When the term, anti-semitism, is used, whom do you think the speaker or writer, refers to?
Jews, of course.
Are the Jews the only Semites?
No. The semitic people are spread out from Mesopotamia, to Egypt, and the border with Iran.
Is there a genotype to indicate someone is a Semite?
No. It’s a family of languages that includes people who are Arabic, and Hebrew. Plus others. Ergo, it would be rational to say, if you are “anti-semitic” you are against both Arabs and Jews. Nonetheless, rarely do folks think of Arabs as Semites. Arabs get to be Arabs, and Jews get to be Semites.
When it comes to the Middle East, folks in the West can be a little thick. Why aren’t Westerners more savvy, when so much happens in the Middle East that affects the world? We never ignore their wars. We don’t want to ignore them. But what if we did? What if we let their problems be their problems?
The analogy is to ask the proverbial question: If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around, does it still make a sound?
Sound is something animals can hear, and react to, so yes, it still makes a sound. Carrying that forward, what if only the surrounding countries, those that can hear the sound along the Mediterranean Coast, Turkey and India, if those countries paid attention to those wars, would they bother to get themselves involved if we didn’t? After all, it is in their back yard. We know Iran is involved. They sort of play the same card America plays in the Ukraine-Russia war: throw in money and toys, but no soldiers allowed in.
Europeans have delved into the Levant and Mesopotamia for thousands of years. Because the Persians and Phoenicians introduced themselves to the Mediterranean countries, the Greeks, and then the Romans, returned the favor. The Middle East adopted many of the Grecian ways, including their language. The Greek language remained, even after the Romans took control. Note that the New Testament was written largely in Greek, because it was the lingua franca of that era. Not Latin.
Before there was an Israel and a Judea, the Semitic languages flourished. The Canaanites, Phoenicians and the Akkadians spoke a Semitic language. Even some Ethiopians spoke a Semite language. Well, there are Jews among the Ethiopians.
Where did the Semites originate from?
Migration is the MO of the Earth’s people. Not only Sapiens, but Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and others, left their comfort zone to see what else the planet had to offer. Sapiens and Neanderthals mixed it up a bit, so that we still have Neanderthal DNA in many people alive today. The rest? They dwindled away. And no, white Europeans did not kill them off. At about 30,000 years ago, Sapiens were the only game in town. It was our ancestors who set up budding villages that turned into towns that turned into cities. Nevertheless, migrations continued.
Abraham belonged to a clan that was nomadic. They were very much like the Bedouins are today, and have been since the dawn of time. They were shepherds in the ancient region we call Ur, which is a part of Sumer.
The mythology surrounding the Hebrew people gives us a story that is rather historical, in that Abraham did what thousands did before him. They migrated to another region, and set up shop there. Back then, that region was referred to as Canaan. Eventually, it evolved into Israel, Judah, and then Palestine. In 70 AD, when the Romans chased off the Jews, burned Jerusalem, the Romans did everything they could to destroy the pesky people who insisted they keep their land, and their way of life. We know of this history because of an historian named Josephus. He was a Jew, and an eyewitness to the events.
I understand that Josephus can be a pesky guy himself, since he tells us Israel is where the Jews came from.
It would take 19 hundred years for Jews to return. It is how that return happened that gives us a problem today.
Because of the Romans, the Jews went to Europe, Persia, Anatolia, North Africa, and so forth. Many, however, never left their land. The name was changed to Palestine, but many Hebrews remained. Palestine changed as the Romans became Christians. Christian pilgrims visited every year, to worship at the important sites of the birth and death of Jesus. Pilgrimages were big business. Therefore, it was referred to as the Holy Land. Trouble brewed again when the Muslims showed up. For them, Jesus was a prophet, like Mohammed and Moses. So there we have it, the three religions of Abraham; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They share a god, they share prophets, but they just cannot get along.
During the late 11th century through the 15th, trouble brewed between the Christians and Islam. European knights came in to keep the Holy Land in Christian hands. We call that, the Crusades. Jews were living in Palestine at that time.
Many people still spoke the ancient languages of the region, plus Greek, and Latin, and lord only knows what else was heard with thousands of pilgrims making their way across Europe onto the streets that Jesus walked. In a way, the Holy Land has not changed. There are still Christians that come to visit those locations that are sacred to them. And Christians live in Israel, and in Gaza, and throughout the Middle East. They speak Arabic and Hebrew, and lord knows what other languages.
The Middle East has always been that sort of place that is as enchanting as it is confusing. And violent.
The next big trouble was when Islam conquered Constantinople, in1451. Islam now ruled all of the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, and Andalusia in Spain. But by 1492, Spain tossed out the last remaining Islamic kingdom on its soil. And then they gave their large, Jewish population an ultimatum; convert or leave. Many left, to return to the Holy Land or to Constantinople, by invitation of the sultan. The sultan’s thinking was that Jews belong in the Middle East.
I have the same thinking. And in their return, they evolved into the people they always were. Tough as nails, and willing to die for their nation. Never again would they walk into a camp to be turned into slave labor, to be experimented on, or just plain murdered. They are not so nice, living in Israel. They turned downright Biblical. Because Israel is the same old place it once was. Dangerous if provoked.
1492 is one of the first returns to Israel, or Palestine, en mass. Interesting side note, the Jews of Spain are called Sephardic Jews. To this day, many of this branch still speak the old Spanish, called Ladino. It is not a Semitic language.
It would not be for another four hundred years, that Jews would desire a return, by the thousands, to the land that gave them their culture. This desire came about because of the pogroms in Russia, and other Eastern European countries. The Zionist movement began in the late 19th century. The movement developed in Britain. And it is Britain that bungled it, by not taking the Arabs point of view into consideration. Britain couldn’t during the early 20th century, because Britain needed the Arabs on their side during the first world war.
Back to the language issue. The scholars of language don’t like the term, anti-semite. Because, to be, technical, to be an anti-Semite, is to hate all people who speak a Semitic language, Jews and Arabs alike. The scholars think the term needs to be antisemite, no hyphen. Personally, I don’t like either spelling or use of the term; the reason being, it isn’t specific about who is being hated. Let’s not pretty it up. Whether it is anti-semites or antisemites, it is about hatred of Jews. To my way of thinking, there is no other way to put that. Directness in the use of language is best.
Why people hate Jews is a complex issue. It evolves around religion, of course. It’s an old jealousy that has its roots in the story of Abraham, and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. How much the family of Ishmael hated the old Israelites, who knows? Romans hated Jews because they weren’t a pushover. Romans became Christians. But to think that they, a Roman governor and Roman soldiers had murdered Jesus, well that didn’t sit too well with the Roman Christians. They decided to deflect the blame onto the Jews, and make them the fall guy. Add into that Christian mix, the idea of disappointment, that Jews didn’t convert, well, well, things went south from there.
More recent peoples have hated Jews for financial reasons. Especially the kingdoms of Europe that borrowed heavily from the Jewish lenders. Sooner or later, the kings would have to pay those loans back. The kings who were very liberal to those lenders, of a sudden, got very annoyed with them when the payment was due. The kings, like Philip the Fair, made life uneasy for those Jewish lenders. He also didn’t like the Templar Knights for the same reason. Money. Philip was anything but fair. He destroyed the Templars, and ousted the Jews. That fixed his paybacks, whilst he became cash rich.
In our modern world, we are, supposedly, more enlightened. No, we are not. Superstition is alive and well. And too many people operate under a dark cloud of misinformation. It is easy to believe in lies, because lies are warm. The truth is a colder than the Snow Queen.
We will continue this discussion after the New Year, when we study WW1, and its after effects, because that is when this present day mess began.
To all my readers, and thinkers, Merry 12 Days of Christmas, and may your 2024 be prosperous in all that you do. And, I hope you get lots of loot on Night of Three Kings, aka, Epiphany.