Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Under Andalusian skies

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Devine:
>I believe that it's quite likely that anti-Jewish pogroms and the like
>became more common with the rise of capitalism (which corresponded to the
>creation of the Absolutist monarchies and of ethnic nationalism), but are
>you sure that there were no persecutions of Jews under Western European
>feudalism? This is sort of on the edge of my knowledge, but I know that
>religious "heretics" and witches were persecuted during the Middle Ages. So
>it makes sense that Jews were too, doesn't it?

Absolutely. Christian anti-Semitism precedes capitalist property relations.
It even precedes feudalism.

>wasn't Islam also a critique of Christianity, which at the time was
>semi-pagan, with thousands of saints, the semi-deification of the Virgin
>Mary, etc., with an established and sometimes-corrupt hierarchy? I can see
>how the one prophet/one god/one book message of Mohammed would fight this.

I plan to get around to reading Maxime Rodinson's first rate studies of
Islam at some point. When I do, I will have more to say on this topic.

>Why did Christianity see it necessary to kill its father? I can see how it
>might be driven to do so by the societal changes referred to above.

Interestingly enough, the institutionalization of Christian anti-Semitism
seems to date from St. Augustine's Theodosian Code of Roman law that
stipulated that Jews should be segregated from Christian society. Whether
there are socio-economic explanations for this, I am not sure.

>One time I saw a execrable and excremental Israeli propaganda flick about
>Moslem persecution of Jews during the 1940s, justifying the Zionist project
>(while ignoring Christian persecution). Is there any truth at all to this
>movie, which portrayed large numbers of Jews moving to Israel to flee
>persecution by Moslems?

Of course, but this puts the cart before the horse. Zionism sparked
anti-Jewish protests all across North Africa and the Mideast.

Louis Proyect
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