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Asal Usul Yahudi
Kita pernah dengar bagaimana keganasan Israel di bumi Palestin, tidak kira tua atau muda saudara kita, tidak kira lelaki atau wanita saudara kita, dikencam begitu hina. Antara ceritanya adalah Wujudnya kaum yahudi dan sejarah kehidupannya, tertubuhnya Pergerakan Zionis dan Pencerobohan dibumi Palestin. Semoga segala cerita ini akan membuka minda kita dan memberi iktibar pada kehidupan kita tentang asal usul kaum Yahudi.
Asal-usul kaum yang laknat.
Pada masa ini ramai orang yang beranggapan bahawa Hebrew, Bani Israel dan Yahudi itu adalah sama sahaja. Tapi sebenarnya, setiap satu dari yang disebutkan itu adalah berbeza. Hebrew merupakan satu bahasa dan bukan rumpun bangsa. Bahasa Hebrew digunakan oleh puak nomad Semitic yang tinggal di Timur Mediterranean sebelum tahun 1300 sebelum Masihi.
Bani Israel pula adalah merupakan satu rumpun bangsa yang sememangnya pernah wujud dalam sejarah manusia. Manakala Yahudi pula adalah satu kumpulan manusia yang telah mengamalkan peradaban Hebrew dan Bani Israel.
Orang-orang Yahudi sebenarnya tergolong dari berbagai-bagai rumpun bangsa dan bukan satu bangsa yang tulen. Ia merupakan tidak lebih daripada sekumpulan komuniti manusia yang berjaya memelihara identity mereka selama 1900 tahun. Iaitu dari tarikh musnahnya wilayah kekuasaan Rom yang dikenali sebagai Judea dalam tahun 135 Masihi sehinggalah penubuhan Negara Israel dalam tahun 1948. Dalam tahun 1970, Parlimen Israel telah meluluskan satu undang-undang yang mentafsirkan Yahudi sebagai seorang yang dilahirkan daripada seorang ibu Yahudi. Satu tafsiran yang tidak mempunyai erti langsung. Apa yang telah mengekalkan perpaduan mereka ini ialah keteguhan mereka dalam memegang dan mengeamalkan agama yang dikenali sebagai Judaisme.
Orang-orang Yahudi mengabadikan diri mereka yang begitu mendalam dan bersungguh-sungguh terhadap ilmu pengetahuan. Kepada mereka, mempelajari ilmu pengetahuan adalah satu-satunya amalan keagamaan yang mesti dilakukan di dalam apa jua keadaan sekalipun. Bagaimanapun, rata-rata, Yahudi adalah orang yang tidak sepatutnya diberi muka di atas bumi ini. Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu, mereka telah dengan mudah tunduk kepada tekanan-tekanan dan desakan Yahudi. Bagaimanakah hanya sekumpulan komuniti manusia boleh diberikan sebuah Negara. Negara itu pula adalah sebuah Negara milik orang lain.
Yahudi tidak dikehendaki walau di mana-mana pun. Di antara tahun 132 hingga 135 Yahudi telah diharamkan memasuki Jerusalem. Sesiapa sahaja di kalangan mereka yang melanggar perintah itu akan dihukum bunuh. Dalam kurun ke-enam pula, orang-orang Yahudi yang merempat di Sepanyol telah diletakkan ke satu taraf kedudukan yang paling hina sekali. Semasa kebangkitan agama Kristian di Eropah, ramai orang Yahudi telah dibunuh di atas tuduhan telah menyebabkan kematian Nabi Isa. Dalam zaman Perang Salib yang berlaku di antara kurun Masihi yang ke-11 hingga kurun Masihi yang ke-13, ramai lagi orang Yahudi yang telah dibunuh. Dalam tahun 1215, majlis Gereja Roman Katholik telah mengarahkan supaya semua orang Yahudi memakai tanda pengenalan. Perkara yang sama juga dilakukan oleh Khalifah Omar semasa beliau memerintah Baghdad. Dalam tahun 1920 pula, Raja Edward I, iaitu Raja England ketika itu, telah menghalau Yahudi dari bumi England. Perbuatan ini dituruti pula oleh Raja Perancis, Charles IV
Dalam abad yang ke-14 dalam satu era yang dipanggil 'Black Death', pembunuhan secara beramai-ramai ke atas orang-orang Yahudi menjadi sebagai satu perkara biasa sahaja. Sepanyol menghalau penduduk-penduduk Yahudi dari Negara mereka dalam tahun 1494. Portugal pula berbuat demikian dalam tahun 1497. Sejarah juga telah membuktikan bahawa orang-orang Yahudi ini telah merempat dari satu tempat ke satu tempat. Ada di antara mereka telah lari ke Turki. Nasib baiklah ketika itu Turki adalah sebuah Negara Islam yang diperintah oleh Constantinople. Islam adalah satu-satunya agama yang sangat bertoleransi. Selain dari Turki, mereka juga lari ke Rusia dan Poland. Dalam tahun 1648 terdapat kira-kira setengah juta Yahudi di Poland. Tapi tidak lama kemudian, di sekitar tahun 1648 hingga 1658, di bawah pemerintahan Bogdani Chmielnicki, sebilangan besar dari mereka telah dibunuh dan harta mereka dimusnahkan.
Selepas tahun 1650, satu era baru muncul pula di Eropah Barat berikutan dengan Reformasi Puak Protestan. Dalam era itu orang-orang Yahudi telah digalakkan pula berhijrah ke tanah jajahan British yang baru, iaitu Amerika. Dalam tahun 1791, Majlis Kebangsaan Perancis membenarkan kemasukan orang-orang Yahudi ke Negara itu. Ini dilakukan sebagai memenuhi konsep demokratik Revolusi Perancis. Namun begitu, tidak beberapa lama kemudian, Napoleon I telah membantah keras dasar itu. Sementara kedatangan orang-orang Yahudi disambut baik di Eropah Barat, Eropah Timur pula mengamalkan dasar yang berlawanan. Rusia dan Poland telah mengamalkan dasar pembunuhan beramai-ramai ke atas orang-orang Yahudi. Pembunuhan ini samalah seperti apa yang telah berlaku di Eropah Barat satu ketika dahulu.
Apabila Poland Timur menjadi sebuah tanah jajahan Rusia di antara tahun-tahun 1772 hingga 1796, orang-orang Yahudi yang masih ramai lagi hidup di situ telah dikenakan sekatan-sekatan yang hebat. Mereka juga hilang hak untuk menuntut ilmu dan berniaga. Mereka tidak dibenarkan tinggal di luar tempat-tempat yang tertentu. Bukan itu sahaja, malah Kerajaan Rusia telah menggalakkan serta membiayai pembunuhan orang-orang Yahudi secara beramai-ramai. Peristiwa inilah yang dikenali sebagai 'pogrom', iaitu pembunuhan orang-orang Yahudi secara beramai-ramai di zaman moden. Ia berlaku dalam tahun 1881 berikutan terbunuhnya Czar Alexander II.
Kemudian dalam tahun 1903 dan tahun1905, ekoran dari kegagalan Revolusi Rusia, berlaku sekali lagi pogrom. Pogrom kali ini hebat dan berlaku di 600 buah kampung orang-orang Yahudi. Mereka dicincang hidup-hidup sementara harta benda mereka serta rumah-rumah mereka dibakar. Pogrom yang mengorbankan beratus-ratus ribu orang Yahudi pula berlaku semasa Perang Saudara Rusia akibat dari Revolusi Bolshevik dalam tahun 1917. Dalam tahun 1938, pogrom juga telah berlaku di Jerman. Dan pogrom yang terbesar sekali yang pernah berlaku dalam sejarah ialah pogrom yang berlaku dalam Perang Dunia Kedua di mana seramai enam juta orang-orang Yahudi telah dibunuh secara sistematik dalam apa yang dinamakan oleh Kerajaan Jerman sebagai 'penyelesaian terakhir kepada masalah orang-orang Yahudi'. |
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Sejarah telah membuktikan bahawa kaum Yahudi merupakan kaum yang sentiasa ditindas dan ditekan. Peristiwa-peristiwa yang berlaku sepanjang zaman semenjak dari zaman Nabi Allah SWT Musa a.s. sehinggalah zaman mereka berada di Palestin selepas itu sentiasa menyaksikan pembunuhan kaum Yahudi secara beramai-ramai oleh musuh-musuh mereka.
Melalui peristiwa-peristiwa yang berlaku itu, kita selaku umat Islam yakin bahawa kependudukan mereka secara haram di negara Palestin akan berakhir tidak lama lagi.
Mereka akan dihalau keluar dari negara itu sama sepertimana datuk nenek mereka dipaksa keluar dari negara itu. Perkara ini telah dijanjikan oleh Allah SWT menerusi banyak ayat al-Quran, contohnya dalam surah Al-A'raf ayat 167 yang bermaksud:
"Dan (ingatlah wahai Muhammad) ketika Tuhanmu memberitahu: Bahawa sesungguhnya Ia akan menghantarkan kepada kaum Yahudi itu, (terus menerus) hingga hari kiamat, kaum-kaum yang akan menimpakan mereka dengan azab sengsara yang seburuk-buruknya (disebabkan kejahatan dan kekufuran mereka). Sesungguhnya Tuhanmu amat cepat azab seksa-Nya, dan sesungguhnya Dia juga Maha Pengampun lagi Maha Mengasihani."
Kejahatan Bangsa Yahudi Menurut Al-Quran
Ayat di atas menyebutkan bahawa azab dan tekanan akan terus menimpa mereka hingga ke hari kiamat. Berita-berita masa lampau tentang mereka sebelum Islam perlu diberitahu kepada mereka agar mereka sedar bahawa masa tersebut akan tiba dan kebenaran isi kandungan al-Quran sebagai wahyu Ilahi akan terbukti.
Ayat-ayat seperti ini memberi satu kekuatan berupa sokongan moral kepada umat Islam secara amnya dan bangsa Arab Islam khasnya agar berusaha memperkuatkan diri ke arah merealisasikan fakta ini.
Penindasan Ke Atas Yahudi Sebelum Islam
Tersebut dalam lipatan sejarah penjajahan ke atas Yahudi telah dimulakan oleh Raja Fir'aun Nikho dari Mesir. Selepas itu untuk kali keduanya mereka telah dijajah lagi oleh Raja Nabukadnesar (Bukhti-Nashar) dari Babil. Semasa penjajahan tersebut, raja dan tenteranya telah membinasakan habis-habisan Jerussalam termasuk Baitul Maqdis yang didirikan oleh Nabi Sulaiman a.s. dan menawan majoriti rakyatnya .
Inilah yang disebutkan oleh Allah SWT dalam ayat surah al-Isra' ayat yang bermaksud:
"Dan Kami menyatakan kepada Bani Israel dalam Kitab itu: "Sesungguhnya kamu akan melakukan kerosakan di bumi (Palestin) dua kali, dan sesungguhnya kamu akan berlaku sombong angkuh dengan melampau. Maka apabila sampai masa janji (membalas kederhakaan kamu) kali yang pertama dari dua (kederhakaan) itu, Kami datangkan kepada kamu hamba-hamba Kami yang kuat gagah dan amat ganas serangannya lalu mereka rnenjelajah di segala ceruk rantau (membunuh dan membinasakan kamu); dan (sebenarnya peristiwa itu) adalah satu janji yang tetap berlaku".
Seterusnya pada tahun 203 sebelum Masihi pula menyaksikan penjajahan yang lebih teruk oleh raja-raja Syria malahan membawa kepada penahanan Yahuza yang menjadi raja Yahudi pada masa itu. Orang-orang lelaki dijadikan hamba abdi, manakala cukai-cukai yang tinggi turut dikenakan ke atas mereka.
Tidak cukup di situ Allah SWT membinasakan mereka apabila Rom menjajah pula selepas itu. Negara Palestin telah dimasukkan di bawah negara mereka. Pada tahun 70 Masihi, golongan Yahudi telah melakukan pemberontakan ke atas penjajah mereka iaitu Rom. Pemberontakan ini menemui jalan buntu. Akibatnya Rom telah mengeluarkan arahan kepada gabenornya di situ yang bernama Titus untuk membakar rumah-rumah ibadat Yahudi dan membunuh kebanyakan penduduk Yahudi dan menjual yang lainnya sehagai hamba.
Tidak lama selepas itu, Jerussalem pesat membangun semula. Kaum Yahudi mengambil kesempatan untuk memberontak buat kali kedua tetapi masih gagal. Adrian yang menjadi raja Rom akhirnya memerintahkan agar bandar Jerussalem dimusnahkan habis-habisan dan rakyatnya dibunuh. Ditaksirkan lebih 500,000 jiwa telah terkorban dalam peristiwa itu .
Penindasan Ke Atas Yahudi Selepas Islam
Apabila Nabi Muhammad SAW berhijrah ke Madinah, kaum Yahudi telah menyusun beberapa konspirasi jahat ke atas Islam. Akibatnya, pelbagai tindakan tegas telah dikenakan terhadap mereka sehingga membawa kepada pembunuhan beramai-ramai kaum Yahudi dan pengusiran keluar dari negara Islam Madinah.
Kemudian di akhir kurun ke 13, penindasan ke atas mereka masih berterusan. Pada kali ini negara Eropah pula yang bertindak menekan mereka. Sejarah telah menunjukkan bahawa kaum Yahudi pernah dibunuh di Sepanyol dan Portugal. Bahkan kepercayaan agama Kristian lama beranggapan bahawa menekan Yahudi adalah melambangkan keimanan yang sebenarnya.
Tekanan yang dihadapi menyebabkan Yahudi mencari perlindungan di Andalus. Pemimpin-pemimpin Islam di Andalus pada waktu itu memberi perlindungan politik kepada Yahudi sebagai satu cara untuk berdakwah kepada mereka. Namun panas yang disangka sampai ke petang, rupanya hujan di tengahari. Nikmat perlindungan rupa-rupanya tidak lama. Penganut-penganut Kristian telah berjaya menundukkan kuasa Islam di Andalus. Sekali lagi penyembelihan orang-orang Yahudi berlaku secara beramai-ramai. Mereka di halau keluar dari bandar-bandar seperti Balensia, Qordova, Gibraltar, Barcelona dan juga dari tempat-tempat lain. Seorang paderi besar Katolik di situ yang bernama Hernando Martins telah menyampaikan ucapan anti Yahudi dan mengarahkan agar unsur-unsur termasuk penganutnya dihapuskan.
Peperangan Salib telah meletus di Andalus dan kebanyakan orang yahudi dihapuskan. Ramai dari kalangan mereka telah dipaksa memeluk Kristian. Dalam tempoh kurang dari 3 bulan, setiap individu yang enggan masuk Kristian akan dihalau ke tempat lain luar dari Andalus. Sesiapa yang melanggar perintah akan dihukum bunuh .
Kebanyakan orang Yahudi yang enggan memeluk Kristian telah meninggalkan Andalus. Malangnya di tengah jalan para lanun telah menangkap mereka dan mereka dijadikan hamba untuk diperniagakan. Sesiapa yang terlepas pula jarang yang dapat hidup kerana diserang kelaparan dan penyakit berjangkit seperti taun dan lain-lain.
Walaupun menghadapi pelbagai penindasan, golongan Yahudi akhirnya berjaya juga menaja satu perhimpunan yang menghimpunkan sekitar 80,000 orang ahli. Mereka mengambil keputusan untuk berhijrah ke Portugal setelah mendapat pelawaan rajanya yang beragama Kristian dan bersikap terbuka. Setibanya di sana, raja yang selama ini bersikap terbuka, tiba-tiba berubah menjadi anti Yahudi selepas dipengaruhi golongan gereja yang selama ini menentang mereka. Semua golongan lelaki dewasa Yahudi telah dipaksa meninggalkan negara Portugal, manakala wanita dan anak-anak dipaksa menukar agama kepada Kristian.
Tekanan dan kezaliman ke atas Yahudi sebenarnya tidaklah terbatas di negara-negara seperti Sepanyol, Portugal dan Rom sahaja.
Malahan semua negara Eropah Kristian telah mengambil sikap anti-Yahudi secara terang-terangan. Di bawah dinyatakan peristiwa-peristiwa kezaliman yang berlaku keatas golongan Yahudi:
1. Di England, King Edwaard telah menghalau Yahudi beramai-ramai pada tahun 1290.
2. Di Perancis, King Phillip telah menghalau mereka dari Perancis pada tahun 1306. Menurut fakta sejarah, Raja Phillip kemudiannva telah membenarkan sebahagian daripada mereka untuk pulang ke Perancis selepas itu, tetapi keputusan diambil untuk menghalau semula mereka pada tahun 1394.
3. Di Hungary, golongan Yahudi telah dibuang negara beramai-ramai. Tetapi mereka memberanikan diri pulang semula sebelum dihalau kembali pada tahun 1582.
4. Di Belgium, mereka dihalau beramai-ramai pada tahun 1370.
5. Di negara Czechoslovakia pula, puak Yahudi dihalau pada tahun 1380. Mereka kembali semula untuk bermastautin pada tahun 1592. Malangnya pada tahun 1744, Queen Maria Theressa telah mengarahkan agar dihalau semula golongan Yahudi tersebut.
6. Di negara Austria pula, Raja Bright ke-5 telah menghalau mereka dari negara itu pada tahun 1420.
7. Di Holland, mereka dihalau dari Outricht pada tahun 1444.
8. Di Itali, mereka dihalau dari Napoli dan Sardina pada tahun 1540.
9. Di Jerman, golongan Yahudi dihambat dari Bavaria pada tahun 1551. Kemudian telah berlaku penindasan secara berterusan ke atas mereka oleh masyarakat berfahaman Nazi. Beratus ribu Yahudi telah terkorban dalam keganasan itu.
10. Di Rusia pula, rakyat tempatan telah berkerjasama menghalau orang-orang Yahudi pada tahun 1510. Golongan Yahudi beransur-ansur pulang selepas itu dengan harapan penduduk tempatan telah memaafkan mereka. Namun begitu, tekanan masih berterusan sehingga tentera Rusia turut masuk campur untuk menyembelih mereka beramai-ramai di Ukraine sepanjang tahun 1919.
Menurut kajian, lebih dari 100,000 Yahudi telah diragut nyawanya termasuk lelaki dan perempuan serta anak-anak mereka. Jalanraya telah dibasahi dengan darah mereka. Tentera telah melakukan kekejaman di luar batasan pemikiran manusia di samping mencincang lumat anggota badan mereka.
Mengapa Yahudi Ditindas?
Antara sebab penindasan dilakukan ke atas mereka adalah kerana sikap sombong dan tidak setia pada perjuangan. Masyarakat Kristian Eropah menyedari sikap yang ditunjukkan itu. Golongan Yahudi merupakan golongan yang tidak pernah kenal erti berterima kasih. Walaupun hanya menumpang di negara orang, perangai mereka tidak ubah seperti tuan yang memeras dan menganiaya golongan peribumi negara itu. Kemahiran berniaga telah menjadikan golongan Yahudi sombong dan tidak berperikemanusiaan.
Orang yang meminjam dan berurus niaga dengan mereka terjebak dalam sistem riba. Ekonomi yang berasaskan riba telah dimulakan oleh korporat-korporat Yahudi yang berjaya untuk memastikan terus menjadi kaya tanpa memikirkan nasib si miskin.
Perkara ini tidaklah menghairankan kerana menurut kepercayaan mereka seperti yang dijelaskan di dalam 'Talmud' iaitu tafsiran kepada kitab 'Taurat', ada dinyatakan secara terang-terangan bahawa riba halal dengan urus niaga bersama bukan Yahudi. Ini disebabkan Yahudi adalah anak-anak Allah SWT, manakala selain mereka adalah binatang berupa anjing dan babi. Justeru itu, mereka berhak melakukan apa sahaja demi kepentingan peribadi.
Disebut dalam Talmud lagi:
* Pemilikan harta-harta oleh selain Yahudi adalah tidak sah. Jadi sesiapa sahaja di kalangan Yahudi boleh merampas hak tersebut.
* Allah SWT (SWT) menganugerahkan ke atas mereka hak untuk bertindak sesuka hati ke atas bangsa-bangsa lain.
* Kedudukan Yahudi ke atas bangsa-bangsa lain sama seperti kedudukan manusia ke atas binatang. Bangsa-bangsa lain memiliki sifat-sifat kebinatangan. Tiada siapa yang dapat mengajar mereka melainkan Yahudi.
* Riba diharamkan sesama Yahudi, tetapi dihalalkan kepada selain mereka. Malahan menurut perlembagaan Talmud itu, HARAM memberikan pinjaman kepada bangsa lain tanpa dikenakan riba.
Penaklukan Palestin Oleh Rejim Haram Yahudi
Sebab utama penaklukan negara Palestin sebenarnya berpunca dari perancangan yang teliti oleh Persatuan Freemason Antarabangsa. Freemason melihat usaha begini penting bagi mengelakkan pupusnya spesis Yahudi dari persada dunia.
Takdir Allah SWT membenarkan mereka berjaya menakluk Palestin dengan restu gerakan Kristian sedunia dan bantuan mereka. Perkara ini berlaku dalam keadaan orang-umat Islam terutamanya masyarakat Arab sedang lalai. Persoalannya, sampai bilakah mereka akan berjaya mendominasi negara yang kecil itu. Mereka perlu waspada kepada masyarakat Arab yang berjumlah lebih 100 juta orang itu yang sentiasa mengingati sejarah buruk antara mereka dan Yahudi sepanjang zaman. Masa jua yang akan menentukan segala-galanya. |
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mereka tidak dikendaki di mana mana, tapi tengok pencapaian dorang skrg. maybe there's something we can learn from them.
p/s; sejahat jahat firaun pon ade sifat baiknya juga. |
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nie yang kita perlu belajar dari mereka:
Orang-orang Yahudi mengabadikan diri mereka yang begitu mendalam dan bersungguh-sungguh terhadap ilmu pengetahuan. Kepada mereka, mempelajari ilmu pengetahuan adalah satu-satunya amalan keagamaan yang mesti dilakukan di dalam apa jua keadaan sekalipun. |
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Dan semangat setia mereka, berapa kali Arab menyerang mereka, dan mereka masih mampu bertahan malahan menang didalam peperang tersebut. If i not mistaken dalam perang 6 hari, mereka diserang bukan oleh satu negara tapi 3 negara...... |
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Yahudi biarpun bangsa mereka dikutuk di hina sekali pun mereka boleh bangkit dgn megah dan bergaya di dunia sekarang ini. Salah satu sebab mereka kuat ialah wujud hubungan erat dan saling bantu membantu antara mereka. Mereka ada fund sendiri yg membiayai semua xtvt mereka...alangkah baiknya kalau umat Islam juga dapat meniru cara mereka. |
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one of my jew fren, dia memang kena funded oleh organisation dia untuk study dulu, walaupun kalau nak dikirakan, kelulusan dia tu cuma cukup cukup makan, tapi kerana minat dia, dan berjaya meyakinkan board, dia dapat scholarship. Kalau kita? hehe baru nampak borang dah kena tong sampahkan borang tu |
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Saya ada baca satu kisah bahawa di Semenanjung Arab ler.....
Kisah Yahudi ni dia semata2 nak tolong bangsa dia. Sanggup berjalan satu kilometer semata2 hendak pergi ke kedai runcit bangsanya. Sedangkan banyak kedai runcit bangsa lain yang rata2nya Islam.....
Masalahnya dia hanya mahu membeli sekotak mancis sahaja........
Bayangkan...... |
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Nak Tambah Boleh??
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Timeline of Jewish History
Biblical history
A separate article exists on the timeline of Biblical characters and the Israelites. See the entry on the history of ancient Israel and Judah. Note, however, that the absence of independent evidence confirming the biblical narrative causes many scholars to question the accuracy or even the veracity of the historical account
Post Biblical-history
200 BCE to 700 CE
200 BCE - 100 CE Throughout this era the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) is gradually canonized. Jewish religious works that were written after the time of Ezra were not canonized, although many became popular among many groups of Jews and subsequently, Christians. Those works that made it into the Greek translation of the Bible (the Septuagint) became known as the deuterocanonical books.
30-100 CE Christianity emerges as a movement, and then splits from Judaism.
66 - 70 CE The Great Jewish Revolt ended with destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem.
70 - 200 CE Period of the tannaim, rabbis who developed the Jewish oral law, began after Pharisaic sage Yohanan ben Zakkai established a Judaic school at Yavne. The decisions of the tannaim are contained in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and various Midrash compilations. (see Torah (at Shamash)
73 CE The fall of Masada.
131 CE The Roman emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem into Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to set a foot there.
132 - 135 CE Bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a doomed Jewish revolt against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions. In the aftermath of the revolt, Hadrian renamed the province ofJudea as Syria Palaestina.
200 CE The Mishnah, a written record of the Jewish oral law, is redacted by Judah haNasi.
220 - 500 CE Period of the amoraim, the rabbis of the Talmud.
450 Redaction of Talmud Yerushalmi (Talmud of the land of Israel)
550 The main redaction of Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) is completed under Rabbis Ravina and Ashi. To a lesser degree, the text continues to be modifed for the next 200 years.
550 - 700 Period the savoraim, the sages in Persia who put the Talmud in its final form. Jews at this time in Israel were living under the oppressive rule of the Byzantines.
600 CE In the 7th century C.E. the Khazars (a Turkic semi-nomadic people from Central Asia who adopted Judaism) founded the independent Khazar kingdom in the southeastern part of today's Europe.
701 to 1500
700 - 1250 Period of the Gaonim (the Gaonic era). Jews in southern Europe and Asia Minor lived under the often intolerant rule of Christian Kings and clerics. Most Jews lived in the Muslim Arab realm (Andalusia, North Africa, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen). Despite sporadic periods of persecution, Jewish communal and cultural life flowered in this period. The universally recognized centers of Jewish life were in Sura and Pumbeditha (Iraq). The heads of these law schools were the Gaonim, who were consulted on matters of law by Jews throughout the world.
711 Muslim armies invade and occupy most of Spain (At this time Jews made up about 8% of Spain's population). Under Christian rule, Jews had been subject to frequent and intense persecution, but this was alleviated under Muslim rule. Some mark this as the beginning of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.
760 The Karaites reject the authority of the oral law, and split off from rabbinic Judaism.
871 An incomplete marriage contract dated to October 6 of this year is the earliest dated document found in the papers of the Cairo Geniza.
900 - 1090 The Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Abd-ar-Rahman III becomes Caliph of Spain in 912, ushering in the height of tolerance. Muslims granted Jews and Christians exemptions from military service, the right to their own courts of law, and a guarantee of safety of their property. Jewish poets, scholars, scientists, statesmen and philosophers flourished in and were an integral part of the extensive Arab civilization. This ended with the invasion of Almoravides in 1090.
940 In Iraq, Saadia Gaon compiles his siddur (Jewish prayer book.)
1013 - 1073 Rabbi Yitchaki Alfassi (from Morocco, later Spain) writes the Rif, an important work of Jewish law.
1040 - 1105 Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi) writes important commentaries on almost the entire Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Talmud.
1095 - 1291 Christian Crusades begin, sparking warfare with Islam in Palestine. Crusaders temporarily capture Jerusalem in 1099. Tens of thousands of Jews are killed by European crusaders throughout Europe and in the Middle East.
1100 - 1275 Time of the tosafot, Talmudic commentators who carried on Rashi's work. They include some of his descendants.
1107 Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yoseph Ibn Tashfin expells Moroccan Jews who do not convert.
1135 - 1204 Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, aka Maimonides is the leading rabbi of Sephardic Jewry. Among his many accomplishments, he writes an influential code of law (The Mishneh Torah) as well as, in Arabic, the most influential philosophical work (Guide for the Perplexed) in Jewish history.
1239 Pope Gregory IX orders Christian kings to destroy Hebrew Books.
1250 - 1300 The life of Moses de Leon, of Spain. He authors the Zohar (Book of Splendor) which contains mystical interpretations of the Torah. This begins the modern form of Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism).
1250 - 1550 Period of the Rishonim, the medieval rabbinic sages. Most Jews at this time lived in lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea or in Western Europe under feudal systems. With the decline of Muslim and Jewish centers of power in Iraq, there was no single place in the world which was a recognized authority for deciding matters of Jewish law and practice. Consequently, the rabbis recognized the need for writing commentaries on the Torah and Talmud and for writing law codes that would allow Jews anywhere in the world to be able to continue living in the Jewish tradition.
1270 - 1343 Rabbi Jacob ben Asher of Spain writes the Arba'ah Turim (Four Rows of Jewish Law).
1290 Jews are expelled from England.
1300 Rabbi Levi ben Gershom, aka Gersonides. A 14th century French Jewish philosopher best known for his Sefer Milhamot Adonai ("The Book of the Wars of the Lord") as well as for his philosophical commentaries.
1306 - 1394 Jews are repeatedly expelled from France and readmitted back, for a price.
1343 Persecuted in Western Europe, Jews are invited to Poland by Casimir the Great
1486 First Jewish prayer book published in Italy.
1488 - 1575 Rabbi Yosef Karo spends 20 years compiling the Beit Yosef, an enormous guide to Jewish law. He then writes a more concise guide, the Shulkhan Arukh, that becomes the standard law guide for the next 400 years.
1492 Approximately 200,000 Jews are expelled from Spain, in 1496 from Portugal and from many German cities. The expelled Jews relocate to the Netherlands, Turkey, and the Arab lands, including Palestine; some eventually go to South and Central America. However most of them go to Poland. In the later centuries more than 50% of Jewish world population lived in Poland.
1493 Jews expelled from Sicily. As many as 137,000 exiled.
1501 to 1800
1501 King Alexander of Poland readmitts Jews to Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1516 Ghetto of Venice established, the first Jewish ghetto in Europe. Many others follow.
1525 - 1572 Rabbi Moshe Isserles (The Rama) of Cracow writes an extensive gloss to the Shulkhan Arukh called the Mappah, extending its application to Ashkenazi Jewry.
1534 King Sigismund I of Poland abolishes the law that required Jews to wear special clothes.
1534 First Yiddish book published, in Poland
1534 - 1572 Issac Luria develops the modern form of esoteric Jewish mysticism AKA Kabbalah.
1547 First Hebrew Jewish printing house in Lublin.1580-1764
1567 First Jewish university Jeshiva found in Poland
1580-1764 First session of the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba' Aratzot) in Lublin, Poland. 70 delegates from local Jewish kehillot meet to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community.
1623 First time separate (Va'ad) Jewish Sejm for Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1626 - 1676 False Messiah Sabbatai Zevi.
1633 Jews of Poznan granted a privilege of forbidding Christians to enter into their city.
1648 Jewish population of Poland reached 450,000 or 4.5% whole population. Bohemia 40,000 and Moravia 25,000. Worldwide population of Jewry is estmated at 750,000.
1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossack Bohdan Chmielnicki leads a massacre of Polish gentry and Jewry that leaves an estimated 65,000 Jews dead and a similar number of gentry. The total decrease in the number of Jews is estmated at 100,000.
1655 Jews readmitted to England by Oliver Cromwell.
1700 - 1760 Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Ba'al Shem Tov, founds Hasidic Judaism, a way to approach God through meditation and fervent joy. He and his disciples attract many followers, and establish numerous Hassidic sects. The European Jewish opponents of Hassidim (known as Mitnagdim) argue that one should follow a more scholarly approach to Judaism. Some of the more well known Hassidic sects include Breslover, Lubavitch (Chabad), Satmar, Gerer, and Bobover Hasidim.
1720 - 1797 Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon.
1729 - 1786 Moses Mendelssohn, and the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement. He strove to bring an end to the isolation of the Jews so that they would be able to embrace the culture of the Western world, and in turn be embraced by gentiles as equals. The Haskalah opened the door for the development of all the modern Jewish denominations and the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, but it also paved the way for many who, wishing to be fully accepeted into Christian society, converted to Christianity or chose to assimilate to emulate it.
1750 Jewish population of Poland reaches 750,000 or 8.0% of total. The worldwide Jewish population is estimated at 1,200,000.
1759 Followers of Jacob Frank joined ranks of Polish szlachta (gentry) of Jewish origins.
1772-1795 Partitions of Poland between Russia, Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. Main bulk of World Jewry lives now in those 3 countries. Old privileges of Jewish communities are denounced.
1775 - 1781 American Revolution; religious Freedom guaranteed.
1789 The French revolution. In 1791 France grants full right to Jews and allows them to become citizens, under certain conditions.
1790 In the USA, President George Washington sends a letter to the Jewish community in Rhode Island. He writes that he envisions a country "which gives bigotry no sanction...persecution no assistance". Despite the fact, that initially US are predominantly protestant country, theoretically Jews are given full rights. In addition, their mentality shaped by the role of merchants they played in Eastern Europe, had prepared them well to compete in the American society. So far, their number is limited.
1791 Russia creates the Pale of Settlement, that includes area taken over from Poland, with huge Jewish population and Crimea. The Jewish population of the Pale was 750,000. 450,000 Jews lived in the Prussian and Austrian parts of Poland.
1799 When the French troops were in Palestine, and besieging the city of Acre, Napoleon had prepared a Proclamation making Palestine an independent Jewish state, but his unsuccessful attempt to capture Acre prevented it from being issued.
1801 to 1900
1800 - 1900 The Golden Age of Yiddish literature, the revivial of Hebrew as a spoken language, and the revival of Hebrew literature.
1820 - 1860 The development of Orthodox Judaism, a set of traditionalist movements that resisted the influences of modernization that arose in response to the European emancipation and Enlightenment movements; characterized by continued strict adherence to Halakha.
1830 Greece grants citizenship to Jews.
1831 Jewish militias take part in the defence of Warsaw against Russians.
1837 Moses Haim Montefiore is knighted by Queen Victoria, the first Jew to receive an English Knighthood.
1838 - 1933 Rabbi Yisroel Meir ha-Kohen (Chofetz Chaim) opens an important yeshiva. He writes an authoritative Halakhic work, Mishnah Berurah.
Mid 1800s: Beginning of the rise of classical Reform Judaism
Mid-1800s Rabbi Israel Salanter develops the Mussar Movement. While teaching that Jewish law is binding, he dismisses current philosophical debate and advocates the ethical teachings as the essence of Judaism.
Mid-1800s Positive-Historical Judaism, later known as Conservative Judaism, is developed.
1841 David Levy Yulee of Florida is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first Jew elected to Congress.
1851 Norway allows Jews to enter the country. They are not emancipated until 1891.
1858 Jews emancipated in England.
1860 Alliance Israelite Universelle, an international Jewish organization is founded in Paris with the goal to protect Jewish rights as citizens.
1860 - 1864 Jews are taking intensive part in Polish national movement, that was followed by January rising.
1860 - 1943 Henrietta Szold. Educator, author, social worker and founder of Hadassah.
1861 The Zion Society is formed in Frankfurt, Germany.
1862 Jews are given equal rights in Poland. The privileges of some towns regarding prohibition of Jewish settlement are revoked.
1867 Jews emancipated in Hungary.
1868 Benjamin Disraeli becomes Prime Minister of England. Though converted to Christianity as a child, he is the first person of Jewish descent to become a head of state in Europe.
1870 - 1890 Russian Zionist group Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) and Bilu (est. 1882) set up a series of Jewish settlements in the Land of Israel, financially aided by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild. In Rishon LeZion Eliezer ben Yehuda revives Hebrew as spoken modern language.
1870 Jews emancipated in Italy.
1871 Jews emancipated in Germany.
1875 Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College is founded in Cincinnati. Its founder was Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the architect of American Reform Judaism. Hebrew Union College桱ewish Institute of Religion
1877 New Hampshire becomes the last state to give Jews equal political rights.
1880 World Jewish population around 7.7 million, 90% in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe; around 3.5 million in the former Polish provinces.
1881-1884, 1903-1906, 1918-1920 Three major waves of pogroms kill tens of thousands of Jews in Russia and Ukraine. More than two million Jews emigrate in the period 1881-1920.
1882 - 1903 - The First Aliyah; the first major wave of Jewish immigrants to build a homeland in Palestine. Aliyah
1886 Rabbi Sabato Morais and Alexander Kohut begin to champion the Conservative Jewish reaction to American Reform, and establish The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a school of 'enlightened Orthodoxy'
1890 The term "Zionism" is coined by an Austrian Jewish publicist Nathan Birnbaum in his journal Self Emancipation and was defined as the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.
1891 14,000 Jewish families expelled from Moscow by Grand Duke Segai, those who refuse to convert or become prostitutes are exiled to the Pale of Settlement
1897 In response to the Dreyfus affair, Theodore Herzl writes Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), advocating the creation of a free and independent Jewish state in Israel.
1897 The Bund is formed in Russia.
1897 First Russian census: 5,200,000 of Jews, 4,900,000 in the Pale. The Kingdom of Poland has 1,300,000 Jews or 14% of population.
1901 to 1945
1902 Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schechter reorganizes the Jewish Theological Seminary and makes it into the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism.
1907 - 1972 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most significant Jewish theologian of the twentieth century.
1915 Yeshiva College (later University) and its Rabbi Issac Elchanan Rabbinical Seminary is established in New York for training in a Modern Orthodox milieu.
1917 The British defeat the Turks and gain control of the land of Israel. The British issue the Balfour Declaration 1917 which gives official British support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". Many Jews interpret this to mean that all of Palestine was to become a Jewish controlled state.
1917 Feb. The Pale of Settlement is abolished, and Jews get equal rights.
1918 - 1945 The period between the two World Wars is often referred to as the "golden age" of hazzanut (cantors). Some of the great Jewish cantors of this era include Abraham Davis, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zavel Kwartin (1874-1953), Jan Peerce, Joseph Yossele Rosenblatt (1880-1933), Gershon Sirota (1874-1943), and Laibale Waldman.
1920 At the San Remo conference Britain receives the League of Nations' British Mandate of Palestine.
1921 British military administration of the Mandate is replaced by civilian rule.
1921 Britain proclaims that all of Palestine east of the Jordan River is forever closed to Jewish settlement, but not to Arab settlement.
1921 Polish-Soviet peace treaty in Riga. Citizens of both sides are given rights to choose the country. Hundred thousands of Jews, especially small businesses forbidden in the Soviets, move to Poland.
1922 Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise established the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. (It merged with Hebrew Union College in 1950.)
1923 Britain gives the Golan Heights to the French mandate of Syria. Arab immigration is allowed; Jewish immigration is not.
1924 2,989,000 Jews according to religion poll in Poland (10,5% of total). Jewish youth consisted 23% of students of high schools and 26% of students of universities.
1930 World Jewry: 15,000,000. Main countries USA(4,000,000), Poland (3,500,000 11% of total), Soviet Union (2,700,000 2% of total), Romania (1,000,000 6% of total). Palestine 175,000 or 17% of total 1,036,000.
1937 Adin Steinsaltz born, author of the first comprehensive Babylonian Talmud commentary since Rashi in the 11th century.
1939 The British government issues the 'White Paper' and reverses their support of the Balfour Declaration. They announce an absolute limit of only 75,000 on future Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1938-1945 The Holocaust (Ha Shoah).
1946 to Today
1945-1948 Post-Holocaust refugee crisis. British detain many Jews making aliyah to Palestine in detention camps.
1946 - 1948: The struggle for the creation of a Jewish state in the British mandate of Palestine is resumed by Jewish underground movements: Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (group).
1947 November 29. The United Nations approves the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab state in the British mandate of Palestine.
1948 May 14. The State of Israel declares itself as an independent nation. Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Union's UN ambassador, calls for the UN to accept Israel as a member state. The UN approves.
1948 May 15. 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon and Egypt invade Israel. The attack fails. See also 1949 Armistice Agreements and Immigration to Israel from Arab lands.
1948 - 1949 Almost 250,000 Holocaust survivors make their way to Israel. "Operation Magic Carpet" brings thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel.
1956 The 1956 Suez War. Egypt blockades the Gulf of Aqaba, and closes the Suez canal to Israeli shipping. Egypt's President Nasser calls for the destruction of Israel. Israel, England, and France go to war and force Egypt to end the blockade of Aqaba, and open the canal to all nations.
1964 Creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO
1964 Jewish-Christian relations are revolutioned by the Catholic Church's Vatican II.
1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970) becomes the first Hebrew writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
1967 May 16. Egyptian President Nasser demands that the UN dismantle the UN Emergency Force I (UNEF I) between Israel and Egypt. The UN complies and the last UN peacekeeper is out of Sinai and Gaza by May 19.
1967 May. Egyptian PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser closes the strategic Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and states that Egypt is in a state of war with Israel. Egyptian troops group in the Sinai.
1967 June 5-11. The Six-Day War.
1967 September 1 The Arab Leaders meet in Khartoum, Sudan. The Three No's of Khartoum: No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel. No peace with Israel.
1968 Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan formally creates a separate Reconstructionist movement by setting up the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.
Mid 1970s to present - Growing revival of Klezmer music (The folk music of European Jews).
1973 Oct. 6-24. The Yom Kippur War. Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq and Jordan launch a surprise attack against Israel. Subsequently, OPEC reduces oil production, driving up oil prices and triggering a global economic crisis.
1975 President Gerald Ford signs legislation including the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which ties U.S. trade benefits to the Soviet Union to freedom of emigration for Jews.
1975 United Nations adopts resolution equating Zionism with racism. Rescinded in 1991.
1976 Israel rescues hostages taken to Entebbe, Uganda.
1978 September 18. At Camp David, near Washington D.C., Israel and Egypt sign a comprehensive peace treaty, The Camp David Accord, which included the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai.
1978 Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer receives Nobel Prize
1979 Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat are awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 - 1983 Operation Elijah: Rescue of Ethiopian Jewry.
1982 June-December: The Lebanon War. Israel invades Southern Lebanon to drive out the PLO.
1983 American Reform Jews formally accept patrilineal descent, creating a new definition of who is a Jew.
1984-1985 Operations Moses, Joshua: Rescue of Ethiopian Jewry by Israel.
1986 Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1986 Anatoly (Nathan) Sharansky, Soviet Jewish dissident, is freed from prison.
1987 Beginning of the First Intifada against Israel.
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany, collapse of the communist East German government, and the beginning of Germany's reunification (which formally began in October 1990).
1990 The Soviet Union opens its doors to the three million Soviet Jews who had been held as virtual prisoners within their own country. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews choose to leave the Soviet Union and move to Israel.
1990 - 1991 Iraq invades Kuwait, triggering a war between Iraq and Allied United Nations forces. Israel is hit by 39 Scud missiles from Iraq.
1991 Operation Solomon: Rescue of the remainder of Ethiopian Jewry in a twenty four hour airlift.
1991 October 30. The Madrid Peace Conference opens in Spain, sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union.
1993 September 13. Israel and PLO sign the Oslo Accords.
1994 The Lubavitcher (Chabad) Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, dies.
1994 October 26 Israel and Jordan sign an official peace treaty. Israel cedes a small amount of contested land to Jordan, and the countries open official diplomatic relations, with open borders and free trade.
1994 December 10 Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize.
1995 November 4 Israeli Prime Minister Yitschak Rabin is assassinated.
1996 Peres loses election to Benyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu (Likud party).
1999 Ehud Barak elected Prime Minister of Israel.
2000 Israeli folk and pop singer Ofra Haza dies of AIDS, forcing the Israeli public to publicly confront the AIDS epedemic.
2000 May 24. Israel unilaterally withdraws its remaining forces from its security zone in southern Lebanon to the international border, fully complying with the UN Security Council Res. 425. Syria continues to occupy Lebanon.
2000 July. Camp David Summit.
2000 September 29 The al-Aqsa Intifada begins.
2001 Election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's Prime Minister.
source : wikipedia.com
[ Last edited by fly_in_d_sky on 6-6-2005 at 08:30 PM ] |
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Population
Prior to World War II the world population of Jews was around 18 million. The Holocaust reduced this number to around 12 million. Today, there are an estimated 13 million 3 to 14.6 million5 Jews worldwide in over 134 countries.
Significant geographic populations
Country Jewish population
United States 5,671,000 (est.)
Israel 5,200,000 (est.)
Europe Fewer than 2 million (est.)
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The Holocaust
Concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust
The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's systematic genocide (ethnic cleansing) of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II, starting in 1941 and continuing through 1945.
The Jews of Europe were the main targets of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million, so much so that the phrase "six million" is now almost universally interpreted as referring to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, though mainstream estimates by historians of the exact number range from five million to over six million. Other groups deemed "undesirable", especially Slavs (Poles, Russians and others), Roma), Sinti, the mentally or physically disabled, gay men, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Blacks, and political dissidents, were also persecuted and murdered. Taking all these other groups into account, the total death toll rises considerably. Estimates place the total number of Holocaust victims at up to 26 million men, women, and children, although the number 11 million is usually held as more reliable.
Etymology and usage of the term
The word holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering", or "a burnt sacrifice offered to God". In Greek and Roman pagan rites, Gods of the earth and underworld received dark animals, which were offered by night and burnt in full. Holocaust was later used to refer to a sacrifice Jews were required to make by the Torah. But since the mid-nineteenth century, the word has been used by a large variety of authors to reference large catastrophes and massacres.
The biblical word Shoa [שואה], also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, meaning "calamity" in Hebrew (and also used to refer to "destruction" since the Middle Ages), became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s. Churban Europa, meaning "European Destruction" in Hebrew (as opposed to simply Churban, the destruction of the Second Temple), is also used. Many Roma (or 'Gypsy') people, who were also targeted during the Holocaust, use the word Porajmos, meaning "Devouring".
Shoa is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of Christians and other people due to the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust as a reference to a sacrifice to God and also due to scholarly insistence that this largely archaic meaning somehow tilts the present meanings. There is also concern that the particular significance of The Holocaust would be lessened as it becomes increasingly popular in the latter half of the 20th century to refer generically to any mass killings such as the Rwandan Genocide and the actions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as 'holocausts'. The Armenians have long used the term in reference to their persecution by the Ottoman empire during WWI. This can be viewed as a political question, with non-Jewish groups that were victims of genocide attempting to ride the success of Jews in popularizing knowledge of the Holocaust as a Jewish event, and Jewish groups conversely attempting to preserve a version of history that views the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish event.
The term has been frequently used to reference nuclear war, and in the U.S. of the early 1960s, this sense was much more prevalent than its current meanings.
source : wikipedia.com |
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Features of the Nazi Holocaust
There were several characteristics to the Nazi Holocaust which taken together distinguish it from other genocides in history.
Premeditation
In 1904, Alfred Ploetz founded the German Eugenics Society. Sixteen years later, a work seminal to the development of the German eugenics movement, The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, was published. Written by Karl Binding, a widely respected judge, and renowned psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, the work was seminal to the formulation of Nazi ideology, rhetoric and practice:
[It] defended the theory which stated that the elimination of "worthless people" should be legalized. Thus the concepts of "worthless life" or "life unworthy of life" used by the Nazis come from that book. Binding and Hoche speak in that book about "worthless human beings". [Binding and Hoche] plead for "the elimination of those who cannot be saved, ... whose death is an urgent need" ... [and] about those who are below the beast [with] "neither the will to live nor to die". [The book also refers] to those who are "mentally dead" and who form "a foreign body to the human society".
The work of Ploetz and the words of Binding and Hoche were the foreshadowings of Hitler's "final solution" two decades later.
The Holocaust was an intentional and meticulously planned attempt to entirely eradicate the target groups based on ethnicity. It is estimated that die Endl鰏ung der Judenfrage (the Final Solution of the Jewish Question), as the Nazis called it during the Wannsee conference of January 1942, saw the murder of 60 percent of all the Jews in Europe, and 35 percent of the world's Jewish population. In a speech in October 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsf黨rer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), told a group of senior SS men and Nazi party leaders: "What about the women and children? I decided to find an absolutely clear solution here too. I regard myself as having no right to exterminate (ausrotten) the men梚n other words, to kill them or have them killed梐nd to let the avengers in the form of the children grow up for our sons and grandsons to deal with. The difficult decision had to be taken to make these people disappear from the earth."
The Holocaust was justified by claiming that the victims were Untermenschen, i.e. 'underlings' or 'subhumans', who were seen as both biologically inferior and (in the case of Jews) a potential challenge to the superiority of the 'Aryans'. Its perpetrators saw it as a form of eugenics梩he creation of a better race by eliminating the designated "unfit"梐long the same lines as their programs of compulsory sterilization, compulsory euthanasia, and "racial hygiene".
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Efficiency
The Holocaust was characterized by the efficient and systematic attempt on an industrial scale to assemble and murder as many victims as possible, using all of the resources and technology available to the Nazi Germany state.
For example, detailed lists of potential victims were made and maintained using Dehomag statistical machinery, and meticulous records of the killings were produced. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property to the Nazis, which was then precisely catalogued and tagged, and for which receipts were issued. In addition, considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find increasingly efficient means of killing more people; for example, by switching from carbon monoxide poisoning in the Aktion Reinhard death camps of Belzec, Sobib髍, and Treblinka to the use of Zyklon B at Majdanek and Auschwitz.
In his book Russia's War, British historian Richard Overy describes how the Germans sought more efficient ways to kill people. In 1941, after occupying Belarus, they used mental patients from Minsk asylums as guinea pigs. Initially, they tried shooting them by having them stand one behind the other, so that several people could be killed with one bullet, but it was too slow. Then they tried dynamite, but few were killed and many were left wounded with hands and legs missing, so that the Germans had to finish them off with machine guns. In October 1941, in Mogilev, they tried the Gaswagen or "gas car". First they used a light military car, and it took more than 30 minutes for people to die. Then they used a larger truck exhaust and it took only eight minutes to kill all the people inside.
Alleged corporate involvement in the Holocaust has created significant controversy in recent years. Rudolf Hoess, Auschwitz camp commandant, said that far from having to advertise their slave labour services, the concentration camps were actually approached by various large German businesses, some of which are still in existence.
Scale
The Holocaust was geographically widespread and methodically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory, where Jews and other victims were targeted in what are now 35 separate European nations, and sent to labor camps in some nations or extermination camps in others.
Documented evidence suggests that the Nazis planned to carry out their 'final solution' in Britain, North America, and Palestine if these regions were conquered. The murders continued in different parts of Nazi-controlled territory until the end of World War II, only completely ending when the Allies entered Germany itself and forced the Nazis to surrender in May 1945.
Cruelty
The Nazis carried out cruel and deadly medical experiments on prisoners, including children. Dr. Josef Mengele, medical officer at Auschwitz and chief medical officer at Birkenau, was known as the "Angel of Death" for his sadistic and bizarre medical and eugenics experiments including trying to change peoples eye colour and other horrific things. Many of these experiments were intended to produce 'racially pure' babies and as research into weapons and techniques of war. Many of these prisoners didn't survive. Day to day life in the concentration camps was also brutal, with the Nazis regularly carrying out beatings and acts of torture.
Victims
The victims of the Holocaust were Jews, Communists, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti (also known as gypsies), the mentally ill and the physically disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish, Russian and other Slavic intelligentsia, political activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Catholic and Protestant clergy, trade unionists, psychiatric patients, common criminals and people labeled as "enemies of the state". These victims all perished alongside one another in the camps, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and photographed), eye-witness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation.
source : wikipedia.com |
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Jews
Nazis in uniform in Vienna, Austria 1938 mock Jewish men scrubbing streets
Anti-Semitism was common in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (though its history extends far back throughout many centuries during the course of Judaism). Adolf Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism was laid out in his 1925 book Mein Kampf, which, though largely ignored when it was first printed, became popular in Germany once Hitler acquired political power.
On April 1, 1933, the recently elected Nazis, under Julius Streicher, organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany. This policy helped to usher in a series of anti-Semitic acts that would eventually culminate in the Holocaust. The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed on July 6, 1939. In many cities throughout Europe, Jews had been living in concentrated areas. During the first years of World War II, the Nazis formalized the borders of these areas and restricted movement, creating modern ghettos to which Jews were confined. The ghettos were, in effect, prisons in which many Jews died from hunger and disease; others were executed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Concentration camps for Jews existed in Germany itself. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, over 3,000 special killing units (Einsatzgruppen) followed the Wehrmacht, conducting mass killings of Communist officials and of the Jewish population that lived on Soviet territory. Entire communities were wiped out by being rounded up, robbed of their possessions and clothing, and shot at the edges of ditches.
In December 1941, Hitler finally decided to exterminate European Jews. In January 1942, during the Wannsee conference, several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the "Final Solution of the Jewish question" (Endl鰏ung der Judenfrage). Dr. Josef Buhler urged Reinhard Heydrich to proceed with the Final Solution in the General Government. They began to systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all occupied territories to the seven camps designated as Vernichtungslager, or extermination camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Maly Trostenets, Sobib髍 and Treblinka II
Heinrich Himmler (left), leader of the SS (responsible for rounding up Jews), with Adolf Hitler (right)
Slavs
Poles were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as outlined in the speech he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the invasion of Poland in 1939. The intelligentsia and socially prominent or powerful people were primarily targeted, although there were some mass murders and instances of genocide (notoriously, the Croatian Ustashe). The Nazi occupation of Poland (General Government, Reichsgau Wartheland) was one of the most brutal episodes of World War II, resulting in over 6 million Polish deaths (over 20% of country's inhabitants), including the mass murder of 3 million Polish Jews in extermination camps like Auschwitz.
During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Red Army POWs were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious Waffen SS), or were shipped to extermination camps for execution simply because they were of Slavic extraction. Thousands of Soviet peasant villages were annihilated by German troops for more or less the same reason. During World War II, every fourth person was killed in Belarus (and according to latest data, some researchers say up to 30%). The Jewish population of Belarus was almost totally exterminated.
The Nazis provided various gradations of Slavs, e.g. it was thought that Russians were inferior to Ukrainians and Belarusians, and that the latter were inferior to Poles.
Romany ['Gypsies']
Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Roma and Sinti people of Europe was seen by many as a particularly bizarre application of Nazi "racial hygiene". German anthropologists were forced to contend with the fact that Romany were descendants of the original Aryan invaders of India, who made their way back to Europe. Ironically, this made them no less Aryan than the German people itself, in practice if not in theory. This dilemma was resolved by Professor Hans Gunther, a leading racial scientist, who wrote:
"The Gypsies have indeed retained some elements from their Nordic home, but they are descended from the lowest classes of the population in that region. In the course of their migration, they absorbed the blood of the surrounding peoples, thus becoming an Oriental, West-Asiatic racial mixture with an addition of Indian, mid-Asiatic, and European strains."
As a result, however, and despite discriminatory measures, some groups of Roma, including the Sinti and Lalleri tribes of Germany, were spared deportation and death. Remaining Romany groups suffered much like the Jews (and in some instances, were degraded even more than Jews). In Eastern Europe, Gypsies were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS Einsatzgruppen in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Gay Men and Lesbians
Gay men and lesbians were another of the groups targeted during the time of the Holocaust although anti-gay action was limited to German gays. Hitler did not call for the death of all gays, only those in Germany because they didn't procreate and were thusly seen as a threat to the Reich. Indeed, Ernst R鰄m, the leader of the SA who was one of the most responsible for Hitler's rise to power, was homosexual.
Some leaders clearly wanted gays exterminated, while others wanted enforcement of laws banning sex between gay men or lesbians. More than one million gay German men were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted gay men. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European gay men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order.
The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 gay men in concentration camps were officially documented. Larger numbers include those who were Jewish and gay, or even Jewish, gay and Communist. In addition, records as to the specific reasons for internment are non-existent in many areas, making it hard to put an exact number on just how many gay men perished in death camps. See History of Gays during the Holocaust for more information.
Conditions for gay men in the camps were especially difficult. They faced persecution not only from German soldiers but also from other prisoners, and many gay men were beaten to death. Additionally, gay men in forced labour camps routinely received more grueling and dangerous work assignments than other non-Jewish inmates, under the policy of "Extermination Through Work". German soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear.
Lesbians were not treated as harshly as gay men. They were labeled "anti-social," but not sent to camps.
Others
Around 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where they were held for political and ideological reasons. They refused involvement in politics, would not say "Heil Hitler", and did not serve in the German army.
Several hundred thousand mentally and physically disabled people also were exterminated. The Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to society because they needed to be cared for by others, but first and foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were sterilized against their will for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed as hereditary in nature.
The T-4 Euthanasia Program was established in 1939 in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness.
On August 18, 1941, Hitler ordered a temporary halt to T-4. Graduates of the Aktion T4 program then were transferred to the concentration camps, where they continued in their trade.
Euthanasia did not end in 1941, however; it still took place in hospitals around Germany and Austria, and crept East into a few of the occupied territories.
Maximilian Kolbe, venerated as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, was one member of the clergy killed in Auschwitz. He volunteered for starvation in place of another prisoner with a family and died in 1941.
source : wikipedia.com
[ Last edited by fly_in_d_sky on 6-6-2005 at 08:15 PM ] |
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Death toll
General (later US President) Dwight Eisenhower inspecting prisoners' corpses at a liberated concentration camp, 1945
The exact number of people killed by the Nazi regime is still subject to further research. Recently declassified British and Soviet documents have indicated the total may be somewhat higher than previously believed. However, the following estimates are considered to be highly reliable.
The Nazis persecuted many groups of people deemed inferior to the Nazi Aryan ideal. The following estimates refer to groups that were actively singled out in Nazi ideology as being 'unfit for life' and were part of the Nazi's planned and systematic genocide. The estimates:
* approximately 6 million Jews, including 3.0 |
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Yellow Star of David inscribed with the word "Jude" (Jew)
The triangles
To identify prisoners in the camps according to their "offense", they were required to wear colored triangles on their clothing. Although the colors used differed from camp to camp, the colors most commonly used were:
* Yellow: Jews -- two triangles overlaid to form a Star of David, with the word "Jude" (Jew) inscribed; mischlings, (half-breeds) i.e., those who were deemed to be only part Jewish, often wore a single yellow triangle
* Red: Political dissidents, including Communists; with the letters: "B" (Belgians), "F" (French), "I" (Italians), "P" (Poles), "T" (Czechs), "U" (Hungarians)
* Green: Common criminals. Criminals of Aryan descent were frequently given special privileges at the camps, and power over other prisoners.
* Purple: Religious fundamentalists (defined as persons belonging to Christian sects whose teachings forbid fighting in wars), most notably Jehovah's Witnesses
* Blue: Immigrants.
* Brown: Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)
* Black: Lesbians and "anti-socials" (alcoholics and the "work-shy")
* Pink: Gay men
source : wikipedia.com |
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Who was directly involved in the killings?
Who authorized the killings?
While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of those labelled by the Nazis as "undesireables" has surfaced, a mass of evidence suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941, Himmler and he agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942, with the participation of fifteen senior officials, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann, the records of which provide the best evidence of the central planning of the Holocaust. Just five weeks later on February 22, Hitler was recorded saying "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews" to his closest associates.
There is no known document in which Hitler explicitly ordered the Holocaust, although there is documentation that he approved of the work of the Einsatzgruppen, where Jews throughout Russia were shot naked in front of ditches. Most historians believe he not only knew of the Holocaust and the gas chambers, but ordered Himmler to carry it out |
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[fly] Why Do People Hate The Jews? [/fly]
It has been said that the history of almost all of the Jewish holidays can be summed up succinctly: "They wanted to kill us; we won. Let's eat." With increasing anti-Semitism -- in Europe, the World Court attack on Israel, in the movie theaters -- it is a good time to look at the causes of anti-Semitism and what we can do about it.
Between the years 250 CE and 1948 CE a period of 1,700 years Jews have experienced more than eighty expulsions from various countries in Europe an average of nearly one expulsion every twenty-one years. Jews were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and seventy-one other countries.
Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:
Economic -- "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power."
Chosen People -- "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people."
Scapegoat -- "Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles."
Deicide -- "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus."
Outsiders -- "We hate Jews because they are different than us." (The dislike of the unlike.)
Racial Theory -- "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race."
As we examine the explanations, we must ask -- Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let's look at some contradictions:
Economic -- The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.
Chosen People -- a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied "Choseness." And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the "Chosen people," yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.
Scapegoat -- Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler's rantings and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, "It's the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society."
Deicide -- a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). Why are the accomplices persecuted and there isn't an anti-Roman movement throughout history? b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.
Outsiders -- With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: "We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes."
Racial Theory -- The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness and, when we do assimilate for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can't win.
QUOTES:
揙f all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man抯 nature, there is not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. |
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Salam,
Buat lawak sat... jgn mare.....
Kira-kira beberapa abad yang lalu...
Paus memutuskan bahawa seluruh Yahudi harus meninggalkan Rome. Ini menimbulkan keresahan dan penolakan dari bangsa Yahudi tersebut.
Kemudian Paus menawarkan untuk mengadakan debat agama dengan seorang anggota komuniti Yahudi. Jika pilihan orang Yahudi tersebut menang, maka bangsa Yahudi boleh tetap tinggal di Rome. Sebaliknya, jika Paus yang menang, maka bangsa Yahudi harus segera meninggalkan Rome.
Bangsa Yahudi kemudian memilih seorang pemuda yang bernama Moishe sebagai wakil pihak Yahudi.
Moishe kemudian mengajukan syarat, dimana, agar lebih menarik, debat dilakukan tanpa berkata-kata. Paus kemudian menyetujui syarat tersebut.
Pertandingan pun dimulakan. Moishe dan Paus duduk saling berhadapan.
Setelah satu minit, Paus mengangkat tangannya dan menunjukkan tiga jari. Moishe memandang sebentar kepada Paus lalu menunjukkan satu jarinya.
Paus membentuk lingkaran dengan jarinya di atas kepalanya. Moishe membalas dengan menunjuk ke tanah.
Paus lalu mengeluarkan sebuah wafer dan segelas anggur. Moishe membalas dengan mengeluarkan sebutir epal.
Paus kemudian berdiri dan berkata ,
"Saya menyerah kalah. Orang ini terlalu bijak. Bangsa Yahudi boleh tinggal."
Satu jam kemudian, Kardinal sibuk menanyai Paus apa yang telah terjadi.
Paus menjawab,
" ertama, aku mengangkat tiga jari ku sebagai lambang triniti. Dia respon dengan mengangkat satu jarinya untuk mengingatkanku bahwa tetap hanya ada satu Tuhan untuk kedua agama kami.
Kemudian aku membentuk lingkaran di sekelilingku yang menunjukkan bahawa Tuhan ada di sekitar kita. Dia membalasnya dengan menunjuk ke tanah dan menunjukkan bahwa Tuhan juga sekarang ada bersama kita.
Aku mengeluarkan sebuah wafer dan segelas anggur menunjukkan bahwa Tuhan akan menebus dosa-dosa kita. Dia kemudian mengeluarkan sebiji epal untuk mengingatkanku akan dosa awal umat manusia.
Dia memiliki jawaban atas segalanya. Apa yang dapat aku lakukan ?"
Sementara itu, bangsa Yahudi sibuk mengelilingi moishe.
"Apa yang terjadi? " tanya mereka.
"Well," kata Moishe. "ertama dia mengatakan padaku bahwa bangsa Yahudi memiliki 3 hari untuk pergi dari sini. Aku katakan padanya bahwa tidak satu orang pun dari kita yang akan pergi.
Kemudian dia mengatakan padaku bahwa seluruh kota akan dibersihkan dari bangsa Yahudi. Kemudian aku tegaskan kepada mereka bahwa kita akan tetap tinggal disini."
"Ya, ya... lalu ?" tanya mereka.
"Aku tidak tahu," kata Moishe. "Dia mengeluarkan bekalnya dan aku pun mengeluarkan bekalku."
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Post time 29-5-2005 06:47 AM
变色卡
Author
