A few days ago i watched the academy award winning film the pianist. A true story about spzlimans struggle for survival during world war 2. i realised while watching the film that truly Hitler was on a mission to wipe all jews from the face of the earth.

why did Hitler hate jews so much? this was much more than racism or genocide. it was a deeper form of hatred. i read somewhere that Hitler and his cabal were in certain satanic cults. I beleived that maybe his annihilation of jews was inspired by satans' personal vendetta against God's chosen people. but i'd like to hear what you guys think

i think its called anti-semitism. he hated jews because he believed that the jews {and communists} were the cause of Germanys downfall and he wanted to execute them by all means

thats according to German history though

what has karma got to do with it?

ok i see your piont.
i agree wit you to an extent. i think the jews rejected christ thats why they have had all the trouble they had. Jesus said it to them. also satan inspired Hitler, he has hated Jews over the years because they are Gods chosen people.

Hitler was anti samitism, he did not only hated the jewish people but other race except the German race. He believed the Germans are the superior race than any other race. He also killed is own people who has any form of disability because they do not profit the German nation because he was trying to establish a German empire that will last. Basically if you are not German with the German physical attributes u getting killed e.g blue eye, blond hair, all know as the Aryan race.

yes , but he didnt target other races as much as he targeted jews. The guy built chambers for mass killings. He killed six million jews. As if they were rats and were to be exterminated. It's terrible. I think his body should be exhumed and shot again

I see that there is a need for information on this subject, as not all posts here are well informed.

Firstly, I wouldn't focus this on Hitler alone, it was almost the whole of Germany (and large parts of Europe) that were involved in one of the biggest crimes against humanity ever. You could delve into the personal motivations of Hitler, but that wouldn't accomplish much. There have always been psychopatical madmen in history.

I will try to answer the question how it was possible that the holocaust happened in Europe and why the Jews were targeted.

You have to realise that anti-semitism is a uniquely European phenomenon in it's origins. Even though it has now spread over the globe and it is especially virulent in the Arab world today, it's roots lay in Europe.
I will try to summarise the root causes under headings. These explanations do not exist by themselves alone and enforce each other strongly.

1. Theological roots of anti-semitism (from anti-judaism to anti-semitism)
2. Developments of the Jewish diaspora and impact on anti-semitism
3. Development of Eurocentric racism and the Jew as racial stereotype
4. Impact of the formation of nation-states on the nature of anti-judaism
5. The formation of the capitalist/communist divide and it's impact on the perception of Jews
6. Perpetuation of anti-semitism after the formation of Israel (how is anti-semitism still possible after the holocaust?)

I will borrow heavily from the time I studied under the guidance of Dr. Hans Jansen, who is now working for the Simon Wiesenthal institute in Brussels. I will try not to quote extensively from the literature but try to build up my own argumentation. If asked, I can provide a literature guide for those that are interested in the subject.

Each point will require a different post, so stay tuned.

cool,

nferyn, i'm waiting man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've got to go after my new car this afternoon. This evening or tomorrow morning latest.

Wow, nferyn! Congratulations!!

I'm one of those interested in your views on the topic of discussion - I'll wait patiently.

nferyn, do you no the meaning of the phrase " we go wash am o"


it means you have to buy us drinks to celebrate your new car

True talk - I forgot to include that one. Yes, we go wash am until the colour vanish!!

The first step to understanding why Hitler hated jews so much is to understand that the man was a raging Paranoid Psychopath. The Jews didn't do anything to him personally, but he believed that they were a powerful enemy and a  lower race than he was therefore, they had to be exterminated.

Also, research from Britanica has proven that he actually had breeding farms in Germany where volunteer teenage girls were impregnated by blond, blue-eyed SS- men, to bear children for the Fuhrer . . . the man was trying to play God, he wanted to create a new world order. There is no other way to explain it than to just come to terms with the fact that he was a Psycho that had Absolute power,

Didn't some old dead guy back in the day once say, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Well, I finally went after my new car this afternoon. I'm wasted, so my first in depth post follows tomorrow morning.
I don't mind celebrating. If you ever find your way to Belgium, you can always come over for a drink

Theological roots of anti-semitism

Anti-semitism in it's modern meaning is the ugly stepchild of ago old Christian anti-judaism, where existing prejudices that were justified on theological grounds got a new racial underpinning. I want to distinguish between anti-judaism and anti-semitism because the motivations of these prejudices were different. Anti-judaism in Europe grew out the central role the Jews apparently played in Christian theology. It were the Jews that killed God, so to speak, and within that context, it is obvious that a certain level of hostility against the Jews was needed to maintain the a coherence in the interpretation of the New Testament.

The moment the Christians sects separated from mainstream Judaism, a bitter competition was started between these two religions on who could claim authority over matters of truthfulness. The Torah (old testament) prophecies were very differently interpreted and the mainstream Judaism strongly oposed the fact that in Christianity:
1. Jesus is considered God
2. Jesus in the Messiah (which has a more political meaning regarding the role of the Jewish people in Judaism)
3. The concept of the Jews as chosen people is rejected (In Judaism, the term [i]chosen people [/i]is in no way a reflection of superiority)

This in itself would not be sufficient to warrant the anti-judaism as it grew in Europe, but the political context of the time ensured that what was once a struggle between two different interpretations of what was basically the same faith into two religions that were quite hostile to each other.

1. Christianity growing out of it's Jewish roots needed three things to spread in a gentile environment:
a. an acceptable message for the gentiles
b. a clear distinction from Judaism
c. an explanation for how Jesus could be crucified by the Roman autorities (crucifiction was a punishment that could only be carried out by the Roman authorities and only for crimes of treason)
It must be noted that, even though few pasages in the New Testament are explicitely anti-judaistic, the virulent anti-judaistic reading of the New Testament by the church fathers has instilled a strong hostility among Christians for the Jewish people.

The main idea here is that to gain acceptance in the Roman world, Christianity had to shed of it's Jewish origins (very clear in the Pauline writings) and be acceptable to Roman citizens. What was a first a conflict over intrpretation of the Torah turned into situation were Judaism altogether had to be classified evil. It was not just the Pharisee clergy that condemned Jesus, it was the whole of the Jewish people that had murdered him. It was not just Pontius Pilatus that had Jesus crucified, it was the Jews that collectively rejected Jesus. This presentation of events, even though it contradicts Jewish traditions, laws and customs, was need to exhonorate the Roman authorities and make Christianity acceptable to a Roman audience.

The fact that after the destruction of the Temple the Jewish people were dispersed among the Roman empire ensured that:
1. The Jews were present as the only foreign element in Christian Europe
2. The church father could point to that fact as a fulfilment of prophecy and to the eternal damnation of the Jewish people
3. The variety among Jewish beliefs declined dramatically and Rabbinical Judaism (from the Pharisees) became the mainstream component of Judaism

But that's for a next post

ok Nferyn, interesting

nferyn:

The main idea here is that to gain acceptance in the Roman world, Christianity had to shed of it's Jewish origins (very clear in the Pauline writings) and be acceptable to Roman citizens. What was a first a conflict over intrpretation of the Torah turned into situation were Judaism altogether had to be classified evil. It was not just the Pharisee clergy that condemned Jesus, it was the whole of the Jewish people that had murdered him. It was not just Pontius Pilatus that had Jesus crucified, it was the Jews that collectively rejected Jesus. This presentation of events, even though it contradicts Jewish traditions, laws and customs, was need to exhonorate the Roman authorities and make Christianity acceptable to a Roman audience.

christianity didn't strive to gain acceptance with the world. Rather it presented the truth as it were to a world who could either reject it or accept it.

Christianity did not try to shred of it's jewish origins, The old testament is the foundation of christianity,which is what Judaism is based on. The whole world has come to accept the hebrew God,Yahweh. through Christianity. The jews rejected christ as the messiah, because he did not fit thier belief system.

They expected the messiah to be a warrior King , The offspring of The conquering King David, who would liberate them from Roman opression. While Jesus who was the offspring of david, was peaceful and didn't wield a sword. he didn't liberate them from Roman hold, rather he liberated them from a greater hold. He liberated their hearts from the hold of sin and despair.

They Jews belived that the messiah would be born and come from bethlehem as prophecied in the old testament, which Judaism is based on. and to them Jesus came from Nazareth. which was true.

But they forgot, that Jesus was born in bethelem but grew up in Nazareth after he came back from Egypt, when his family fled the sword of herod. They didn't realise that bethelem as prophecied is where he came from.

2 The jewish people as symbolised by their leaders the sanhendrin, had Jesus crucified. The jewsih people forgot that their law had said thier main prophets Isiah.david jeremiah,joel, hezekaih had said that the christ would be beaten, wounded and crucified.
Ultimately the Jews rejected Jesus because he didnt fit what they expected, but if they had read thier writings closely, they would have seen that everything that happened to Jesus , had been said hundreds of years earlier.

3 there was no grand plan to exonerate Roman authorities, the romans were occupants and didnt know the truth, they had no basis for anger towards Jesus, pontius pilate (although not absolved of guilt) didn't want Jesus crucified. They were principal accesories to those who committed the true crime. The sanhendrin and citizens of jerusalem who cried that night "crucify him, crucify him"
they cried " Let his blood be on us and on our childrens children".

This is getting interesting, i'm enjoying your views and can't wait for your next post

@nferyn, good read. . .but not entirely balanced. I'm not going to take it that this is wholly your view, as you had informed earlier that you'd be drawing heavily from Dr. Hans Jansen.

Most secular mindsets of the academia tend to mixup issues in a fascinating manner and fail to understand that what they present are their personal slants. These are a few points for your consideration:

(a) the terms 'anti-judaism' and 'anti-semitism' are not properly contextualized in your piece. You're interpreting early Christianity as a siamese twin of Judaism, and therefore since the Jews instigated the crucifixion of Jesus (Himself a Jew) by the Romans, the theological tensions necessitated "a certain level of hostility against the Jews" - by whom - Christians? Hardly. I'd offer that the hostility was the other way round: Jesus' claim to be the Son of God was the primary 'crime' for which the Jews condemned Him to death. And right from the time Christianity emerged soon after, the Jews were antagonistic to its adherents. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that Paul, as a Jewish Pharisee was a champion persecutor of Christians prior to his conversion? Who from the Christian Church during that time was seen persecuting the Jews or the Romans?

(b) as highlighted by nightrider, and contrary to your supposition, Christianity did not separate from mainstream Judaism - they were never at anytime running the tracks together. You'd have to understand the essence of both before you log them together. For instance, Judaism was set on the the Mosaic prescriptions of ceremonial and sacred observances connected with animal sacrifices as prescribed in the Law. Christianity at no time ever offered these or observed the ceremonies of the Mosaic prescriptions. Confusing the two will blur the historical understanding of either faiths.

(c) There was no "virulent anti-judaistic reading of the New Testament" - either by the church fathers or the Roman leaders. What you probably might be referring to is the virulent disaffection of some of the early church fathers who were neither apostolic nor representing the true essence of the Christian message in the NT. And, No - there are no "explicitely anti-judaistic" passages in the New Testament, if your meaning of 'anti-judaism' takes into consideration what Judaism really is.

(d) I hesistate to offer a theological exegesis of the Torah prophetic texts, showing convincingly that the Jewish scriptures indeed show the Jews by their own hands would put their Messiah to death. Suffice to say that your position here is a political one; but hardly represents a balanced perspective as it ignores the NT texts. Christianity did not exonerate the Roman authorities as is evident in the NT itself - see Acts 2:23, where in fact, these Roman authorities are there called "wicked hands".

Your views are interesting and helps me understand why some people feel the way they do about Christianity. It's noteworthy that besides the political views or interpretations that people give to the historical antecedence of Judaism and Christianity, some other look at the issue from a different perspective altogether: sociological, secular, teleological, and even religio-cultural angles.

Amicably.

nightrider and 4get_me, thanks for your contributions. I will reply to them in one post that will follow his one, but I do not wish that this thread is dragged down in a debate over just one of the factors leading to anti-semitism. Thus, my next two posts are just there to clarify my position and to explain why anti-semitism does have new testamentic roots. I do not want to drag this discussion any further in this thread. If wanted, we can start a new thread on this issue.

This is a quick reply, the detailed one follows.

4get_me,

Dr. Hans Jansen does certainly not come from a secular background. He was a Catholic priest who got his Doctorate in Theology at the Vatican for his work Christelijke Theologie na Austwitz (2 vols). Later on he left the Catholic Church and became a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church.

a. This is a post-factum reading that fails to recognise that Christianity was considered a Jewish sect in the classical world in the first two centuries of the first millenium. It is only after the compilation of the New Testament that Christianity set itself completely apart from Judaism. This is still visible in the 'ping pong' between Paul and Peter over whether or not gentile Christians should follow mosaic laws.

b. Christianity was considered a branch of Judaism during the first two centuries. Phariseic Judaism was not the only expression of Judaism and it only became victorious after the destruction of the Temple. It's mainly because of Paul and his insistence that the laws need not to be followed by gentiles that it separated from mainstream Judaism. Animal sacrifices were even at that time no longer not essential to Judaism.

c. There were many virulently anti-judaistic readings of the New testament by the chuch fathers. I can quote several passages by a.g. Augustinus and Chrysostomos just to name a few.

d. Midrash is part and parcel of Thoraic Judaism and was also applied by Christianity. Fulfilled prophecies mean very little, as all event were interpreted to have precursors in the Thorah. I'm not saying that the NT completely exonerates the Roman authoritie, but their role is de-emphasised. Crucifiction is a punishment that would never be handed out by the Roman authorities to Jesus in a purely Jewish internal struggle.

As to the other angles, I will touch on these in my next posts.

nightrider,

As explained in (d), you should get some background in how midrash is applied in the Old and New Testament. It would give you a different perspecive on fulfilled prophecies.
I agree that there was no grand plan to exonerate the Romans, it grew orginically out of the power struggle between Christians and mainstream Judaism and is reflected in the New Testament and even more in the writings of the Church fathers.

@nferyn, I quite understand your concern; and like you hinted I'll refrain from making this thread a canvas board for painting claims and counter-claims. I guess we all have the right to our individual opinions and perspectives; but I offer that the juxtaposition of chronological events have been reshuffled like a pack of cards so that they don't follow.

Incidentally, I'm familiar with some of Dr. Hans Jansen's works, and your brief intro about him is correct (wow! you have both volumes of his Theologie). There are other ex-Catholics who now minister in other non-Catholic institutions - and it's remarkable that their interpretations of events (or chronology of events) are quite different from Dr Jansen's.

Augustinus and Chrysostomos are quite mild compared to Jerome, Eusebius and a few of their contemporaries. One would have to look at what they said and compare with the NT to get a full view of perspectives.

All the same, I respect and acknowledge your concern. Regards.

"Thus, my next two posts are just there to clarify my position and to explain why anti-semitism does have new testamentic roots, "

nfern,

How can you claim that anti-semitism has a new testament root when we see clearly  from the Old Testament that it existed as far back as the days of Esther the Queen and Modecai her uncle. You'll get the details in the Book of Esther.

If not for God's intervention, the Jewish people would have been wiped out by then.  The anti-semitist spirit at work in those days was the same at work in Hitler, and it is the same one still at work today.

From a spiritual point of view, the Jews are very necessary in God's plan for the birth and the final  establishment of Christ's earthly kingdom on earth (first and second coming respectively).  With this insight, I believe the spirit of anti-semitism is actually the spirit of the Anti-Christ, because the ultimate goal is to resist Christ and the fulfillment of prophecy.

TayoD:

How can you claim that anti-semitism has a new testament root when we see clearly from the Old Testament that it existed as far back as the days of Esther the Queen and Modecai her uncle. You'll get the details in the Book of Esther.

@TayoD,

thank you for pointing that out - a much needed ingredient we've consistently asked the historians to examine. Unfortunately, they largely ignore that appeal and speak ever of "New Testament roots" of so many issues: whether anti-Judaism, anti-semitism, or Romanic political events. Anti-semitism dates far back than NT times, and this fact in the chronology of events has to be taken into account to get a balanced view of these terms.

I will handle the issues you all raised on the New Testamentic roots of anti-judaism here

because he thought Germans or the people belonging to the Aryan race were superior to others.
But the fact that Jews were usually successful in businesses and professions contradicts his belief.

Jews have always been the target of hate for ages anyways

Because they killed his Messiah, yarrr! . I keed, I keed.

I've been occupied elsewhere, but I promise I'll continue this evening.

When the jews re murdering Jesus Christ,They said let the punishment be upon them and their children in coming generations; Hitler came and said ''that the world re expecting messiah and jews crucified him''

Sometimes what we said/do or curse people place on others or themselves will definitely coming to pass '' whatsoever a man sows he reaps abundantly''

And how do you know Hitler himself wouldn't have been the one to kill Jesus if they had lived in the same time period at the same location.
Jesus isn't of the "Aryan" race remember? (at least if Hitler saw him in reality, he'll realize this)

By the way, doesn't it say in the Bible that the sins of the fathers doesn't affect the sons?
Didn't Jesus say "forgive them"? are you Implying that God didn't answer "his son's" prayers?

So, Hitler's motive were his and his alone. It has nothing to do the idea you're trying to put across.
If that was true everybody on earth will be wiped out by now.

jealousy he was part jewish himself,

basically, he had issues! his dad was 'evil' towards him and his family, Freud says it's all to do with unresolved conflicts during childhood!

what a nice topic,adolf hitler did not only hate the jews but wanted to rule the entire world