By: K.J. Kruger

Anti Semitism is not a new phenomenon.  My grandmother was chased home from school by a group of gentile girls who screamed, “You killed our God”. My grandmother was small, the youngest in her family and she didn’t know what it meant to kill anybody and certainly did not know who their God was.  My great grandmother dried her daughter’s tears and told her, “That’s what they think. That’s what they have been taught.”

The more things change the more they remain the same and this ancient and virulent hatred, like a virus which is sometimes dormant and sometimes active, has reared its ugly head once again. Like any virus, it mutates and “shape shifts”.  Often, Jews were hated ostensibly because of our refusal to “fit in”. Those in authority, fearful of a renegade group, sought to silence voices that might have been perceived as not conforming to standard norms. Those in power seek to maintain the status quo.  It may be argued that Jesus was ultimately crucified for refusing to acknowledge any authority other than God.

In the 4^th Century, Constantine the Great made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. The Jews were encouraged to convert or risk losing their citizenship. The more Jews resisted the attempts to convert them, the more distrust grew. By the end of the fourth century, the myth that we had killed Jesus was widely accepted, though the Jewish people never used crucifixion as a method of punishment. Nevertheless, as it has been said, “a lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth”, so this has become accepted folklore in the textbook of Jew hatred.

During the Middle Ages, the Jews were hated because they continued to hold opinions contrary to Church doctrines. To have such opinions was a crime punishable by death. 

The Crusades, which began in 1096, resulted in not only persecution, but death. Religious zealots, in a rampage across Europe, killed approximately 12,000 people.

Jews began to be excluded from public places and prohibited from giving evidence in court.  Marriage between Jews and Christians was outlawed and in 1215, it was decreed that Jewish people wear special clothing to distinguish us from others.

Soon there was physical separation, and the first ghettos were built. We were to be isolated from Christians except for the purposes of business.

Some rulers gave the Jews the unpopular role of tax collecting. This would instigate a small truth that became a huge lie perpetuating the myth that Jews had a great deal of money.

Another myth began during the time of the Black Plague in Europe which was that we poisoned wells and food. This was even though Jews also died of the plague but in fewer numbers because we wash our hands before eating. Yet another myth began that Jewish people used the blood of Christian children in our ceremonies. The more outrageous and outlandish the lies, the more the common people became frightened which resulted in massacre upon massacre of Jewish people.

In 1290 the Jews were expelled from England. In 1306 we were expelled from France not to return until after the French Revolution. In 1492 Columbus did, indeed, sail the “ocean blue” and, at the same time, the Jews were either expelled or forced to flee from Spain if they didn’t abandon their religion.

 Jews were different. We worshipped on Saturday rather than Sunday. We didn’t eat certain foods. Thus, because of our differences we were suspect. We were and have been outsiders. Not like others. Strange. Peculiar.

In 1542 Martin Luther, a leader in the Protestant reformation published a little booklet entitled, “Of Jews and Their Lies” in which he advocated that our homes and places of worship be burned.

In 1873, in Germany, a man by the name of Wilheim Marr wrote that the Jews must be eliminated because we were members of an alien race. This was the first time “race” was used to describe the Jewish people, rather than a “faith” or a “religion”.

We have been persecuted because we are different, and because we have tried to assimilate. We have been accused of being Communists and Capitalists. We were unable to gain employment, so we created our own businesses. We were denied entry into clubs, so we formed our own.

Whenever a person or a society is unsuccessful, it is likely that they will look for whom to blame. It is only an enlightened and self-aware person or society that looks within, to determine what needs to change within them before looking outward for whom to accuse.

In the wake of Germany’s defeat in World War One, a victim was sought, and the Jews were a convenient target. Under the guise of pseudo-science, we were deemed impure and thus inferior, and if we could only be exterminated, all would be well with the world. This led to “the Final Solution” in which the goal was to literally wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.  As we know, this attempt at genocide failed, and in the wake of World War II, there was a moment in which the Jewish people were awarded our own sliver of land in what was to become, in 1948, the Modern State of Israel.

Though our troubles were far from over, insofar as we have been fighting wars and terrorism ever since, we had finally “come home.”