The Cellar - View Single Post - "Why does the world hate the Jews?" Article

12-05-2006, 10:49 PM

My Swiss-GERMAN mother, raised in the 20's and 30's, bitterly hated the Jews. I really don't know why. She could tell by a person's last name if they were Jewish or not - and I don't mean obvious names like Goldberg or something. Then after she divorced my Dad, she married a Jew! HUH? This man himself seemed to hate Jews. He was an odd man, yet crazy like a fox. Sometimes, I think he said he hated Jews,to win my Mom over - but why try to win over someone with such unreasoning prejudice?

My Mother also had a Christian German friend who had been born in Germany and gone thru WWII there and the whole 9 yards. I would hear this woman talking with my Mom and she'd say "The Jews! They are no good. They'd come pushing a wheelbarrow into town like Gypsies. Before you knew what happened, they'd taken over everything!" Sounds like jealousy to me.

BTW, in pre-war Europe, the Jews were really NOT allowed to integrate with the community in many areas. But this was different in the big cities. I remember once reading something by a Jewish man raised in pre-war Berlin. In effect, he wrote, "I never thought of myself as Jewish first and German second. In fact, religion mattered little to me. I thought of myself as a German just like the rest of my countrymen. It felt unreal when my own country began to turn against me and the rest of the German Jews."

I'll be honest here and give you the words that come to my mind when someone says, "Jew": Intelligent, clannish, highly interested in making and saving money, exotic (as in "other"). Some seem very compassionate. Some don't. I realize these are stereotypes that I probably learned from my Mom and have no real over-all validity.

The only Jew I have known well is my Jewish step father. His family escaped Armenia with the classic ploy of gold coins sewn into their clothes. They came to L.A. and prospered. My ex-step father's father was a pharmicist and invented the hyperdermic needle or something. My ex step father and ALL his brothers became doctors. The family was one huge dysfunctional mess, and it was atrocious what my ex step father did to both me and my mother at the end of their marriage.

But that's just a single individual. My ex step father could have been Norwegian and acted just like that.

I think the prejudice against the Jews is just xenophobia, pure and simple. I do my best to take people for what they are, not who they are.

12-05-2006, 10:49 PM	#14
marichiko Guest Posts: n/a	My Swiss-GERMAN mother, raised in the 20's and 30's, bitterly hated the Jews. I really don't know why. She could tell by a person's last name if they were Jewish or not - and I don't mean obvious names like Goldberg or something. Then after she divorced my Dad, she married a Jew! HUH? This man himself seemed to hate Jews. He was an odd man, yet crazy like a fox. Sometimes, I think he said he hated Jews,to win my Mom over - but why try to win over someone with such unreasoning prejudice? My Mother also had a Christian German friend who had been born in Germany and gone thru WWII there and the whole 9 yards. I would hear this woman talking with my Mom and she'd say "The Jews! They are no good. They'd come pushing a wheelbarrow into town like Gypsies. Before you knew what happened, they'd taken over everything!" Sounds like jealousy to me. BTW, in pre-war Europe, the Jews were really NOT allowed to integrate with the community in many areas. But this was different in the big cities. I remember once reading something by a Jewish man raised in pre-war Berlin. In effect, he wrote, "I never thought of myself as Jewish first and German second. In fact, religion mattered little to me. I thought of myself as a German just like the rest of my countrymen. It felt unreal when my own country began to turn against me and the rest of the German Jews." I'll be honest here and give you the words that come to my mind when someone says, "Jew": Intelligent, clannish, highly interested in making and saving money, exotic (as in "other"). Some seem very compassionate. Some don't. I realize these are stereotypes that I probably learned from my Mom and have no real over-all validity. The only Jew I have known well is my Jewish step father. His family escaped Armenia with the classic ploy of gold coins sewn into their clothes. They came to L.A. and prospered. My ex-step father's father was a pharmicist and invented the hyperdermic needle or something. My ex step father and ALL his brothers became doctors. The family was one huge dysfunctional mess, and it was atrocious what my ex step father did to both me and my mother at the end of their marriage. But that's just a single individual. My ex step father could have been Norwegian and acted just like that. I think the prejudice against the Jews is just xenophobia, pure and simple. I do my best to take people for what they are, not who they are.