Moses helped lead the Jews out of slavery in Egypt but over 2,000 years later they are still suffering anti-Semitism on a daily basis.
From the enslavery of the Jews at the hands of the Israelites, the Jewish population has had to suffer a history of intolerance and persecution towards their faith and their people.
Moses took the Jews away from a life of slavery under Pharaoh when, as the Scriptures tell describe, he warned firstly of the ten plagues and then parted the Red Sea to allow his people to cross unharmed to a land of freedom which they had never seen before.
But far from this point in history marking the end of discrimination against the Jews, it signaled the start of Jewish persecution. It continued it some form when Jesus was born and rejected his Jewish roots, instead claiming to be the Son of God and, taking many Jews with him, began the spread of Christianity which has since developed in the world’s largest religion.
In the few years after the birth of Jesus, the Jews were subjected to mass slaughter in a series of battles with the Roman pagan army which resulted in an eventual forced exile from Palestine.
The Jews are also hated by some Muslims for their rejection of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), although why this one religion has been particularly singled out isn’t always clear.
Following this was about 1,000 years of persecution by the Christians. The cause of this was generally because of religious differences but it indicated a major turnaround for the Christians who just a few centuries earlier had been consumed by Jesus’ teachings of love, reconciliation and forgiveness. Instead, marriages, intercourse and even community relationships were banned with Jews and laws were introduced to punish the Jews should they refuse to abide by the new regulations.
Legislation against Jews and Judaism increased as Christians became increasingly violent against them. Millions of Jews were killed or exiled, synagogues were burned, Jews were discriminated against and tortured as the originally persecuted religion came under greater attack. One way to escape this hatred was to convert to Christianity, if it hadn’t already been pushed upon them by forced baptism, as just like the Irish, women and children of old times, Jews were seen as a different class of people from the rest of the population.
By the middle of the twentieth century, Hitler had come to power in Germany and his Nazi regime had been responsible for the murder of around six million Jews by the end of the Holocaust. Many others would be affected for the rest of their lives because of being forced to flee their homes, living through years in concentration camps or having their friends and family killed by the authorities.
As the twenty-first century dawned, this persecution is still continuing in Israel as the debate over control of Palestine continues. Jerusalem is now a dangerous place for Jews to be and the International Christian Zionist Center warns that lives are still under threat. They report that in the Syrian-occupied part of the Golan Heights 300 SCUD missiles are lying in wait, focused on Jerusalem and within minutes can produce an agonizing death by nerve-gas-induced asphyxiation.
Yet for some reason the authorities don’t see these more recent incidents as a problem. There is no-one willing to stand up for Judaism as they do for the rights of others and so this persecution looks set to continue as part of the future as well as part of history.
