The jews got their own Holocaust, but what about others in the 20th century ?

I think we agree? I agree there were real different ethnicity's and I agree that the Nazi's thought in terms of race. In ways I think are now considered fundamentally wrong.

In real terms both Nazi's pre-Nazi's and Jews have confused race with ethnicity.

What my point was, or is, is that I don't think this was ONLY about "race". IOW what part, if any, did being Jewish play in their being targeted? What are the similarities between the Germans wanting to target Jews and other people wanting to target Jews. Why has there been such a long long history of antisemitism? Even in ancient Alexandria BEFORE there was Christianity there was antisemitism. Why?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

That make their thinking "outdated," as opposed to actually "wrong."

Race is whatever it's defined to be. If people decide to include an ethnic component, then that's what the races in question are. It's not possible for the definition of a social category to be "wrong" (in the sense of incorrect), although it is certainly possible for the associated mythology to be historically inaccurate.

? Pretty much the whole shebang. Most of the targetted Jews were oppressed for no other reason than their Jewishness.

Many things, obviously. Did you have one or more in mind?

Probably the more informative aspect is the differences in why the Nazis went after the Jews, and why others did it. Nazi ideology exhibited a rather bizarre biological conception of the nation, in which the Jews (and other Untermensch) were considered to be literal pathogens to be eliminated by the "immune system" of the nation (namely, repressive organs of the totalitarian state).

Probably because there is a comparably long history of semitism itself. Most nations that have been around for that long exhibit similarly long histories of dislike directed at them, and this goes double for smaller nations that exist in diasporic conditions amongst other, larger nations.

Well, not because of Christianity, presumably. But there was religion, and politics, and religious politics, in Alexandria well before Christianity.

Plus Egypt was oppressing the Jews before Moses was ever born, so this shouldn't really come as a surprise. You may have heard of "Exodus?"

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

um there is no archeological evidence to support that though

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Is this an original concept of yours? I find it makes a lot of sense as it explains why deformed Germans, non-Jews, were also at least targets of official discrimination, if not sent to camps to be eliminated.

 

OK agreed.

Sure but usually people think of race as being independent of ideology. As in: You're born a Jew just as you are born with blue eyes.

OK, and what about being Jewish made them a target. A repeated target too. And not just by nutty Germans. Seems like a number of other people, from pre-Xian Egyptians, Spanish, Arabs, quite a few people are very different times in history.

Interesting and weird.

Perhaps, but most people are assimilated. LIke the Jews in China. They're now Chinese. Or the Jews in Arabia. Now Muslim. Or India, Indian. I think Christianity prevented Jews from being assimilated. Then the whole money thing came along and meh, there you go.

Actually that story was made up. I mean, claiming to build the pyramids!!! - what a joke.

 

WHOA. Hold on there. I am now going to reveal a secret to all of you:

The ancient Egyptians DID NOT enslave the ancient Hebrews. That is a Biblical myth. Do not mistake that biblical myth for historical fact. There is absolutely no historical, archaeological or forensic evidence which supports the Biblical myth about Hebrew slaves in Egypt (let alone the grander myth about Moses or the Red Sea or any of the other associated horseshit).

The ancient Egyptians did not have Hebrew slaves. Not ever. That is a fact. No Hebrew slaves in Egypt... no Moses... no wrath of god... no 12 plagues... no parting of the Red Sea... no Exodus... nothing. Nada. It never happened. Long ago, I did a term paper on Egyptology when I was in college (it was one of my favorite civilizations of all time) and I can assure you that any and all accounts of Hebrew slaves in Egypt are false. The closest parallel would be the Amarites, the Hittites and similar Semitic peoples who were sometimes enslaved following a border war with Egypt. But their numbers were always small and they were of many mixed tribes. Also, the Babylonians to the east would sometimes sell slaves of Semitic geneology to Egypt as a form of commerce and trade, but again... the numbers were relatively small. The overwhelming majority of slaves in Egypt were either black Ethiopians (referred to as "Nubians" during their time) and a smattering of Egyptians, who were condemned to slavery as a punishment for crimes that they allegedly committed.

Did they have any other slaves..? Yes... and most of their slaves came from neighboring regions such as Ethiopia. Also, it was common for Egyptians themselves to become enslaved, as a punishment for various petty crimes (more serious crimes almost always received a death penalty).

PS -- the pyramids at Giza were built LONG before there was any such thing as Hebrews. Long before Judaism, too.

 

Well...actually you did just say that they did have some Semitic slaves. I don't consider it likely, but could this not be the basis for the account of Exodus?

 

No, "semitic" does not mean Hebrew. There are semitic arabs in the world. Semitic refers to a language group, consisting of amarites, moabites, and many other languages, and MUCH later on, Hebrews. What I am telling you is that there was nothing we could come close to calling "Hebrews" living in ancient Egypt -at all- let alone thousands of them.

Not only weren't there any Hebrew slaves... the Hebrews as a people simply did not exist in Egypt. It is a Jewish myth. The pyramids (and all the other structures that Hebrews are alleged to build) were built by Egyptians. That much is absolutely certain. We have well-documented records from those times which explain their construction in great detail and most of the structures are well over 6,000 years old -- before there were any Hebrews at all.

 

True, but might not the myth then refer to that branch of Semites that was enslaved? The legend might have filtered up into Jewish legend; could Jews have come from that branch? Sorry; don't recall an enormous amount about the period. Just wondering about it's plausibility.

 

No, there is no evidence of that whatsoever. Consult any reputable literature written by modern archaelogists and egyptologists. Academically, the exodus is regarded as nonhistorical.

 

? Nah. The Nazis discussed that theory openly, and at length. I'd thought it a well-understood component of Nazi ideology. There's some famous quote from Hitler along the lines of "politics is applied biology" or somesuch. All of this grew directly out of the scientific racism that was popular in 19th century Europe.

Yeah, these ideas underlie all of the "eugenics" policies the Nazis pursued (which also included declining to treat wounded German soldiers, as this was believed to be the "Spartan" way). Also Slavs, Roma, etc. This also functioned on an ideological level, using a sort of proto-meme theory of political biology (hence the repression of Communists, etc. under the same justification).

 

That's odd. I'd thought even the likes of Norman Finklestein thought there was some grain of truth to it.

 

That man is neither an archaeologist nor an egyptologist. He is a political commentator. From where did you draw this information about him believing there was some grain of truth and for what reason is he even relevant to this subject..?

EDIT: Ah, after doing a google, I'm thinking you wiki'd "exodus" and saw this passage:

Check out the name; it is a wholly different person by the name of Israel Finklestein that you are confusing up. As well, this man qualifies his statement with "at best." That means in the most probable case, it never happened. That is why it is considered nonhistorical. That is why bringing up a biblical myth as an example of jewish oppression is rather insane.... that is, unless you have mistakenly accepted the film depictions into your sense of reality over time.

 

Exodus aside, it is evident that the Jewish people were a hybrid of (perhaps newly)monotheistic migrants from somewhere and the native polytheists for whom Yahweh was one of many Gods. Together they created a culture that featured Yaweh as the one God and formed a unique civilization.

 

I'm not sure that is correct. From what I have read, it seems that it was a gradual process over hundreds of years where the Israelite cult of pagan gods slowly evolved into the religion of Judaism

There is a PBS documentary called The Bible's Buried Secrets, which deals with the available evidence that refutes many of the Biblical myths.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/

What do you think of the possibility that the hapiru may be ancestors of the Hebrews? [ie all the Hebrews = hapiru but not all the hapiru = Hebrew]?

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=85896&highlight=habiru

Or is it just too far out a possibility?

 

This is possible. All this speculation is a little pointless, but also very interesting.

Et bienvenue.

 

Was the nuclear bombing of Japan a Holocaust? As I'm driving along I see Mitsubishi, Yamaha, Toyota, Suzuki, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, Honda, and a host of other Japanese companies and I wondered, if these were "Jewish" names instead, how would we feel about them? I mean, given the propensity for "conspiracy" theorists to interpret anything Jewish as a global cabal - why don't they target Japan? I certainly know Chinese that think of Japanese as a sort of "global cabal".

Funny That

 

Hundreds of years is still perfectly consistent with my statement. The appearance of new styles of pottery imply that a mixing of cultures occurred.

 

How so? In current terms does the evolution of hard metal art such as "Appetite for Destruction" indicate a mixing of cultures?