Mankind's Sins

They are and were the smallest group of people in this world, numbering to a total of only 13 million - less than .5% of the total world population. They are the most hated group with the oldest of man's sins - Anti-Semitism. Major global powers tried to eliminate them over 29 times in major genocides and programs and they were attacked, pillaged and wronged in every nation and corner of the Earth. Yet these people so few in numbers still continue to live - as prosperous as ever. This is an attempt to list some of the worst of mankind's sins against these people.

The Beginning of the Hate

The first known recorded instance and the beginning of the Anti-Semitic movement can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, from around 1300 BCE to 1100 BCE (between the 18th to the 20th Egyptian dynasty) where the people of Israel was enslaved by an ever expanding Egyptian empire. The people were numerous in number and made up a large portion of the forced labor in Egypt. During the period between 19th and 20th century, the Egyptian monarchy collapsed and much of the country went into Chaos - a result of the exodus of the Jewish people (sons of Israel) from Egypt. Roughly the same time, the Egyptian empire experienced the invasions by the “sea people”, later called the Philistines (ancestors of modern day Palestinians) whose name means invaders.

After the Jews settled in Eretz Israel (the original land of the Israeli - present day Israel, Jordan and a few regions of Syria and Egypt), they were invaded and ridiculed by numerous empires. Such actions are recorded by various ancient historians including Agatharchides of Cnidus. During this time period, the Israelis and the Philistines remained in high tension with each other due to open hostilities and wars over each other's territories but the Philistines only had control over 5 large cities and a few land while Israel controlled the majority of the land. This ancient hostility between the forefathers sparked off hatred of Israel over the land of Israel that continues to this modern day - the land being named Palestine by the Romans as punishment for the Jews for rebelling against their rule.

The Greeks take up the mantle

Soon afterwards, the hatred of the Jews began to spread into Greek culture as they gathered up more lost knowledge from Egyptian texts and writings. Many reasons and speculations have been made as to why the Greeks were involved in early anti-Semitic movements but the most accepted ones include the fact that the Greeks adopted this ancient Egyptian prejudice. Others say that Greeks hated anyone they considered “barbarians” or foreigners to their culture - thus the reason for the hate. Whatever the reason, they did not like the Jews. Jewish temples were desecrated, Jewish laws were suspended, and traditions could not be fulfilled. Circumcision, observance of Sabbath and study of Jewish texts were all considered illegal under various Greek rulers. Numerous anti-Jewish riots took place, one such famous attack was in Alexandria where, according to ancient writer Philo of Alexandria, thousands of Jews were murdered and pillaged.

The Roman yoke of Oppression

During the early years of Roman conquest and rule of Israel, the Jewish people accounted for over 10% of the empire Roman Empire. However, the Jewish spirit was hard to crush and the people impossible to tame. The Jews recognized no other God than the one and only God of their fathers - thus while the rest of the empire worshiped the emperor as God, the Jews did not. Thus the Jews were placed with a heavy tax that crippled the economy of Israel and lead to various uprisings due to rising costs, low wages, civil discontent, strife, political crisis and poverty levels. In 19 CE, Roman Emperor Tiberius expelled all Jews from Rome and assigned all Jewish soldiers serving in Roman legions to the most hostile and unhealthy places on purpose to eliminate their kind from the military. Thus discontent over Roman rule grew as Rome taxed the Jews heavily for their religious observance privileges. Until about 161 CE the Jews were heavily persecuted under the Roman rule.

In CE 70, Romans attacked Jerusalem after a failed Jewish uprising and proceeded to kill one million Jews (wiping out the zealots, Sadducees and other minor sects & branches of Jewish religion… leaving only the Pharisees who are today's Rabbis or teachers of the law). The Romans also took over 100,000 unarmed people into slavery while countless women were raped, Jewish homes pillaged, the Jewish Temple razed, and the city defenses by Herod the Great was destroyed. The Jewish Diaspora officially began during this year and as even greater Punishment, the Romans renamed the land from Judea (the Land of Israel) to “Syria Palestinia” or Palestine as we call it today. When Jews asked the Emperor to rebuild the temple, it was not allowed and they were taxed even more heavily to pay for the armies Rome had to use in the rebellion and to build roman projects throughout the empire. After the destruction of the temple and after 161 CE, the Jews experienced relatively calm atmosphere in the Roman empire marred by small few isolated events and tragedies.