– If you know anything about Jewish history, it’s that no matter where the jews have been, they’ve suffered.
– Lots
-Like literally all our holidays are about suffering
– Blood libel is specifically about accusing Jews of crimes they didn’t commit, as an excuse to make us suffer more.
– Specifically, accusing Jews of murdering gentile (often christian) children for ritual purposes
– The earliest known claim is by Democritus, who alleged that Jews ritually killed greeks.
– The first classic example is by the citizens of Norwich, England, who blamed their local Jewish community for killing a child. A local monk spread the rumor that every year around Easter, Jews would gather to pick a gentile to kill. He also claimed that Jews believed that killing a gentile every year would help them return to their holy land.
– This trope continued in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, with libel inspired pogroms (mass riots to kill jews) often occurring around passover, with people alleging that Jews put gentile blood in their matzoh, which is wholly untrue.
-Blood libel still exists today, both outright, as in the case of a Jordanian Senate member named Sheik Bassam Ammoush accusing "In [the Gaza Strip] we are dealing with the enemies of Allah, who believe that the matzos that they bake on their holidays must be kneaded with blood. When the Jews were in the diaspora, they would murder children in England, in Europe, and in America. They would slaughter them and use their blood to make their matzos… They believe that they are God’s chosen people. They believe that the killing of any human being is a form of worship and a means to draw near their god.“
– But also Blood libel exists in liberal and leftist circles, especially in anti zioinist activism.
– Claiming Gal Godot killed Palestinian children, had notches on her rifle, poisoned wells or anything of that sort is blood libel. Why? Because she didn’t DO any of that. You don’t have to like or approve of her continual support of the IDF (I know I don’t), but it is historically crucial that you critique her with actual facts.
Tag: antisemitism
@chesed-universe-180 you’re right, the undercurrent of antiblack sentiment is absolutely important and I shouldn’t have let myself forget it even for a moment, thank you. I did want to say something in the face of the active denial of the antisemitism, I don’t want any of my followers to feel unsafe because of me but especially any Jewish people who are having to hear this shit from so-called “allies”.
I don’t know how to explain to goyim that calling out anti-Semitism is not about hurt feelings or crocodile tears and everything to do with the fear of history repeating itself in the form of angry mobs hellbent on attacking Jewish people.
I don’t know how to explain that I am not calling Jay-Z out because I want to silence Black artists; I’m calling him out because I’m genuinely afraid that his false accusation about Jews owning all the property in America will result in people across the nation blaming Jews for the evils of the world and then inciting pogroms (violent mob attacks) against Jewish people.
I don’t know how to explain that I’m not calling out CDM because I don’t care about the liberation of Palestinians; I’m calling them out because I’m worried that if we allow non-Jews to police our beliefs and define for us what our ancient symbols mean, that it could ultimately lead to any displays of public Jewishness being deemed questionable or offensive, which could eventually end in violence against any Jews who are openly Jewish at public events.
I don’t know how to explain to goyim that nearly every Jewish person in the world either grew up with a relative who had to flee their home in the middle of the night because of this type of violence, or they actually experienced this trauma themselves. I don’t know how to tell them that this is an ingrained trauma in almost every existing Jewish family, and that it has been repeated every few generations across the globe since we entered the Diaspora nearly 2,000 years ago.
I don’t know how to explain that when people say almost the exact types of things that were shouted at my relatives by white Russian nationalists as they burned their villages to the ground that it doesn’t matter if you say you’re a progressive or an anti-racist, or you’re also marginalized in some way, because all I hear are the same words people have said to Jews for centuries before physically assaulting them, and I’m worried you’re going to eventually going to assault me, too.
I don’t know how to explain that if goyim read our history they might understand that we Jews have been used as scapegoats for the world’s evils everywhere on the planet from Lithuania to Ethiopia, and that regardless of our standing in society or our level of assimilation, that it’s always ended with our expulsion or murder or both.
I don’t know how to explain that I’m not trying to be petty or “take up space in the movement,” or draw attention away from other causes, but that I’m only asking for you to examine your words and actions now, while I still hope there’s time to pull out the seeds of anti-Semitism that have been planted, because I am literally afraid that if I don’t, you or somebody like you will ultimately be at my doorstep shouting “It’s their fault! Get them! Kill the Jews!”
I don’t know how to explain that I’m afraid you might believe the vitriol behind your words one day enough to kill me.
Fun fact: the anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews having lots of money/being greedy/cheap began in the Middle Ages thanks to Christian laws.
The Christian church began forbidding Christians from having professions that involved lending money, banking, or pawn work. It was because the church believed that money was ultimately unclean so although it was considered a necessity, Christians were instructed to deal with it as little as possible.
But someone still needed to run all of those money-based businesses. So these societies which were already run by Christian leadership basically made it a rule that these businesses had to be run by Jews since they were already “unclean”. Furthermore, due to other restrictions on Jewish people in these areas, these money-based positions were pretty much some of the only jobs Jews could legally hold.
This eventually led to numerous stereotypes involving Jews and money. And the acidity of these stereotypes grew when Christian people and leaders became resentful of the livelihood Jews were able to achieve for themselves with these jobs.
So to sum up: Christian society forces Jews to hold down money-centered jobs since, according to the church, Jews were already going to Hell. Then, once they made lives with these roles they were forced into, Jews were mocked and hated for being successful.
I think a big part of the reason I love cryptids is that they’re literally the only subgenre of conspiracy theories where you can be reasonably assured it isn’t secretly about hating Jews. Like, when people talk about aliens or lizard people or sinister banking cabals, at least 80% of the time when you look up the foundational literature it’s a bunch of Antisemitic rot and “lizard people” is just a codephrase for “Jews”, but there are very few neo-Fascist whackjobs out there claiming that Bigfoot is Jewish.
konekorambles 