tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post8690295186271941184..comments2024-03-11T08:31:04.022-04:00Comments on Bieganski the Blog: Dr. Neil J. Kressel's Response to Christianity, Antisemitism, Poles and Jews D Goskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09353495585591945881noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-3341991193818833182015-04-24T15:58:03.295-04:002015-04-24T15:58:03.295-04:00Lukasz, thank you. Lukasz, thank you. D Goskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09353495585591945881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-64688234645818048342015-04-24T15:38:30.702-04:002015-04-24T15:38:30.702-04:00This post is off-topic, but I want to inform every...This post is off-topic, but I want to inform everyone that Mr Władysław Bartoszewski has passed away today at the age of 93. He was a writer, journalist, historian, polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, soldier of Home Army,former prisoner of Auschwitz, Warsaw Uprising fighter, member of Żegota, member of anti-communist resistance, member of Solidarity, honorary citizen of Israel and Righteous Among the Nations.<br />We have lost a good man today. A brave Pole and a great person. Łukasz Klimeknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-44927628591028008592015-04-23T16:19:51.045-04:002015-04-23T16:19:51.045-04:00My historical sense is that claiming that traditio...My historical sense is that claiming that traditional Christian anti-judaism played a role in the Holocaust is problematic.<br /><br />The problem with this claim is the evidence of long periods of peaceful cooperation and coexistence between Jews and Christians. Danusha points to the Polish Commonwealth, but there are many other examples. Germany, for instance, during the 19th Century saw Jewish assimilation at the same time that the Protestant Prussians were playing on traditional anti-Catholicism to persecute the Catholic Church. If one were to speculate in 1870 about which group was most likely to be exterminated, one would have bet on Catholics, not Jews, as the victims.<br /><br />Notably, there was a brief effort by some Catholics to play on anti-Jewish prejudices to make common cause with Protestants, in order to deflect anti-Catholicism onto the Jews. This effort died in its cradle. There was virtually no one interested in late 19th century Germany in playing the anti-Semitic game, it seems. Antisemitism was looked down on by Catholic leaders like Windthorst as beneath contempt or de classe.<br /><br />Likewise, Italy under Mussolini was notably anti-anti-semitic until approximately 1939. Jews in Italian areas of occupation were protected from deportation. <br /><br />Anti-Pius books have attempted to explain this fact on the secularization of Italian politics by the forces of the Unification, but that seems weirdly convenient and hardly a satisfactory explanation for allegedly so great a cultural shift in so short a time.<br /><br />So, there are numerous examples of Jewish-Christian rapprochement in Christian culture. The times of Jewish persecution seem to be be in places where there are obvious external factors, e.g., the loss of WW I or the Austrian effort to split Polish religious solidarity.Peter Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10710410499391419230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-2802590653841593582015-04-23T15:00:18.420-04:002015-04-23T15:00:18.420-04:00Excellent point, Lukasz. Poland's Jews were be...Excellent point, Lukasz. Poland's Jews were better off than Poland's peasants--which most Poles were. However, this was generally true of ALL Christian-majority societies, and that for most of the shared Jewish Christian history. Furthermore, at certain places and times, Jews had privileges that compared to those of the burghers and even the nobility. <br /><br />The customary lachrymose view of Jewish history distorts this history as an endless series of humiliations and persecutions. In actually, such events were sporadic in space and time, often not related specifically to the Jewishness of the targets, and often having a tenuous basis in Christian-Jewish antagonisms.<br /><br />To read about all this, please read my review that can be found by clicking on my name in this specific posting.<br />Mr. Jan Peczkishttp://www.amazon.com/Living-Together-Apart-Rethinking-Jewish-Christian-ebook/dp/B002WJM5FU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429814969&sr=8-1&keywords=living+together+elukinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-84689354819070261372015-04-23T13:14:32.279-04:002015-04-23T13:14:32.279-04:00“Thank God we got away from that place; our ancest...“Thank God we got away from that place; our ancestors always were second-class citizens and half the time lived in fear. Thank God we are in America.”<br /><br />"That place" is my homeland. In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth my ancestors were serfs. No sane Jew would swap places with them.<br />In interwar Poland my ancestors were peasants. Poor farmers. Jews lived mostly in shtetls, like some settlers in the Wild West. An island in the sea of "savages". A community under constant siege. <br />Maybe they indeed lived in fear. All those natives around them. Obviously they weren't scared enough to sacrifice their Yiddishkeit and integrate. <br />Americans may find that situation normal. They may even identify with Poland's Jews. But by European standards those Jews were an anomaly, if not something worse. Imigrants and refugees should adapt to their hosts. Or go to some other country. Disappoint some other nation.<br />If a Jew in Poland was a second-class citizen, it's because he lived like one.<br />"Next year in Jerusalem". A temporary resident's motto.Łukasz Klimeknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-27742743023710963272015-04-23T11:39:27.574-04:002015-04-23T11:39:27.574-04:00I appreciate Dr. Kressel's points, 10, 13, and...I appreciate Dr. Kressel's points, 10, 13, and 14. These tacitly acknowledge some Jewish responsibility for past antagonisms against Jews.<br /><br />However, I wonder whether traditional Christian teachings about Jews, or the concept of Jews as Chosen, played a greater role in the generation of anti-Semitism.<br /><br />Although Jewish Chosenness is usually framed in terms of Jews having extra obligations to God, it does in fact have unmistakable connotations of Jewish privilege and Jewish supremacy. <br /><br />I have recently explored Jewish Chosenness in detail, and the interested reader can find out more by clicking on my name in this specific posting to read one of my book reviews on this subject. To learn still more, click on a series of links found in the review and under the first Comment. <br /><br />Mr. Jan Peczkishttp://www.amazon.com/future-American-Mordecai-Menahem-Kaplan/dp/B0007E2LPQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429802478&sr=1-1&keywords=kaplan+future+Judaismnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8471082069031980581.post-26110240720173226112015-04-22T19:27:44.540-04:002015-04-22T19:27:44.540-04:00Poet Jim Valvis sends this in:
I see no evidence ...Poet Jim Valvis sends this in:<br /><br />I see no evidence in history for the idea that Christianity is responsible for anti-Semitism. The Egyptians enslaved the Jews a thousand or so years before Christ. The Romans razed the Jewish temple to the ground and basically tried to eliminate them as a race. Muhammad specifically attacked Jewish caravans and to this day Muslims are the most obnoxiously antis-Semitic people in the world. Atheist and neo-pagan regimes treated Jews horribly, including the Holocaust. Even today, the much more secular Europe (to include Poland) and with its abysmal history is by all measures more anti-Semitic than the far more Christian America.<br /><br />If anything, with the possibly exception of Germany and its twin unfortunate influences of Luther and Nietzsche, Christianity has been a drag on the anti-Semetic urges-- for Christianity is a drag on all of man's fallen urges, like hate.D Goskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09353495585591945881noreply@blogger.com