Anti-Semitism

So, I thought I normally didn't understand Philosophy very well until I came across this topic. Well, I had it easy up until now. Much like my classmates I found Anti-Semitism and the idea of Nationalism all a bit long-winded and confusing. On the up side I do enjoy learning about some parts of History and the Jews and the Holocaust I find quite interesting. The reason for this is through College and my Film Studies course. We studied documentary and watched a handful of films relating to the Jews and the Holocaust. The one which affected me the most was named Night and Fog. It was a half an hour documentary showing the concentration camps and the way they looked and how the Jews were treated. Images were shown of hundreds of dead bodies of the Jews piled on top of each other in a ditch. Not only this but rooms full to the top of hair, another of reading glasses. The images I saw were completely disturbing and it brang to light the seriousness of the Holocaust and how people were treated. 


Lazare is  Journalists and he was first to defend Dreyfus in the Dreyfus Affair. If you are reading this -quite unlikely- then I mentioned Dreyfus in my past philosophy blog post. Lazare had Jewish parents yet he himself was not religious. In this day and age Jews were apparently unsociable people and were disliked them as they were not part of their specific culture. At the beginning of Lazare's book he suggests that Jewish people are responsible for their own downfall. Just this alone can portray the way people found it easy to isolate Jews. 
After Israel failed to defend their own liberty, the Jews were placed across the world, split up from their small community they had. Ultimately, this was quite an important factor as the Jew's enjoyed having company of other Jew's due to their particular views and morals. Originally the Jew's were the ones who were named God's people on earth and therefore they believed the laws were made specifically at them. Some may guess what happens next as religious classes such as who were God's people are fairly common. The Jewish and Christians had a large issue with one another. The Christians believed they were the chosen ones from God, which inevitably made the Jews and visa versa extremely frustrated. 'Letter to Diognetus' was a letter written by Christians and was the first Anti-Jewish writing to convert them to the world of Christ. The Jews therefore came up with stories to humiliate the Christians in return However it was a very difficult time for the Jews as it was the time between the Reformation and the French Revolution and Jew's were sometimes banished from the Ghetto's which was were they were essentially 'kept'. 
In France, 1791, the Jews were granted rights as actual citizens. During the French Revolution, the Bourgeoisie who were the owners of the factories etc teamed up with the Jews. The reason for this was because the Jewish people were able to give aid in the sense of promoting the combination of capital. 
Jew's were long associated with the financial sectors. Today many people believe Jew's to be greedy and tight, yet in the Renaissance the Jew's opened the first banks around. In this day and age there are now Muslim banks which are only for Muslims. The common reason for this is segregation due to certain rules and beliefs of that religion. The Muslims have their own banks as with stuff such as interest, they will not take it as they see it as gambling. During the time that the Jew's themselves were isolated, there were religious loopholes were people went to the Jew's for help out of necessity rather than common kindness. 


Nationalism
Nationalism relates to the way we take pride in our nation and also the way in which we class ourselves. If we are born in Britain but have foreign parents, can be be classed as British? It is an ongoing issue which could ultimately be debated 24/7 but there is no clear answer. 
America have a great amount of national pride and this can be relate to such ideas as the 'American Dream'. In primary school in America they all pledge allegiance to the flag. Just this alone can portray the way the Americas have a large amount of pride in their country. It can be said that nations exist whilst people still have common beliefs and interests.