Wednesday, March 25, 2009

"The Longest Hatred" - Period 6

You recently viewed the PBS Documentary The Longest Hatred and today you listened to Rabbi Swarttz lecture on the subject. Please share what you learned with each other and feel free to ask any question(s) that you would like answered by the Rabbi in the future.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really thought that both the video and Rabbi Schwartz did a wonderful job at making the case for the Jewish people. I definitely can say that I learned something new from listening to both the documentary and the Rabbi. For example, I didn't know that in Judaism, there is no belief in Satan. However, I must say that I didn't agree with some things that were said, but of course that is just personal opinion.

Anonymous said...

I thought that the video did a very good job at depicting what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. I knew that they suffered but seeing a video and seeing the faces really did it justice in my mind. Unfortunitely, I missed Rabbi Schwartz but I am confident he was a good man and rabbi. I agree with MArwa that I learned something new from the video.

Anonymous said...

Rabbi Schwartz's presentation was very informative. I learned a lot about Jewish myths and could see how they've come to present day use. Like Marwa, I learned new things about Judaism. He touched on many dificult topics, and discussed them without allowing political correctness to dull his points. I hope we have more guest speakers in the future.

Anonymous said...

I thought that the Rabbi did a very good in presenting us with a timeline of how so many misconceptions about the Jewish people came to be. As a Jew who already went through hebrew school alot of this information was not new to me however it was a fabulous presentation.

Anonymous said...

I think that Rabbi Schwartz did a great job explaining anti-semitism and the situation that the Jewish people have been facing for so long. Additionally, I think he did a good job of conveying information that I had not known previously, such as the fact that Michaelangelo's Moses had horns because the scripture states that he was radiating. I think he helped to explain why the Jews have faced so much hate in the past and even today to a certain exent, as well as why so many of the myths are false. I think that in the future, it may be helpful to have Rabbi Schwartz come in before we watch the film though, as some of what he said was also mentioned in the film.

Anonymous said...

I thought that both "The Longest Hatred" and Rabbi Schwartz's presentation really opened up my eyes to the hatred that the Jewish people have had to experience for thousands of years. I agree with what Marwa said about learning a lot from Rabbi Schwartz. I didn't realize that there was so much more to the Jewish religion than I knew about. As a suggestion for Mr. Gallagher, I think that we should listen to the Rabbi before watching the video because a lot of what Rabbi Schwartz said was already stated in the video.

Anonymous said...

I agree that Rabbi Schwartz did an awesome job and seemed very prepared. I think that the movie and Rabbi Schwartz's presentation were very similar. The presentation was much more hands on (which I liked) and he always went into detail about confusing subjects. The movie and presentation show how ideas of discrimination from even one individual can spread like wild fire. I had no idea that Jews were discriminated against for over 1,000 years. It was very interesting to hear about the first discrimination of Jews and things people stereotype about them. I was apalled that Jews were compared to Devils and rumored to use blood for their food at passover. Overall, I really enjoyed the presentation and thought he went at a good pace.

Anonymous said...

I think that Rabbi Schwartz had a very wellthought out and enlightening presentation. I really enjoyed how he classified the entirity of Jewish animosty into 5 distinct periods. Most shocking to me was the piece on Bernie Madoof and how the press labels him as a Jew as if to propagate the stereotype that Jews are greedy about money.

Like marwa I had an issue with one of his slides, the one of the Blood Libel caricature. The rabbi said that it was Arabic and could be identified by the writing, but I was unable to recognize it and it looked more like either Farsi or Urdu to me. I may be wrong because they are slightly similar, so I am not criticizing rabbi Schwartz for misinterpretation.

Anonymous said...

Even though I am Jewish, I learned a lot from both rabbi Schwartz and the Movie. I did not know that it was Romans who had a major fued with Jews in early stages and both Jews and Catholics descended from Judaism. I also was not aware, and yet found it a little amusing, that people thought Jews used blood to make Matzah. Matzah is unlevened bread, and last time I checked, yeast contains no blood.

I asked my question that I had during the Rabbi's presentation and he was not sure on how to answer it. I have no further questions however. I think next time the Rabbi comes, perhaps the Movie could be showed after the oral presentation.

Anonymous said...

I think both the video, and Rabbi Schwartz helped me learn more about the Jewish, and what they went through during that time period. Some of the things I saw in the video were quite bothersome, and cruel. Also I learned alot more about Judaism, and Anti-semitism, which I was unclear about before.

Anonymous said...

I thought that the movie and the presentation by Rabbi Schwartz were good representations of the suffering throughout the Holocaust. I was unaware of the real hatred through the times before the Holocaust. I thought that the Holocaust was the first real and big hatred against the Jews. I was also unaware as Marwa was that there is no belief in the devil in Judaism. I also was unaware that the Jews did not really have certain homes for a while and that they were scattered about unable to come together. I also did not know of the myths that sprung up because of the hatred of Jews such as that they cut throats of those to get blood for cooking when they do not even use blood in cooking. They try to take the most blood out of the meat that they can. I think that the movie and Rabbi Scwhartz were really interesting in teaching me things that I did not know.

Anonymous said...

Rabbi Schwartz was, as Marwa said, very informative about the history of anti-semitism and helped elaborate on some of the points made in "The Longest Hatred." As Ted mentioned in class it might be helpful for the Rabbi to come in near the end of the year so we as students are more informed about the holocaust and are able to ask more educated questions.

Anonymous said...

max is a liar

Anonymous said...

The longest hatred taught me a lot about the history of anti-semetism that I did not know before. For instance, I did not know the origins of many of the stereotypes. The explanation for Jews being seen as stingy was interesting, the Jews were put in a position that could only make them seem cheap by helping people to pawn some of their most valuable possesions. I was surprised at how little I knew about the history of anti-semetism and am glad to have seen this video.

Anonymous said...

I also agree with Evan in that the Rabbi was touching on some quite sensitive topics and did a fine job in discussing them without politcal correctness infringing on his ability to do so, i also do beleive that guest speakers would be very beneficial to the teaching of this class

Gayle Heim said...

Like Marwa, I did not know that Jewish people didn't believe in the devil. I am curious though, Marwa, what were some of things said that you didn't agree with?

I was very impressed with Rabbi Schwartz's presentation of the history of anti-semitism. I thought that the pictures, specifically the one of the Jew slicing open a man's neck (blood libel), was very disturbing. It was very disconcerting to see propoganda for such false and heinous accusations. Like what Ted said in class, I thought that the presentation was very informative by showing the hatred building up over time and leading to the Holocaust.

Anonymous said...

I feel as though Rabbi Swarttz did an excellent job going through the history before the holocaust of how people of the Jewish religion were often hated as a group. I also thought his example with how Bernie Madoff was shown as Jewish but the Illinois governor was not mentioned with his heritage. I think this shows the underhanded anti-Semitism that is present in current society. In addition I would like to ask him about the creation of the current country of Israel and the current struggles with the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip.

Anonymous said...

I learned several things from the video The Longest Hatred. I had no idea some of the awful things that other religions and races did to the Jews, or that Christianity was pretty much responsible for anti Judaism. I honestly had no idea that the Jews suffered so much discrimination during this period of time, and the Rabbi and movie were both extremely informative on the subject.

Savina Jaggi said...

I agree with Marwa when she said that Rabbi Schwartz did a great job teaching us about jews and making a case for jewish people. I appreciated the detail he went into to help us understand more about what had happened with anti-semitism. There were many different points that he braught up that i did not know before. One of them was about the Chirstians making up that the jews would cut the throats of Christians for their blood for food but the ironically jews actually drain as much blood as possibly out of their food before eating it. I found that to be very interesting how many of the things said about the jews clearly contrasted with their actual beliefs.

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed Rabbi Schwartz even though a lot of what he said was also depicted in the movie that we watched. Although i liked hearing it from someone to whom we could relay questions with instead of a video that could give no feedback to our questions. It was nice to have a little background on the Jewish faith because i never have really known anything about it before his presentation.