No, they believe they have a special relationship with God, the gentiles will suffer when they die, and God will eventually put the Jews in charge of the world. — frank

Yes there is a special relationship, but God watches over the entire world. Jews don't know the relations he has with other groups because Jews are just with other Jews. Jews only record their own experiences/revelations, meanwhile the Muslims believe that God spoke to Muhammad giving the Arabs their own special insights. This isn't unique to Judaism. The Hindus have a rich history of the Gods interacting with their people.

They do not believe the gentiles get worse afterlife. Gentiles only have the laws of noah to follow, meanwhile jews are saddled with 600 or so laws. the talmud says "the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come." it patently untrue that the gentiles get a worse afterlife for not being jews.

everyone has their own endtime prophecies. christians believe jesus will return. i'm not dealing with endtime prophecies today but if someone would like to enlighten us they're welcome to.

The other is at least our moral inferior, but at the same time an existential threat. Both aspects are essential for our unity; without the other we fragment into internal conflict. The other necessitates, justifies and takes the blame for the burden of suffering entailed by the individual's subjugation to the group, and there can be no group that is not defined in terms of its other. 'Othering' thus becomes a process, the threat of which controls us. If you demonstrate insufficient revulsion and hatred for the other, you may be seen as, and so become, other yourself. This loss of identity is a fate worse than death. Such a fate worse than death gives rise to the martyr - one who dies to maintain their identity. — unenlightened

Thing is, this othering can go both ways.

Others expect me to stop othering them, but they refuse to stop othering me. What does it matter if I stop othering others if they still other me?

They do not believe the gentiles get worse afterlife. — BitconnectCarlos

It's in the Talmud. The rabbis would debate exactly how long a Gentile needs to be tortured to make up for being a Gentile. In the World to Come, God brings the Gentiles low and raises the Jews up so the Gentiles finally see how horribly wrong they were. Both of these ideas were adopted by the Jews from external sources, but they shaped them into mechanisms for revealing divine justice.

The reason for this goes back to the Covenant. The Covenant was like a contract: they follow the Mosaic Law, and God protects them. Since a fair portion of the Law was about hygiene, it was obvious that it was protective, but then through a series of catastrophes, it became blatantly obvious that God wasn't protecting them. The only way to continue on with their faith was to devise alternate scenarios for the manifestation of God's justice.

I doubt Jews need this kind of mechanism right now. They're free to evolve. But the danger is they'll evolve right out of Judaism into something else.

Islam and Christianity accept and even welcome new members of all nationalities and all races, by an act of conversion, without the requirement of being born and raised into said religion — baker

You left out the nasty bits where those organizations insisted upon conversion and wiped-out heretical forms deemed inadmissible to their faith.

They refuse to integrate into the society they live in, they set themselves apart. — baker

You left out the bits where they spent centuries in ghettos without the rights of other citizens unless they converted. Living on the margins, they developed markets not permitted by the others. That co-dependency developed in many different ways.

Hannah Arendt made a useful distinction between religious/racial hatred from "anti-semetism" because the latter grew as an international movement that equated the idea with world domination through secular institutions. I know some churches we could visit together if you wish for a loving spoonful of the stuff.

Arabs are Semites too.

Others expect me to stop othering them, but they refuse to stop othering me. What does it matter if I stop othering others if they still other me? — baker

If Hitler says you are a Jew or a queer or an imbecile or a Jehovah's Witness, it doesn't matter what you think or who you other; off to the extermination camp you go. In the game of identity power is everything. But what is your point? There is nothing personal here. No one expects anything of you, except to die when killed.

The Church had issue with its followers handling money in various ways. The Jews didn't have that prohibition. Consequently, Jews loaned money to Christians, charging interest, and the loanees didn't like it. Lies started spinning, the Church joined in, becoming more hostile, and on we go. In 1290, Edward I kicked the Jews out of England, largely in exchange for being granted a huge tax to pay for his war debts. Iirc, he also "acquired" some of those loans, so now the loanees owed *him* the money.

But what is your point? — unenlightened

That it is pointless to criticize othering as long as one engages in it oneself, and even profits from it.

Is it so hard to understand the visceral reaction that many people have when somebody claims to be superior to them?

My comments were not meant to be an argument against that thought.

I question your interest in pinning that tail on one particular donkey when there are herds of asses to choose from.

Is it so hard to understand the visceral reaction that many people have when somebody claims to be superior to them? — baker

You say Jews just believe this and "it goes without saying." If anyone is looking for theological anti-Semitism look no further.

I am Jewish btw. I have never heard this idea -- that Jews are superior to gentiles -- uttered by anyone. It doesn't make sense and I don't really care to entertain it. If Jews are so superior why are they constantly getting humbled by other nations in the bible?

I am Jewish btw. I have never heard this idea -- that Jews are superior to gentiles -- uttered by anyone. — BitconnectCarlos

I've heard it many times. It's not polite to say it, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people

If Jews are so superior why are they constantly getting humbled by other nations in the bible?

Presumably other nations are testing them, testing their claim.

People have been killing eachother over religious supremacy for a long time.
The history of antisemitism makes the Jews liable to a higher standard, though.

What is that higher standard?

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

What is that higher standard? — Paine

Granted, perhaps that higher standard seems to be justified because of the centuries of persecution. Victims tend to be assumed innocent and morally superior.

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

What other religio-ethnic group has been targeted worldwide and for so long as the Jews? They are unique in this regard.

This is beginning to remind me of some very upsetting parts of my upbringing.

Impregnate yourself.

I have never heard this idea -- that Jews are superior to gentiles -- uttered by anyone. It doesn't make sense and I don't really care to entertain it. — BitconnectCarlos

Nobody wants to entertain parts of their heritage that aren't attractive.

I have never heard this idea -- that Jews are superior to gentiles -- uttered by anyone. It doesn't make sense and I don't really care to entertain it.
— BitconnectCarlos

Nobody wants to entertain parts of their heritage that aren't attractive. — frank

How quaint. I had never heard this before either, and certainly not from jews. So I googled it and what I learned is that it is a long-standing prejudice, probably stemming from a misinterpretation of the phrase ‘chosen people’, or else a convenient application of that term to justify a sense that jews wield too much power in the world.

I've heard it many times. It's not polite to say it, though — baker

I’m betting you heard it from non-jews.

How quaint. I had never heard this before either, and certainly not from jews. So I googled it and what I learned is that it is a long-standing prejudice, probably stemming from a misinterpretation of the phrase ‘chosen people’, or else a convenient application of that term to justify a sense that jews wield too much power in the world. — Joshs

You don't think I could have come across the idea from historians?

Native Americans also don't integrate much into American society. They don't get the abuse Jews do.

Because they accepted their deals of surrender up to the point they were given places to be in a separate place. Your comparison sucks.

↪TiredThinker
Because they accepted their deals of surrender up to the point they were given places to be in a separate place. Your comparison sucks — Paine

Up until the mid 20th century, Jews in the U.S. refused to integrate into social institutions such as country clubs, summer camps and Ivy league schools, and instead founded their own clubs, camps and even schools (Brandeis). Oh wait, that was because they were barred entry into those places.

There it is.

Anyone else think they could give Palestine/Israel to the UN and have them run it? No religious skin in the game, no residents, just religious sites to visit. Like a big nature preserve.

Either that or kick everyone out and bomb the hell out of it so it's radioactive for generations so nobody can fight over it.

Fear. Ignorance. Not to say people are saints of course and no man of a particular self-identification is more or less prone to acts of social ire than one without. A long time ago people had too much free time, that is less to occupy one's mind than we do today. Very little was known about the nature of the world (arguably little has changed) and the prevailing religion of the day was superstition. Bad things happened quite often and a fledgling humanity sought answers for the troubles that ailed them. The human mind needs a devil, someone or something else to blame when troubles arise. Who do you blame? Your mate at the pub who you bump shoulders with every other day, go to one another's house, and whose kids play together? Or that person or small, mysterious group of people who keep to themselves all day nobody seems to really know anything about. Makes sense really.

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is a good example of this psychological phenomenon.

That it is pointless to criticize othering as long as one engages in it oneself, and even profits from it. — baker

I think it is potentially useful to recognise what oneself and everyone else is doing with our lives and our deaths. It might be possible to do it less vehemently at least, and it might be possible to modify societies so that the fault lines of identity become more blurred. For instance, the separation of powers between religion and politics, and between politics and economic status, the encouragement of intermarriage, common education and other shared facilities, and so on. In a slogan, "Down with purity!"

Such measures do not make us better people, but if our loyalties are divided, because auntie is a Palestinian and uncle is a Jew, we are less likely to resort to violence. The conflict is not ended, but becomes intra-personal rather than interpersonal. This is the essence of conflict theory in sociology.

Up until the mid 20th century, Jews in the U.S. refused to integrate into social institutions such as country clubs, summer camps and Ivy league schools, and instead founded their own clubs, camps and even schools (Brandeis). Oh wait, that was because they were barred entry into those places. — Joshs

It was both. They weren't welcome in the court of the Czar, but they also abhorred the possibility of adulteration of their communities with foreign ways. So wherever they went, they had their own governments. They were more educated than the locals. They took roles as middle men.

Why exactly you find any of this to be insulting, I don't know.

It was both. They weren't welcome in the court of the Czar, but they also abhorred the possibility of adulteration of their communities with foreign ways. So wherever they went, they had their own governments. They were more educated than the locals. They took roles as middle men.

Why exactly you find any of this to be insulting, I don't know — frank

Who said I found it insulting? This is what concerns me:

From Wikipedia:

1)aThe belief that Judaism is a racist religion which teaches its adherents to hate non-Jews by espousing the belief that they are not even human. This vicious anti-Semitic canard, frequently repeated by other Soviet writers and officials, is based upon the malicious notion that the "Chosen People" of the Torah and Talmud preaches "superiority over other peoples", as well as exclusivity. This was, of course, the principal theme of the notorious Tsarist Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

2) A trope found in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but dating to before that document, is that Jews are more loyal to world Jewry than to their own country. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, this trope has taken the form of accusations that Jewish citizens of other countries are more loyal to Israel than to their country of residence.

From Wikipedia:

1)aThe belief that Judaism is a racist religion which teaches its adherents to hate non-Jews by espousing the belief that they are not even human. This vicious anti-Semitic canard, frequently repeated by other Soviet writers and officials, is based upon the malicious notion that the "Chosen People" of the Torah and Talmud preaches "superiority over other peoples", as well as exclusivity. This was, of course, the principal theme of the notorious Tsarist Protocols of the Elders of Zion. — Joshs

That does sound concerning. But you said you'd never even heard of the idea that Jews think they're superior to Gentiles. That's actually why they've traditionally refused to assimilate. It's repeated explicitly in the Torah. As I mentioned earlier, Isaac Asimov said the Jews invented religious intolerance and went on to become the world's greatest victims of it. I think he was right. Christian condemnation of Judaism is a reflection of Judaism's own fierce devotion to their own identities.

The fact that you haven't heard of it, and that it seems wrong to you, indicates that you are probably the end of the line for Jewishness in your family. Your children probably won't be Jews. Your heritage lived as long as it did because of a sense of having a superior position among humanity in terms of connection to God and morality.

By the way, reading the history of Jews in Russia is an excellent way to see how anti-Semitism would appear at the grass roots level when Jews acted as tax collectors for the boyars.

But you said you'd never even heard of the idea that Jews think they're superior to Gentiles. The fact that you haven't heard of it, and that it seems wrong to you, indicates that you are probably the end of the line for Jewishness in your family. — frank

I can’t speak to what the average jew in the biblical or medieval period said about gentiles, but I can speak from my own experience growing up in a Conservative jewish home, and living in Israel for a year with my family. I can tell you that no jew I’ve encountered, of any age, ever expressed such sentiments to me. Do religious jews believe their faith offers them a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics which is preferable to that of other religions? I would hope so. Otherwise, why bother to remain within the faith? But you seem to have a stronger notion of ‘superior’ in mind that you may have to spell out for me.