User:Babajobu/Religious persecution by Jews

While Jews have most frequently been the victims of religious persecution, religious persecution by Jews has sometimes existed in the history of Judaism when Judaism has been the dominant religion in a particular geographical area. Contents [hide]

  * 1 The Bible as evidence of religious persecution by Jews
  * 2 Biblical events sometimes characterized as religious persecution by Jews
  * 3 Forcible conversion of Idumeans by Hasmonean kings
  * 4 Between Judea and the nation-state
  * 5 The modern state of Israel
        o 5.1 Dislocation of Arab population during 1947-1948
  * 6 See also

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The Bible as evidence of religious persecution by Jews

The Tanakh, known to Christians as The Old Testament, is disputed by scholars as a reliable source for historical events (see The Bible and history). In addition, the association between modern day Jews and the Israelites of the earlier sections of the Tanakh is not universally accepted (see Arthur Koestler for one example).

Nevertheless, Moses and the patriarchs of the Jewish religion (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) have throughout the history of Judaism widely been regarded as Jewish, though not explicity identified as such in the Bible. Likewise, the gathering of the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai and their receipt of the Torah is regarded as the foundational event in the Jewish religion. The recognition of the patriarchs, Moses, and the Israelites as Jewish is universal in pre-Haskalah Jewish theology. Ironically, this claim of kinship between the Jews and the Israelites has been used by anti-Semitic authors (see Kevin MacDonald) to implicate modern day Jews in the perceived misbehavior of their alleged ancestors. Because of the commonly made association between Jews and both the Israelites of the Torah and Yehudim of the later sections of the Tanakh, this article will proceed to consider some events in the Tanakh as examples of religious persecution by Jews, although it must be noted that this characterization is not universally accepted. [edit]

Biblical events sometimes characterized as religious persecution by Jews

In various instances recorded in the Torah it is written that the Israelites emptied lands of their native inhabitants (see previous section for alleged links between biblical Israelites and Jews). For example, the Torah recounts that as Moses was leading the Israelites through the Sinai desert and toward the Promised Land, they encountered the Amorites. The Amorite King Sihon refused the Israelites' request to pass through Amorite territory (that had shortly before been seized from from Moab) on the way to Canaan. The Bible describes the Israelite request as follows:

  "Israel sent emmisaries to Sihon, king of the Amorite, saying: 'Let me pass through your land; we shall not turn off to field or vineyard; we shall not drink well water; on the king's road shall we travel, until we pass through your border." Numbers 21:21,22

According to the Bible, the Amorites responded to the Israelite request as follows:

  "But Sihon did not permit Israel to pass through his border, and Sihon assembled his entire nation and went out against Israel to the wilderness. And he arrived at Jahaz and waged war against Israel." ibid.:23

In response to attack by the entire Amorite nation, the Israelites fought and killed the entire nation. In the final book of the Torah, known in English as (Deuteronomy, the event is described thusly:

  "And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain" Deutetonomy 2.34

In the Book of Joshua of the Nevi'im section of the Tanakh, the Israelites, led by Joshua, eliminate the Kingdom of Ai. "..and they smote them until they did not leave them a remnant or survivor." (Joshua 8:.22)

  * Add section here on Amalekites
  * Add section on efforts in Nevi'im to extirpate Canaanite religious practices from Israel and Judah

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Forcible conversion of Idumeans by Hasmonean kings [edit]

Between Judea and the nation-state

After the crushing of the Bar Kokhba rebellion, it was nearly two millenia before Judaism was once again the predominant faith in the Levant. However, in a few instances during this period Judaism temporarily became the dominant faith in fairly small regions.

  * Add section on religious persecution under the Khazars.
  * Add section on religious persecution of apostate Jews in semi-autonomous Jewish locales in "The Pale".

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The modern state of Israel [edit]

Dislocation of Arab population during 1947-1948

During the 1947-1948 Israeli War of Independence, between 400,000 and 700,000 Arab inhabitants of Palestine were externally displaced. Many Israeli and non-Israeli academics have characterized this as part of an "exchange of populations" with the neighboring Arab countries, from which a roughly equivalent number of Arabic-speaking Jews were violently expelled. The Palestinian perambulations out of their homes and into neighboring countries has been described by some Israeli and non-Israeli scholars as having been orchestrated by Arab demogogues who hoped to "clear the battlefield" in advance of the imminent invasion of Israel by five Arab states (for a non-Israeli academic who has made this contention, see Joan Peters). Israeli academic Benny Morris, along with other Israeli "New Historians", has been controversial in alleging that in Operation Dalet of the Israeli War of Independence, the Hagannah intentionally orchestrated the flight of large numbers of Palestinian Arabs in order to alter the demographics of the new Jewish state. Regardless, the citizenry of Israel remains over 20% Arab, so, if this event is to be described as ethnic cleansing, it was a uniquely ineffective example of such. [edit]