Throughout history, the Jewish people have faced a lot of unfair treatment. Many people remember them being killed in large numbers in Hitler’s death camps, but their suffering goes back for thousands of years. So why did this happen? To figure out why Hitler blamed the Jews and treated them so badly, we need to look at the deep-seated dislike of Jewish people that existed not only in Germany but also across Europe.
Biblical Times
The Old Testament tells us a lot about the history of the Jewish people. They believed they were chosen by God and made a deal with him to follow his rules. After being forced to leave Egypt, they returned to Israel led by Moses around 1100 BC and fought to create their own land.
In the time before Jesus was born, the Romans took over the Middle East, including Judea where the Jews lived. In the New Testament, Christians learn how the Romans ruled Judea. They didn’t like that the Jews only worshipped one god and didn’t allow Roman gods in their temples. The Romans often had trouble with the Jewish people and sometimes treated them harshly.
There were fights between the Jews and the Romans, and after the Romans defeated the Jews at Masada, they kicked them out of Judea in AD 135. This event is called the Diaspora. Many other ancient civilizations disappeared after such events, but the Jewish people survived even though they were scattered across the Roman Empire and beyond. Understanding why they survived helps us understand the persecution they faced later on.
Keeping the Faith
The agreement with God united the Jewish people: if they followed his rules, they would remain special to him no matter what. This belief gave them a strong sense of identity but also set them apart from other cultures. The strict rules they followed didn’t always fit with the rules of the societies they lived in. They tried to limit contact with others to better follow their own laws. But this separation made them targets for persecution. People saw them as different, strange, and even dangerous.
Unlike religions like Christianity or Islam, where people could convert, being Jewish was something you were born into. They rarely accepted converts into their faith.
Not only were they outsiders, but they were also educated and could read and debate religious texts. This was rare in ancient times. Being educated and questioning ideas made some people feel threatened by them.
The Rewards
It’s no surprise that Jews often worked in jobs like doctors, lawyers, advisors, and bankers. In old times, owning land meant being rich and powerful. Landowners didn’t usually work because they ruled and fought in wars. But Jews didn’t own land because they weren’t allowed to. So they offered skills that the rich landowners needed but didn’t have, like being doctors. They got paid for their work, but they couldn’t buy land with the money. So they ended up running banks and lending money, which Christians were often not allowed to do.
This made Jews powerful, but it also made some people afraid of them. Jews lived all over the world, but they often kept to themselves. They provided important services to the communities they lived in, but some people saw them as a threat.
Jews were also knowledgeable. They lived in many different places and learned the language and wisdom of each place. They shared this knowledge with other Jews, both through traveling and through books. But sometimes, what was normal in one place seemed strange or even dangerous in another place.
Persecution
The first persecution against Jews was because of religion. People saw them as the ones who killed Jesus and worshipped dark magic instead of believing in Jesus. Some leaders in society, like church leaders or knights who owed money to Jewish lenders, encouraged this hatred for different reasons.
In the 19th century, the persecution changed from being about religion to being about race. Social Darwinism and growing nationalism made people see Jews as outsiders who didn’t belong and needed to be removed from society. Hitler felt this way when he lived in Vienna before 1914.
But the real reason behind both religious and racial persecution was fear and jealousy of the power Jews had historically held. This fear sometimes turned into violence in troubled times.
In the 20th century, another reason for persecution was added: the connection between Jews and Communism. In 1897, the first Zionist conference talked about sending Jews to Palestine to build a homeland. Some Jewish leaders, like Trotsky, were involved in the Russian Revolution and believed in world revolution. This idea was linked to Jewish thinkers. In Nazi Germany, hatred towards Jews was fueled by a mix of ideas like Social Darwinism, Communism, Socialism, and war-profiteering, stirred up by Hitler from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Conclusion
Anti-Semitism didn’t start with Hitler. It’s been around in Europe for over 2000 years. When the Jews were kicked out of their homeland by the Romans, their efforts to keep their religion alive made them stand out. This made some people feel threatened by them, even though they were just trying to survive.
The Jews’ story is similar to that of many minority groups. They’re accepted as long as they don’t seem dangerous to the majority, but they’re treated badly when people feel threatened by them. The Holocaust, where millions of Jews were killed, is a reminder of what can happen when society turns against a group of people.
Hitler used people’s tendency to blame those who are different from them when times are tough. But the truth is more complicated than that. We shouldn’t hate someone just because of their race or beliefs. We’re taught to hate a stereotype, even if we’ve never met anyone like that.
