by ZeroHaven » Sat Oct 01, 2005 9:01 am
My goodness, I've experienced the same violent reaction and haven't been banned.. thank you very much.<br><br>It started with a simple question, and if treated as such would have remained so. As some other people like to do, here I put the ANSWER to the original question in case some poor uninformed shlub came to get it.<br><br>There were once two variants: <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>religious anti-semitism</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> - a hatred and persecution of anyone who is of the Jewish religion. <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>racial anti-semitism</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> - a hatred and persecution of anyone who appears to be a descendant of Shem, which includes both Jews and Muslims.<br><br>both of these definitions are more historical, and both stem from the fact that in biblical times these descendants of Shem, many of which practiced the Jewish religion, were scattered to the four winds and were seen as money-grubbing foreigners in the places they settled. Add that to the usual reaction of discrimination that occurs when someone with different practices and beliefs comes as a stranger to a new town... and you end up with double the persecution against the 'new' guys.<br><br>There is a lot of history you can look up on your own by searching "history anti-semitism".<br><br>In MODERN terms, the term anti-semitism has come to mean any accusation of wrongdoing directed toward a person of the Jewish religion, or a supporter of the state of Israel. It's not so much racial anymore because many people of (genetic) semetic descent have converted to other religions and for the most part they physically don't look different enough to be pointed out.<br><br>There is another lot of history that explains why this new definition has been taken in.. and a good part of it has to do with the heightened sensitivity to discrimination of any kind in the modern era. Very quickly, anti-Zionism is directed toward people who want the (political/geographical) state of Isreal to become solely owned and inhabited by people of the Jewish religion. Zionists are not necessarily Jews, this term includes people who support this effort as well.<br><br>--------<br>This is as accurate as I can get while being brief. In this light, I also urge everyone to consider that blaming a Jewish person or group for a wrongdoing or crime should not automatically acquire the label of anti-semite. Unless of course, the accuser is blaming "jews in general" instead of the actual perpetrators of the said action. <br><br>Thank you for your time. Trying to learn and share some understanding is very important to me.<br> <p><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/ZeroHaven/tinhat.gif"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--></p><i></i>