This Blog is a resource tool for the students taking the "FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES" elective at Westborough High School, Westborough, Massachusetts.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
"The Longest Hatred" - Period 1
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.
I think it's just ridiculous some of the lies which were made up about Jewish people way back when, and I think it's even more ridiculous that people still believe things like that today. Like, the thing about Jewish people having horns? How can any person living in the 21st century honestly be naive enough to believe that Jewish people have horns? Humans don't grow horns on their heads. It just goes to show how easily manipulated people are when they want to think of themselves as being better than someone else.
Since no one's commented yet, I can't exactly comment on anyone else's comments...
Im really glad that Im learning about antismeitism and the causes in this way, Im not going to comment too much about the information because it is fact. Im not going to lie, I was expecting this rabbi to have a beard and wear a robe or something. I was a little surprised. He made things much clearer, beacuse I am/was rather lacking in knowledge about the jewish religion (hence my origonal expectation). Im really glad he came and spoke.
Today's movie and end of the day presentation was really very interesting and informative. I knew of some of the reason for anti-semitism. Overall, the hatred that has evolved over centuries is like a large festering monster that eventually lead to the devastating effects hatred can have on a group. I felt terrible for the strife many Jewish people had to endure for many years and eventually the holocaust. To see some of the very wrong things and interpretations like horns or blood drinking is just showing how fearful humans are of things they are ignorant to, and when things go wrong, its easy to point to someone and say "its your fault" when really everyone is to blame, or even no one. I am sad of the history, and the video vividly showed the hatred from then until today which is still prevalent.
With hope, the Jewish people will not be persecuted for being themselves.
I think the Jewish spirit is amazing, to keep your religion despite the common hate, and misunderstanding. At any time, they could have given up, but still Judaism is a major religion of today. True courage.
This video opened my eyes up to many things. I never knew the the hatred for Jews was so deeply rooted into the Catholic and Protestant sects of Christianity. This is one of the reasons I am so glad my parents never forced any religion upon me when I was growing up. It is necessary to realize that a religion didn't betray Jesus, a man named Judas did. And it was not a religion that nailed Jesus to a cross, it was a Roman. The Jewish people as a whole can not be held by any account to the death of Jesus, therefore the Catholics and Protestants shouldn't hold them accountable. It is almost humorous to think that these sects of Christianity broke on rule that is so sacred in the faith, and that is the rule of brotherly love. The Catholics were so fast to say may peace be with you to the man sitting next to them at the end of mass, and then go straight to tying a Jewish man to the rack and ripping him limb from limb. During the inquisition, this scene from what seems like a nightmare was really the hell the Jewish people had to endure. Another thing I must comment on is the German people as a whole playing the roles of bystanders. The German people loved Adolf Hitler because he was able to "pin point the cause" of the financial problems in Germany, the Jewish people. Of course we know this was not truly the cause, but the Germans were so blinded by their plight, they were willing to accept anything to end the pain. Hitler had an answer, and the German people swallowed it whole. As a person of German descent, it is hard for me to say that the people are as much to blame as Hitler himself. There were more civilians than there were Nazis, and if even half spoke up they could have stopped his terror before it started.
A comment on Katie's post. The reason people are naive enough to believe that Jewish people have horns is probably because the have never seen a Jewish person! Put it into perspective. When we think of aliens from outer space we think of green people with huge bug like black eyes that harvest brain and what not. In reality, these aliens could look just like you and me, and we would never know until we see one. We think of them as green people because that is how we were raised to think of them as. Think of the movie ET as a piece of Alien propaganda. Now, think of the young Germans or whoever that have never seen a Jewish person before. When they see a cartoon of a Jewish person with horns, they think it must be true because they have never seen one! It isn't necessarily they think they're better than the Jewish people, it is pure ignorance. Pure ignorance can't be punished or ridiculed.
I learned a lot today. I never knew that much about the Jewish religion, and the beliefs of Jewish people. I also learned a lot more about anti-semitism. I never knew the long history of what the Jewish people have had to deal with, and I didn't even know much about what they still deal with today. I had really only knew what history classes had focused on in the past, which is only about Hitler and Germany, and I still learned more about that. I also agree with Alexa about what she expected to see when told a rabbi was coming in. My family used to own a kosher bakery, where I got to meet many rabbis and other Jewish people, and still in my mind I expected to be seeing Hasidic Jewish person.
Coming into class today, I didn't know that Jewish people had been labeled so badly. The presentation that Rabbi Swartz had for us today was really informing. I thought it was really interesting of how settled and comfortable he was talking about this topic. He did a good job of giving the Jewish view on the things that took place. He outlined everything and provided really good information. He seemed like he was trying to get a point out that his religion is not what it has been stereotyped to be. One thing that I did not know about the antisemitic people viewed the Jewish people in an evil way. That they were viewed as evil animals and other false beings. This personally became very disturbing. When I saw the picture of the Jewish person with the horns on its head, made me think of how bad I would feel if I was Jewish and saw that.
I agree with Katie. It is extremely ridiculous that Jewish people are still viewed like this today. It is wrong.
Both the film and the lecture/speaker were very informative. For example, before today, I only knew of Martin Luther in relation to the Protestant Revolution, and in this mostly positive overtones, while also was a vehement anti-semite and whose teachings led to many of the beliefs of the Nazi party.
Katie, I was also surprised at all the myths about Jews. I think the film had a segment where some modern day Christians still believe that the Jews killed children for their blood etc, and that they even wired up some child's skeleton as "proof."
Mostly unrelated but interesting thing about Judas: I read some time ago that some scrolls were found that contained the Gospel of Judas, with his side of the story differing from that of the other Gospels. If I remember correctly, the scrolls said that Jesus knew he had to die and how, and told Judas to turn him in to the Romans, so Judas was actually doing what he was supposed to do instead of betraying Jesus (says his Gospel).
I found the video very informative. The presentation was rather dull and it almost sounded more like a report than a fun presentation. However, I appreciate the Rabbi for coming to our school and giving us some information that I have never heard before. I would've liked to ask him if he ever met or knew of any holocaust survivors. I was curious of that. The video was very interesting as well. The video had a smooth transition in relating to Hitler and his antics. It was amazing to see how much propaganda can affect human minds.
I agree with Jason in that although we know the basic concept of anti-semitism, we didn't know it was this bad. We are finding out in more detail, which is even more shocking.
In the movie and the lecture, I learned so much about the histroy of the Jewish people and all that they had to overcome. Throughout all of the hatred, they still continued to have pride for thier religon and they still stood up for what they believed in. I couldn't even begin to imagine how I would feel if I were a Jewish person during the time of the Holocaust. Im glad that times have changed and people are more accepting now.
Like Katie said about Jewish people having horns is crazy. I don't see how somebody could believe that.
I thought that Rabbi Swartz's (I hope I spelled it correctly) presentation was very enlightening. I learned lots of interesting things about not only history, but also about the Jewish faith.
Justin, I thought your comment about aliens and how we percieve them was a great way to relate it to the way some people view(ed) Jews.
Being Jewish and having gone to religious school since I was in Kindergarten I thought that I a lot of knowledge on the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism. As I watched the movie though it made me think about how I was so young when I learned all of this information... I knew about most of it, but it seemed to make more sense to watch it now rather than in seventh or eighth grade. It bothers me that so many people wanted to get rid of the Jews in not only Germany but also most of Europe. One scene that angered me was seeing the girls cry out of excitement when Hitler was speaking. Another scene that I thought was really interesting was when the people had to walk through the concentration and extermination camps and see all of the dead people.
I found the lecture to be extremely informative and eye opening. I really had no idea that the Holocaust was the effect of anti-sematism in the past. I had no idea that such hatred for the jews existed to so ago. That people blamed the jews and hated them so much for so long. I had always thought that the hated of the jews was always part of the holocaust and the nazi regiem, rather than having roots that go back thousands of years.
I agree with Jason and Alexa about expecting a beard and robe. It really shows how ignorant we really are even though we don't think it.
im just glad to be learning about world war 2 again... its been a while! but as for my opinion on the movie... i can see why antisemitism arose in nazi germany or as katie said why people believed that jews had horns or sacrificed little children... it mainly has to do with the fact that when everybody points their finger at you, you want to point the finger at your little brother or sister, because you dont want to get in trouble for what you did... in the same way after world war 1 ended everybody blamed germany for the cause and made them pay the debt of the war, but after the country was "depressed" and the pople felt like they were desciminated against, they pointed their finger at the jew, and by treating the jews badly, they could feel better about themselves because now they felt like they were the world picicking on someone else... the best example of the "classic bully case". but after that, the nazi's built upon that and as i beleieve took the notion too far, thus causing the holocaust... but as katie said, and which i agree with, people had to have been naive, but when you think about it, we still are, if you can remember when 9/11 happened, people discriminating against muslims heavily, so, history will always repeat itself, i guess...
While watching the film I have never really known the extent that Jewish people have gone through in history. For myself when thinking back into history I always knew that Jewish people were treated horrible and inhumanely during the holocaust but never blamed for Jesus' death. It is just sad to see a group of individuals and religion being blamed for so many different events in history and never fully having the ability to change those views. To this day there are people who still blame the Jewish community for what happened thousands of years ago. Nowadays the Jewish community has been chosen as sort of a world wide known joke. The term ‘Jew’ for many is just a gag but so many stereotypes and hatred come with using that single word. I do not believe that to this day as a whole the Jewish community have been taken seriously, even watching the movie the propaganda used is just a general bases that was used to dehumanize the Jewish religion and community. What was used there is now being used today in movies, TV shows, SNL skits, etc. The events that have happened to the Jewish community are not even comparable to what others have had to go through. But history does have a way of repeating itself so if it is not one group it is another. I do not think the human race will ever fully be equal or accepting of others differences because history has and will show that someone has to be blamed for all of the problems in the world.
I agree with what Neil said about the “classic bully case.” I think you are correct in saying that in order to build one up you must tear another done which is the case with the film.
"The Longest Hatred" was an extremely informative, yet quite interesting piece of film. It shed a lot of light on many subjects that many people know about, but don't have a great depth of knowledge about, like me. Learning facts such as how anti Semitism was so deeply rooted into Christianity was something I had never know.
Having the Rabbi come to speak with all of us too was very interesting. Hearing his opinion on the subjects we learned about in the video and the questions we had were very interesting.
And Justin... I don't know what to say about how you replied to Katie... that was brilliant.
Having the Rabbi come in was great for the class. I though it helped us realize how meaningful it was till this day the importance of the longest hatred. I enjoyed having the rabbi there and appreciated the time he took out of his busy schedule it helped me "link" everything together and helped me realize that Jewish people to this day are still persecuted. I hope that in the future there will be more speeches given in the school to helped future student understand that racism still occurs in our modern day.
19 comments:
I think it's just ridiculous some of the lies which were made up about Jewish people way back when, and I think it's even more ridiculous that people still believe things like that today. Like, the thing about Jewish people having horns? How can any person living in the 21st century honestly be naive enough to believe that Jewish people have horns? Humans don't grow horns on their heads. It just goes to show how easily manipulated people are when they want to think of themselves as being better than someone else.
Since no one's commented yet, I can't exactly comment on anyone else's comments...
Im really glad that Im learning about antismeitism and the causes in this way, Im not going to comment too much about the information because it is fact. Im not going to lie, I was expecting this rabbi to have a beard and wear a robe or something. I was a little surprised. He made things much clearer, beacuse I am/was rather lacking in knowledge about the jewish religion (hence my origonal expectation). Im really glad he came and spoke.
Today's movie and end of the day presentation was really very interesting and informative.
I knew of some of the reason for anti-semitism. Overall, the hatred that has evolved over centuries is like a large festering monster that eventually lead to the devastating effects hatred can have on a group. I felt terrible for the strife many Jewish people had to endure for many years and eventually the holocaust. To see some of the very wrong things and interpretations like horns or blood drinking is just showing how fearful humans are of things they are ignorant to, and when things go wrong, its easy to point to someone and say "its your fault" when really everyone is to blame, or even no one. I am sad of the history, and the video vividly showed the hatred from then until today which is still prevalent.
With hope, the Jewish people will not be persecuted for being themselves.
I think the Jewish spirit is amazing, to keep your religion despite the common hate, and misunderstanding. At any time, they could have given up, but still Judaism is a major religion of today. True courage.
This video opened my eyes up to many things. I never knew the the hatred for Jews was so deeply rooted into the Catholic and Protestant sects of Christianity. This is one of the reasons I am so glad my parents never forced any religion upon me when I was growing up. It is necessary to realize that a religion didn't betray Jesus, a man named Judas did. And it was not a religion that nailed Jesus to a cross, it was a Roman. The Jewish people as a whole can not be held by any account to the death of Jesus, therefore the Catholics and Protestants shouldn't hold them accountable. It is almost humorous to think that these sects of Christianity broke on rule that is so sacred in the faith, and that is the rule of brotherly love. The Catholics were so fast to say may peace be with you to the man sitting next to them at the end of mass, and then go straight to tying a Jewish man to the rack and ripping him limb from limb. During the inquisition, this scene from what seems like a nightmare was really the hell the Jewish people had to endure. Another thing I must comment on is the German people as a whole playing the roles of bystanders. The German people loved Adolf Hitler because he was able to "pin point the cause" of the financial problems in Germany, the Jewish people. Of course we know this was not truly the cause, but the Germans were so blinded by their plight, they were willing to accept anything to end the pain. Hitler had an answer, and the German people swallowed it whole. As a person of German descent, it is hard for me to say that the people are as much to blame as Hitler himself. There were more civilians than there were Nazis, and if even half spoke up they could have stopped his terror before it started.
A comment on Katie's post. The reason people are naive enough to believe that Jewish people have horns is probably because the have never seen a Jewish person! Put it into perspective. When we think of aliens from outer space we think of green people with huge bug like black eyes that harvest brain and what not. In reality, these aliens could look just like you and me, and we would never know until we see one. We think of them as green people because that is how we were raised to think of them as. Think of the movie ET as a piece of Alien propaganda. Now, think of the young Germans or whoever that have never seen a Jewish person before. When they see a cartoon of a Jewish person with horns, they think it must be true because they have never seen one! It isn't necessarily they think they're better than the Jewish people, it is pure ignorance. Pure ignorance can't be punished or ridiculed.
I learned a lot today. I never knew that much about the Jewish religion, and the beliefs of Jewish people. I also learned a lot more about anti-semitism. I never knew the long history of what the Jewish people have had to deal with, and I didn't even know much about what they still deal with today. I had really only knew what history classes had focused on in the past, which is only about Hitler and Germany, and I still learned more about that. I also agree with Alexa about what she expected to see when told a rabbi was coming in. My family used to own a kosher bakery, where I got to meet many rabbis and other Jewish people, and still in my mind I expected to be seeing Hasidic Jewish person.
Coming into class today, I didn't know that Jewish people had been labeled so badly. The presentation that Rabbi Swartz had for us today was really informing. I thought it was really interesting of how settled and comfortable he was talking about this topic. He did a good job of giving the Jewish view on the things that took place. He outlined everything and provided really good information. He seemed like he was trying to get a point out that his religion is not what it has been stereotyped to be. One thing that I did not know about the antisemitic people viewed the Jewish people in an evil way. That they were viewed as evil animals and other false beings. This personally became very disturbing. When I saw the picture of the Jewish person with the horns on its head, made me think of how bad I would feel if I was Jewish and saw that.
I agree with Katie. It is extremely ridiculous that Jewish people are still viewed like this today. It is wrong.
Both the film and the lecture/speaker were very informative. For example, before today, I only knew of Martin Luther in relation to the Protestant Revolution, and in this mostly positive overtones, while also was a vehement anti-semite and whose teachings led to many of the beliefs of the Nazi party.
Katie, I was also surprised at all the myths about Jews. I think the film had a segment where some modern day Christians still believe that the Jews killed children for their blood etc, and that they even wired up some child's skeleton as "proof."
Mostly unrelated but interesting thing about Judas:
I read some time ago that some scrolls were found that contained the Gospel of Judas, with his side of the story differing from that of the other Gospels. If I remember correctly, the scrolls said that Jesus knew he had to die and how, and told Judas to turn him in to the Romans, so Judas was actually doing what he was supposed to do instead of betraying Jesus (says his Gospel).
I found the video very informative. The presentation was rather dull and it almost sounded more like a report than a fun presentation. However, I appreciate the Rabbi for coming to our school and giving us some information that I have never heard before. I would've liked to ask him if he ever met or knew of any holocaust survivors. I was curious of that.
The video was very interesting as well. The video had a smooth transition in relating to Hitler and his antics. It was amazing to see how much propaganda can affect human minds.
I agree with Jason in that although we know the basic concept of anti-semitism, we didn't know it was this bad. We are finding out in more detail, which is even more shocking.
In the movie and the lecture, I learned so much about the histroy of the Jewish people and all that they had to overcome. Throughout all of the hatred, they still continued to have pride for thier religon and they still stood up for what they believed in. I couldn't even begin to imagine how I would feel if I were a Jewish person during the time of the Holocaust. Im glad that times have changed and people are more accepting now.
Like Katie said about Jewish people having horns is crazy. I don't see how somebody could believe that.
I thought that Rabbi Swartz's (I hope I spelled it correctly) presentation was very enlightening. I learned lots of interesting things about not only history, but also about the Jewish faith.
Justin, I thought your comment about aliens and how we percieve them was a great way to relate it to the way some people view(ed) Jews.
Being Jewish and having gone to religious school since I was in Kindergarten I thought that I a lot of knowledge on the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism. As I watched the movie though it made me think about how I was so young when I learned all of this information... I knew about most of it, but it seemed to make more sense to watch it now rather than in seventh or eighth grade. It bothers me that so many people wanted to get rid of the Jews in not only Germany but also most of Europe. One scene that angered me was seeing the girls cry out of excitement when Hitler was speaking. Another scene that I thought was really interesting was when the people had to walk through the concentration and extermination camps and see all of the dead people.
I agree with Mike that its amazing that so many people were killed who were so innocent.
I found the lecture to be extremely informative and eye opening. I really had no idea that the Holocaust was the effect of anti-sematism in the past. I had no idea that such hatred for the jews existed to so ago. That people blamed the jews and hated them so much for so long. I had always thought that the hated of the jews was always part of the holocaust and the nazi regiem, rather than having roots that go back thousands of years.
I agree with Jason and Alexa about expecting a beard and robe. It really shows how ignorant we really are even though we don't think it.
im just glad to be learning about world war 2 again... its been a while! but as for my opinion on the movie... i can see why antisemitism arose in nazi germany or as katie said why people believed that jews had horns or sacrificed little children... it mainly has to do with the fact that when everybody points their finger at you, you want to point the finger at your little brother or sister, because you dont want to get in trouble for what you did... in the same way after world war 1 ended everybody blamed germany for the cause and made them pay the debt of the war, but after the country was "depressed" and the pople felt like they were desciminated against, they pointed their finger at the jew, and by treating the jews badly, they could feel better about themselves because now they felt like they were the world picicking on someone else... the best example of the "classic bully case". but after that, the nazi's built upon that and as i beleieve took the notion too far, thus causing the holocaust... but as katie said, and which i agree with, people had to have been naive, but when you think about it, we still are, if you can remember when 9/11 happened, people discriminating against muslims heavily, so, history will always repeat itself, i guess...
O'DOYLE RULES
While watching the film I have never really known the extent that Jewish people have gone through in history. For myself when thinking back into history I always knew that Jewish people were treated horrible and inhumanely during the holocaust but never blamed for Jesus' death. It is just sad to see a group of individuals and religion being blamed for so many different events in history and never fully having the ability to change those views. To this day there are people who still blame the Jewish community for what happened thousands of years ago. Nowadays the Jewish community has been chosen as sort of a world wide known joke. The term ‘Jew’ for many is just a gag but so many stereotypes and hatred come with using that single word. I do not believe that to this day as a whole the Jewish community have been taken seriously, even watching the movie the propaganda used is just a general bases that was used to dehumanize the Jewish religion and community. What was used there is now being used today in movies, TV shows, SNL skits, etc. The events that have happened to the Jewish community are not even comparable to what others have had to go through. But history does have a way of repeating itself so if it is not one group it is another. I do not think the human race will ever fully be equal or accepting of others differences because history has and will show that someone has to be blamed for all of the problems in the world.
I agree with what Neil said about the “classic bully case.” I think you are correct in saying that in order to build one up you must tear another done which is the case with the film.
Robe and a Beard??? Seriously...
"The Longest Hatred" was an extremely informative, yet quite interesting piece of film. It shed a lot of light on many subjects that many people know about, but don't have a great depth of knowledge about, like me. Learning facts such as how anti Semitism was so deeply rooted into Christianity was something I had never know.
Having the Rabbi come to speak with all of us too was very interesting. Hearing his opinion on the subjects we learned about in the video and the questions we had were very interesting.
And Justin... I don't know what to say about how you replied to Katie... that was brilliant.
Having the Rabbi come in was great for the class. I though it helped us realize how meaningful it was till this day the importance of the longest hatred. I enjoyed having the rabbi there and appreciated the time he took out of his busy schedule it helped me "link" everything together and helped me realize that Jewish people to this day are still persecuted. I hope that in the future there will be more speeches given in the school to helped future student understand that racism still occurs in our modern day.
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