Judaism: The Oldest and Unluckiest Monotheistic Religion

Judaism is the world’s oldest monotheistic religion but is also the ethnic group most subject to persecution and prejudice. It originates from the Fertile Crescent of Egypt. Judaism first started as tribes that followed a monotheistic order but as the Egyptian monarch slowly infiltrated the fertile and barren crescents of the Nile, Jews were treated as second class people and were enslaved. The most prominent story in Judaism is that of Moses. He was a child in one of the Jewish tribes that were being persecuted by the Egyptians when his sister sent him away in a basket as a baby. He was later found by one of the princesses and raised as royalty. Growing up, he found the persecution of Jews unfair. An inciting incident in his life was when he saw an Egyptian beating up a Jewish slave and unable to control his anger, Moses killed him. He then led the Jews to freedom from the Egyptians. He lead them through the desert to the promised land of Cain (land of nod).

The origins of anti-semitism lie in the Time when Romans captured the land of the Jews. They followed a pagan polytheistic religion, that they tried to impose on the Israelites. The Jews, following a monotheistic religion that they thought superior, refused. This started the persecution of the Jews in Israel and Palestine by the Romans. For many years, the Jewish ethnicity was suppressed by the Romans. In these dark times, the Jews only had one hope, a messiah or a messenger of God. This messiah is later to be known as the son of God: Jesus Christ by the Christians.

Though the origins of Christianity lie in Judaism, for centuries, Christians and  Jews were rivals. In truth, Jesus Christ was a Jew who preached not of another religion but a deeper understanding of the Jewish religion. Seeing this protestant belief of Judaism, the religious leaders of the time called it blasphemy and reported it to Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate was the Roman general posted to administer the areas of Palestine and Israel. So long as he kept the countries peaceful and submitted the tax to the roman empire, he was an effective dictator. It is a lesser-known fact that he saw Jesus Christ as innocent but prosecuted him for the sake of peace and stability. The Christians later blamed the Jews for the death of their leader causing a rift between the two religions. The Jews were later exiled by the Romans and dispersed across the vast roman empire

The drift between Christians and Jews was later exhibited in the crusades. The crusades were a series of religious wars between Jews, Muslims, and Christians who were fighting for the holy land. The Jews who had a weak army were massacred by the crusaders. This forced many to migrate to distant corners of Europe. The crusades signify the closeness of the three religions that many seem to want to ignore. In the many corners of Europe, Jews were denied citizenship rights and were considered alien. The persecution of Jews in western Europe continued until the late 18th century.

During the age of enlightenment, many scholars blamed the Jews, not for the crucification rather for the advent of Christianity and the superstitions and injustices followed by monotheistic religions. Many also alienated the Jews further by claiming their religion to be a primitive version of Christianity. Being alienated from society proved to also be of use as they formed a tight-knit Jewish community.

A major European event was the black death, a plague that was bought onto it by rodents that were transported all through the continent. In the UK, due to the Jews being alienated, they had been blamed for the outbreak of the black death. This belief was spread fast as many had a lot of prejudice against the Jews. This was a series of violent attacks, mass persecutions and massacres of Jews during the Black Death. The Jewish community was also banned from the UK and other countries based on prejudices and false assumptions. Due to this, the influence of the Jewish community was haltered in the UK. This allowed a mass spread of even more stereotypes against the Jews because the people didn’t have any real example to oppose them. For example, the depictions of Jews in Shakespeare's plays were based entirely on his prejudice. In reality, while some of each ethnicity may be money minded and cruel, not all Jews are like that. Works of the time were similar to his in spreading stereotypes of Jews and other communities as real. This is a huge reason for the world’s antisemitism.

There have been various examples of Jewish persecutions but perhaps the biggest one is the holocaust. The holocaust was a mass genocide of Jews during WW2. At the time, Germany was still recovering from its defeat in the First World War. The people at the time were angry and needed something to direct it at.  The government at the time took advantage of that. They spread rumours that are later to be called Stab-In-The-Back rumours. They claimed that they had lost the war from the inside. They stated that many of the citizens were Jewish immigrants that were influencing the country and government to their needs. They also told that the Jews had been gnawing down on the German culture. They also claimed that the Jews had been behind the protests in the country during the first world war that were anti-german and were the reason for Germany’s defeat. The Jews were labelled as outcasts. Many of the citizens joined the antisemitic movement due to their prejudices against the Jews that were fuelled by the rumours. Leaders such as Hitler started concentration camps for the Jews who were made to do hard labour and were tortured. Many were killed when they were unable to work anymore. Many Jews fled the country and took refuge in the Allied countries. This was one of the bloodiest Jewish persecutions in history that we know of and was a truly sad story.

History is taught in school so that we understand how it affects the present (well, at least partly for that reason). All these persecutions of Jews would have some effect, right? Actually, they have had some. The Jewish community, especially the Israelites are nowadays very protective of their land to the point of going to war. They have been known to bully countries like Palestine to get back what is theirs. While their actions are not justified, we can understand through human psychology why they would do such. I would like to clarify that I’m not claiming that all modern Jews are now warmongers because of their history, it is just that some politicians choose to be such and get back their ancestral land.