Anti semitism

[pouzzler]

My grandmum escaped Dachau by her husband sacrifice.
I love her very much, thank you. And neither do I vote "Front National", our local fascist party. I do not vote, to tell the truth, since our communists have Rolls-es and eat caviar by the soup-kettle.

Therefore, I would like, in openmindedness like to know how "antisemitism" exist and "antiafricanism" does not, "antiarabism" neither, nor "antiaboriginism" or "anticheyennism".

I would also like to know how come the word "goy/im" exists only in Hebrew. English people have no word for "goy", the closest is "stranger", which does not convey the same meaning at all.

"Goy" means "not of us"; "stranger" means "unknown to us".

Isn't this IMO disastrous tendancy to label everything "antisemitism" instead of "an act of racism", or even "an hateful act" a part of the reason "anti semitism" exists? Doesn't it create the thing it tries to escape?

In the same way that political correctness in the USA creates more and more problems as you must refer to vision-impaired non-masculine african-americans of respectable years?

[elke]

First of all, why is "political correctness" such a problem? If African Americans prefer to be called that, why not? Where is that skin off anyone's nose? When you meet somebody, you say "hello" and "how are you" Why? Because it's polite and makes everyone's life a little more pleasant. Same thing with "political correctness", at least as far as names go.

There is a concept called "racism". Actions based on it are against the law in many countries, but it is still there in individual people's psyche. I have a sneaky suspicion that it exists literally everywhere; but how do you express "racism", for instance in Western Russia, where there are no African Americans or Asians to speak of? Ah, but they do have a significant Jewish community, so instead of "racism" it becomes "anti-semitism". There's your answer: these are interchangeable concepts, at bottom. The only difference is that the particular group hated is identified.

"Goyim" means "Nations". That's a direct translation. Actually, the better word for the meaning of "goyim" you refer to, is "outsider" rather than "stranger". I don't know about you, but to me "outsider" sounds no worse - nor better - than "goy".

[danholo]

I wrote this in the Tackling Anti-Semitism section:

Anti-Semitism is an internationally accepted term for hating Jews.
In my opinion and probably in many others opinions Anti-Semitism goes much deeper than a gentile might think.
Anti-Semitism, as I know it, is hatred towards Jews, Judaism and everything that it stands for.
I'm not an observant Jew but Judaism is almost perfect with its moral values.
People are ignorant about it, but without Jews, western society would most likely still be a barbaric hell hole, with family feuds, wars for honor and other ****.
Anti-Semites tend to use Judaisms own ideals and ethics against it.
For example, one of the most common Anti-Semitic rumors are that Jews are liars and thieves, exactly what Judaism is against.

What we, as Jews, should be proud that our Jewish nation was the first with morals and ideology so great that our ancestors were hated for it. Our nation IS the cradle of western civilization.
No wonder we're supposed to be "a light upon the nations" when in ancient times people were killing each other for pieces of fruit and we had a justice system and a welfare system (tzedaka) .
Torah says Amalek is our arch enemy, the coward that attacks from the rear.
The Nazis were cowards, killing us for what we are, for nothing.
Nazis are Anti-Semites, Anti-Semites are against what we are for.
If a person is against morals such as ours, how are we to accept this?

Some times I like to praise Jews and Judaism, and this is the perfect place to do it.

[Mediocrates]

Thank you. I love words and their power. One word I see is anti Semitism. Why is this so special? Because it singles out one group. So here is what I propose. The elimination of that word, that specialty. From now on it should be antisemitism which just reduces it to a generic label like lowfat milk.