesus. Consider that other groups were persecuted as well, at various times - the Bogomils, the Albigenses, the Roma. The obsession with witch-hunts might fit into this category as well. The Roma still suffer today (and were, of course, a target of the Nazis alongside the Jews). And now that they've become a significant presence in Europe, Muslims are targets - it's notable that the British National Party has stopped any antisemitic propaganda (though I suspect many of its members still retain their hatred in private), which its predecessors used to be obsessed about, and now targets Islam.

While antisemites may use the 'deicide' accusation as one of their tools, I think that if that was the real underlying reason for the hatred, the Nazis would have used it more explicitly, but it seems to me their propaganda was more "they're in control - they're taking your jobs" etc., plus the 'racial purity' angle. It seemed more an attack on the Jewish 'race' and culture, rather than the Jewish religion.

This is a LONG read, but well worth it. It touches on many things in your post. If you scroll to the bottom and you can see the chapters and read the ones you want. I read the whole thing it took several hours.

Anyway, here is the link: http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/judeophobia.htm