>>> "alessandro coricelli" <alessandro.coricelli at rcn.com> 11/19/99 06:36PM >>>
>
CB :
>
>> Are you sure anti-Semitism is the correct term outside of Europe ?
AC :
> the only problem with the term is that not all Jews are semites.
> The term, I believe, was conied in the 19th century, in Germany. And it
> means anti-judaism.
>
> (((((((((((((
>
> Charles: But the German prejudice against Jews is part of the European
> history of anti-Jewishness. That European history can't be automatically
> generalized to areas outside of Europe.
but this is not the point.
(((((((((((((
Charles: It is a fact.
> Charles: The pejorative "Philistine" in the Bible's Old Testatment is
> real old too. The point being it is not clear that Jews are the oppressed
> group in relation to Palestinians even long ago. Sure David slew Goliath in
> a story in which the Philistines had a big army, but that is the Jewish
> version of events.
But this is "normal".
(((((((((((
Charles: Your reference to "normal" is ambiguos, unclear. If you mean it is normal that the Jewish version of events would portray the Philistines as the bad guys, so what ? It still leaves in question as to whether the bias of the source contaminates the veracity of the evidence.
((((((((((
Look, we're trying to answer a question, which I've interpreted as : "is antisemitism something specific to certain times or areas?"
(((((((((((((
Charles: My answer is , yes. European antisemitism is specific in time and space. It cannot be generalized to other times and spaces.
(((((((((((
For what I know, it is not. The first phenomenon of antisemitism could be considered the way jews were treated in Alexandria (Egypt) when the city had been founded (Alexander the Great).
(((((((((((((
Charles: This certainly seems to be early European anti-semitism.
((((((((((
The first "ghetto" had been established in Morocco in 1280 a.d.,
((((((((((
Charles: By whom ? under what circumstances ?
((((((((((
even if the term was conied later in Venice. Now, what I gather is that antisemitism is much less "specific" than we can imagine. Exactly as anti-immigration (you can't explain it looking at the rate of unemployment, for instance). So, this facts are the only ones that can answer the question : "why antisemitism is present (obviously in different forms and shapes) in today's Japan and Malesya ?" So the answer (according to a well known jewish tradition) woud be : "why not?"
((((((((((((
Charles: You seem to be blending antisemitism with any type of anti-immigration or xenophobia.
(((((((((((((((((
> European anti-Jewish prejudice is historically specific, and shouldn't be
> automatically generalized to other regions and disputes.
go ahead, tell me about antisemitism in Soviet Union(history). Would you be able to explain it with the "Jewish Question" ?
(((((((((((
Charles: If you mean * Russian* anti-semitism, it is part of European anti-semitism. Russia , Ukraine and other European Republics in the SU had persistence of that long history of anti-semitism, although this remained in contradiction with giant strides against the history. Many statisitics showed Jewish Soviets were not discriminated against in many important roles in the society, especially as compared with old Russian society. In academe, for example, they had more than proportionate representation. The Soviet Union included non-European countries, but I do not have familiarity with the history of Jews in those Republics. I know there was a Jewish independent territory (I forget the exact term; not a full republic ) in the SU. The Jewish nationality question was one of many, many national and nationality questions in the Soviet Union. Also, the Jewish nationality tends to be a European nationality relative to many of the nations in Soviet Asia, although I don't know how!
much contact there was with specific nations.
At any rate, on the basic point, I would not be inclined to analysis the relationships of Jews with nationals in the non-European Republics in the way I would the European Republics.
((((((((((
Could you tell me the difference between "Crystal Night" and the results (from the jews' stand point) of the day Ghaddafi (geography) went to power?
((((((((((
Charles: Again, I do not know much about the history of Jews in Libya. I would be very surprised if it is not completely different than the history of Jews in Germany (!). Don't ya think ?
The above question is complicated further by the role of the state of Israeli in alliance with U.S. and world imperialism in 1973. In other words, the symbolic representative of many Jews had become a major part of imperialism's colonialist apparatus, unlike in 193? at Crystal Night. Libya was and is a colony or semi-colony in the world imperialist system. f
CB