Jews

What did the man say, minxie, or can't you say?

Sadly there are many people who blame ethnic or religious communities for the frightening things happening. It's encouraged by the Far Right, both overtly and covertly. These are dangerous times. There are echoes of Nazi persecution in any racially/gender inspired attacks and sometimes - often - they are physical too.
My father endured this in 1930s Beuthen and finally escaped via the Kindertransport to safety in the UK. Let us hope and ensure that this country remains a safe haven for all.

minxie, was the abuser white or a Muslim? I think a lot depends on who the man was, and the motive behind his attack.
There have been Jews in Europe for hundreds of years, so you would think they would be accepted by now. It's untrue to say that everyone hates them, but many do seem to have a dislike of them.

I think that some of the animosity was caused originally because Christians blamed the Jews for killing Jesus. Some of it, of course, has always been down to minorities being 'different' from the bulk of the population.

I don't understand why there should be any bad feeling between Christians, Jews and Moslems since we all worship the same God, albeit by different names and in different ways. As a Moslem said to me, 'We're all people of the Book'.

That's a question I've wondered about for years. I think there are many answers.
The main one - fear and suspicion of people who are different.
The abuser in that case was a young white man.

Who knows! Some people seem to be born to hate! Perhaps jealousy as they seem to be a tight knit community who help each other up the ladder. Resentment as they generally have a strong work ethic and often do well for themselves mostly felt by those who sit on their backsides moaning.

Do Jewish people still refer to non-Jews as Gentiles?

The abuser was Egyptian. He also filmed himself being vile. I don’t know what he actually said though. It’s on the Daily Mail website
Jewish people always seems so placid to me and I just don’t understand the hatred directed at them

I read the story too it was appalling, particularly as it was an unprovoked attack, the yobbo kicked the man's pushchair with his young toddler in it and called the father something like a "dirty Jew", I suppose the fact that he was Jewish was apparent because he was wearing a skull cap. It was reported that the assailant was Egyptian, so maybe a conclusion to be reached there. As well as being disgusted by his behaviour I couldn't help thinking that he, the aggressor, looked a complete dickhead slightly idiotic in the way he was dressed compounded by the fact that he had some stupid designer man bag thingy he was wearing across his body, beside the point I know, but nevertheless it gave me some satisfaction that whilst behaving like an idiot, he also looked like one too!

I perceive anti semitism exists for a number of reasons.
In the historical context Christians laid the blame of "you killed Jesus" on Jewish shoulders. Utter nonsense of course, the Romans were also complicit but that seemed to be airbrushed out of any narrative. Moving on through history, the Jews were money lenders because they weren't allowed to do anything else. Then I guess the money lending morphed into banking and possibly from that there is the perception that all Jewish people are therefore rich, another misnomer. Along with the hateful supposition that they control the world's finances. The far right in Germany went with that concept and blamed them for the ills that befell Germany in the aftermath of the 1st World War when they were struggling with raging inflation during the time of the Weimar Republic. Of course history tells us that it was the Versailles Treaty that did for them, a punitive measure to put at end to German aggression. That of course led to the the rise of the far right and Germany's desire once again to subjugate Europe whilst simultaneously doing their best to wipe out a whole race, borne out of sheer hatred.

Sadly now we have anti semitism from various sources, the far right, the far left and disaffected Muslims, who have the sympathy it seems of the far left. A very unfortunate perfect storm. It would be a tragedy for Europe if the Jewish community upped sticks and left for Israel, as I gather many are doing, through the fear of history repeating itself.

I think its more hatred of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians nowadays.Anyone with an ounce of compassion can see the treatment of these people herded out of their homes and forced to live in awful conditions often with a lack of supplies and medicines is totally inhumane and that Israel must be brought to book for it.The avoidance and ignoring of UN resolutions and the failure of the rest of the world to intervene has exascerbated the feelings .

I belong to a Pro Palestinian group and we number many Jews in our membership,they are equally as disgusted at the State of Irael as the rest of the membership.

You've said it,Sussexborn.
We owe a lot to the Jewish communities in this country who built businesses and employed thousands over the years.

The channel 4 documentary by that man who ran the equal opportunities commission ( can't remember his name sorry) was interesting. He was looking at racial stereotypes /myths and actually showed among other racial groups that Jewish people own a disproportionately huge amount of the wealth in the UK. I suppose money brings influence. Think of America. That's not going to be popular.

Thank you all, that’s given me an insight, but it still baffles me that an individual can hate a whole race for whatever reason. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to carry such hatred for a body of people
Nowt as queer as folk, I suppose as the saying goes

One of the things which is happening at the moment, with all these migrants flooding into Europe, is that we tend to lump them all together. We tend to forget that they are coming from various countries and cultures, and they will be bringing their personal prejudices with them. Although in this particular case...the offender was white..we mustn't forget the on-going hostility between Muslims and Jews. This is something which the authorities need to bear in mind.

It happened at our local shopping centre in St Albans, which is usually very nice. I also read that the abuser was an Egyptian plumber, although he had quite an English-sounding name. Apparently his mum had kicked him out of home for being an awful person, to put it politely.

Can I just correct something- the Jews were money lenders because they weren't allowed to do anything else.
Actually Jews were money-lenders because the early Christian church viewed money lending as the sin of Usury. Christians were forbidden to do it. Jews because they were not Christian could do it and they were often brought to places purely as money lenders. Much of the dislike and persecution was because this brought financial prosperity, which led to envy. The removal of the Jews meant their wealth was confiscated.

I'd read about that trisher. Up and down the Baltic Hanseatic league it was the Jews who handled all the money.

That was me trisher, yes I accept your clarification

Good explanation Trisher . Thankyou.

I doubt that young man the OP asked about has any idea of why he "hates" Jewish people. He has heard abuse from others and just brainlessly "copies" them.

If we could spread love as quickly as we spread hate and negativity we would live in an amazing world.

Sadly, wildswan...that is unlikely to happen as there are too many people in the world who actually PREFER to live in a state of hostility. They thrive on hatred, and will stir it up deliberately. Consider the atrocities committed all through history. War and conflict gives justification to those wishing to inflict suffering on others. A sad reflection on human nature, but one which must be acknowledged.

wildswan -
"I doubt that young man the OP asked about has any idea of why he "hates" Jewish people. He has heard abuse from others and just brainlessly "copies" them."
I think you're right, in that situation anyway.

Yes. There's some sort of folk memory thing that seems to have put Jews in a category of their own. The Israeli persecution/just plain bullying of Palestinians doesn't help to make them any more popular.
The uber wealthy Jewish people in America put pressure on in a way that feels very wrong to me.

After centuries of persecution is it easy to think ‘forget the past’

The Israel/Palestine could explain the last 70 years but what about the previous 1900+ years of hate?