Jews: Why the animosity towards them?

[Vuk]

Why would I be offended?


Do I sense a racial stereotype?

PS. I find the notion of a Jewish "race" utterly racist and despicable. As far as I'm concerned, The only race that matters is the human race.

That answer your question? :P
As for you Zajuts, as much as you disagree with it, to many people ones heritage is extremely important they classify and judge everyone by that. For that reason it is important to realize that if we are to understand WHY people do things. See what I mean?

I think it's basicallly because they wouldn't lie down and they wouldn't assimilate. So many peoples have been annihilated through genocide, persecutions and the fact that they were just gobbled up by a superior culture. In ancient times, most peoples religion was Polytheistic, ie they believed that there were many gods and deities. There were bigger gods and smaller gods. It was usual to honour local gods, even if they were not your god, because you wouldn't like a gods wrath upon you. These superstitions were common. The Jews were monotheistic, and channeled their superstition away from all deities except one. Naturally, those whose god didn't get respect were a little miffed
The Jews kept their one god through all adversity, and that kept them from being assimilated into greater cultures, such as the Egyptian, Persian and Roman. After the Jews were cast out of Palestine and Judea, they became strangers everywhere they went. And nobody likes strangers, right?
The main difference between the Jews and other persecuted minorities through the ages, is that the Jews are still around. They have a sense of their "Jewishness". Weaker cultures have just succumbed to the pressure.

PS. I find the notion of a Jewish "race" utterly racist and despicable. As far as I'm concerned, The only race that matters is the human race.

What you said about polytheistic and monotheistic religions and their effects on the Jews is very incorrect. The people who believed in polytheistic religion fought with each other as much as anyone else. And don't forget the attrocities that Jews commited against Christians. In Greece they 220,000, and in Cyprus 240,000 Christians were tortured and killed by Jews because of their religion. Is that what their religion taught? No. Is that a genetic trait? No.
Point being, people are people, and people do horrible things to each other. Polythiestic or monothiestic, it doesn't matter, people still stink just as bad.

As I said, I think that the main reason for their persecution was because of memory (no matter how distorted) of bad things they had done in the past, and because rather than having a country, they lived in societies in other countries which caused mistrusted.
Is it rational to hate or distrust a person because they happen to be a Jew? Not at all. Does that mean that he/she is any different than anyone else? (except our sexy English noses ) No.
You have to judge people as individuals, but people don't do that. The human mind categorizes people and there is not much that can be done about it, lol.