Why Do Christians and Muslims Hate Jews?

Since I was a fairly young child, I wondered why one group of people hated another group of people. I found it hard to understand. I got along with pretty much everyone in my neighborhood, except the bullies. And they came in all colors. In fact, the worst ones were the family across the street from me (which shall remain nameless), and they were all white.

My first real experience with prejudice was when I was in second grade. For perspective, this was in 1962. I had a friend in my class named Gerald. Gerald was black, which made no difference to me at that age. We were friends. We helped each other when the bigger kids tried to bully us, we played on the same teams in gym class, etc.

One day, I invited Gerald home to my house after school. I’d gotten a new game for my birthday, and I wanted to show it to Gerald. In Rochester, New York, where I grew up, we didn’t have school buses. Schools were always within what was considered walking distance of one’s home back then. So, Gerald asked his parents and the next day he walked home with me.

We were in the kitchen of my house, trying to learn the rules of my new game when my father came home from work. He walked into the kitchen and immediately got a scowl on his face. He asked, “What’s going on here?”

I told him Gerald was my friend from school and I had invited him home to check out my new game. My father thought about that, briefly. Then, looking at Gerald, he said, “Okay, now it’s time for you to go home!”

I tried to object, but he didn’t want to hear it. So, Gerald put on his coat and gloves and my father ushered him out the back door. As soon as Gerald was out the door and on his way down the sidewalk, my father turned to me and in his angry voice said, “Don’t you ever bring a nigger into my house again!”

His anger and his words were so strong that it was like a physical blow to me. I cowered. That was my first real experience of racial prejudice that I hadn’t known existed up to that point. And it came from my own father, aimed at my friend. As I grew older, I came to understand that my father was an equal opportunity bigot — he hated anyone who wasn’t of German ancestry (even though he was only half German, himself).

I had no idea what he meant because at six years old, I had never heard that term before. There was no segregation at our school. Races, religions, nationalities all mixed together in classes without even thinking about there being any differences.

I had to ask my mother why my father was so mad about my friend coming over. She explained how some groups of people don’t like other groups, and my father didn’t like black people. She didn’t explain why, and I still didn’t really understand. But I vowed from that day on that I would not be one of those people who don’t like others.

As I grew older and started to notice that my friends were picking up similar attitudes from their parents, I refused to go along. To this day, the only thing I care about in people is how they treat other people and are they law abiding. After that, I form my own opinion based on what I observe of their actions and personalities.

That was a long way around of getting to the point of prejudice against Jews. I grew up going to the Lutheran Church. I learned about the stories of the Old Testament in Sunday School, and later that Jesus Christ was born a Jew. I learned that Jewish people have different holidays from Christians. And that was really all I learned about Jews until high school.

In high school World History class, we learned about World War II and about the Holocaust. By that time, I knew a few Jewish kids and liked most of them. I also knew kids who were Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, and even some Jehovah’s Witnesses who lived across the street from me. So, I found it very hard to understand how anyone could try to commit genocide against an entire group of people just because of their religion.

In our school library, we had (believe it or not) eight-millimeter films about WWII, including films of the carnage that the Allies found when they liberated the Concentration Camps. I watched them with a knot in my stomach at the evil they showed. I saw the mass graves used to bury the murdered Jews before they started using ovens.

I imagined the Jewish friends that I knew, and their families being slaughtered like that, and for a long time I had hatred in my heart for the German people (even though I have German ancestry). Back then, the Nazis and the German people were synonymous in my mind. I didn’t learn until later, with my strong interest in history that there was a real difference.

I gained a love of history through reading. My sisters taught me to read at a very young age and I have loved it ever since. When I was young, I used to read anywhere from 2 to 5 books a week, depending on length. I don’t get as much time these days, but I continue to devour at least one book a week.

Even with my love of history and reading, at age 68 I still had not learned why both Christians and Muslims hated Jews so much. Jesus Christ was a Jew and I know that he’s revered in both of those religions. Both of those religions are based on the early, pre-Christ, Jewish religion and Islam is based on Christianity, as well as Judaism. So, why did people of both religions hate their parent religion so much?

I mentioned my love of reading and history because the combination of both is what spurred me to do a lot of research when, on October 7, 2023, at 6:30 A.M. the Islamic terrorist organization called Hamas launched a brutal attack on southern Israel. They murdered around (the exact number isn’t known at the time of this writing) 1200 Israelis, Americans, and Europeans. Worse, they tortured and mutilated many of their victims.

If that date sounds familiar, it may be because you’re as old as me and remember another unprovoked attack by Arab Islamic states against Israel that occurred on Oct. 6, 1973. That year, the most holy religious holiday for Jews, Yom Kippur, started on Oct. 6 giving the resulting war the name ‘Yom Kippur War.

The current war between Israel and the terrorists is still ongoing today. And in America, the war sparked a major uprising of anti-Semitic and pro Hamas demonstrations and rallies, some close to becoming violent. In many cases the demonstrators are Muslims. But, to the surprise of many, a lot more of them are young Americans who were born Christian (many no longer claim that religion) and raised with those values. Young people on major college campuses have been having anti-Semitic demonstrations, posting pamphlets, and chanting things like, “From the river to the sea!”, many of them not even knowing that they are calling for genocide.

As an American who grew up believing that all people have the same rights, especially in the United States of America, I was, at first, stunned by the amount of anti-Semitic vitriol. Then I became angry that my fellow citizens, especially young people, would act this way. Angry that this anti-Semitic garbage existed in my country in the years 2023 and 2024. What the Hell is wrong with these people?

I finally decided that I was going to research and dig until I found the real source(s) of hatred against the Jews by Christians and Muslims. It took a lot of digging and reading, but I believe I have found several root causes that were the seeds from which so much virulent hatred against the members of one of the three great religions in the world grew.

First, let’s look at the Christian motivation. The early followers of Jesus Christ, now known as Christians (word first used in Antioch in the first century C.E.), were considered a cult by both the Jewish people from which they were born and the Romans who ruled (and named the region) Palestine at the time.

The entire idea of Jesus Christ being the long-awaited Messiah was an insult to all of Judaism. They expected the Messiah to be a great king and warrior who would lead the Jewish nation to freedom at the point of a sword, driving out their oppressors. Jesus and his teachings of spirituality just plain didn’t fit the bill.

Around the year 36 C.E., the very first Christian martyr (St.) Stephen, an early Christian convert and deacon, preached the gospel in the synagogue, and that Jesus would “change the customs that Moses delivered to us”. He was accused of preaching blasphemy in the Temple by a Jewish court, convicted, and condemned to be stoned to death. Prominent at Stephen’s trial, and vocal in his approval of the sentence was a fellow Jew named Saul.

After Saul’s famous conversion on the Damascus Road, when he took the name Paul, he was repeatedly persecuted by his fellow Jews. At one point, he was forced to flee from Damascus in fear of his life.

Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, ascended the throne of Judea in 41 C.E. and upped the ante on the persecution by arresting a number of prominent Christians, including the Apostle James (brother of John), who he ordered executed. He also arrested and imprisoned Peter intending to give him a show trial before executing him. According to the story, on the night before his trial, Peter was broken out of jail by an angel. Agrippa died shortly after that.

The Jewish persecution of Christians came to a head when James, the brother of Jesus, who was head of the early Christian Church, became too public with his teachings. He was seized and hurled off a Temple parapet for his declaration of Jesus as Christ. When he landed on the ground, he was beaten to death with a club. The date of his death is uncertain but apparently occurred in the early 60s C.E.

Finally, in 69 C.E., anticipating the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the leadership of the Christian Church moved to the city of Pella on the east side of the Jordan River. Up to this point, most Christians still considered themselves to be Jews, too. But the persecution by their fellow Jews now caused them to follow more closely to the preachings of Paul. Paul preached that the Christian Church wasn’t just for Jews, but for everyone. Thus, the church began its conversion from almost purely Jewish to eventually become a church of mostly Gentiles.

Thus, it was this early persecution of Christian Jewish converts that gave birth to the initial animosity between the two religions. As the Christian Church became more Gentile than Jew, the resentment apparently festered. The repeated friction between the Jews and their Roman rulers didn’t help.

The Romans considered the Jews to be narrow-minded and stubborn. The Roman Senator Tacitus called the Jews, “a race detested by the gods” and called the Jewish religion, “a novel form of worship, opposed to all that is practiced by other people. Things sacred to us, to them have no sanctity; while that which for us is forbidden, they allow.”

I’m going to pause here. This article has turned out to be much longer than I originally planned. Once I got started, it took on a life of its own because I had so much, I wanted to say and there was so much information that I was finally able to dig up, thanks to that wonderful invention we all use, the internet. I’m going to publish this story now and look towards next week to publish Part 2.

SOURCES:

1. Oxford Academic — PAST & PRESENT, https://academic.oup.com/past/article/261/1/3/6982747?login=false
2. Owlcation, https://owlcation.com/humanities/Why-did-the-Jews-Persecute-the-First-Christians-Jewish-Persecution-of-the-Early-Church
3. United Church of God, Beyond Today, https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/blogs/the-church-of-god-returns-to-pella
4. Israel Bible Center, https://weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/what-did-ancient-greeks-and-romans-think-of-jews