Anti Semitism

 The persecution of Jewish people spans a vast historical period, with roots that can be traced back well before 740 BCE. Here's an overview of key events, explanations, and theories:

### **Historical Context and Examples:**

1. **Ancient Times (Before 740 BCE):**

   - **Canaanite Conflicts:** The earliest biblical narratives describe conflicts between the Israelites and Canaanite groups, which can be seen as early forms of persecution or warfare over land and identity.

   - **Exodus from Egypt:** The biblical account of the Exodus describes the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, highlighting one of the earliest recorded instances of Jewish suffering.

2. **740 BCE - 538 BCE:**

   - **Assyrian and Babylonian Exile:** The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE, leading to the exile of many Israelites. Later, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple in 586 BCE, exiling Judeans to Babylon, which is remembered as the Babylonian Exile.

3. **Persian Period (538 BCE - 332 BCE):**

   - While the Persians allowed the return of the Jews to Judea and the rebuilding of the Temple, the concept of diaspora began to formalize, setting the stage for future persecutions in areas outside of Judea.

4. **Hellenistic and Roman Periods:**

   - **Seleucid Empire (167 BCE):** The imposition of Hellenistic culture led to the Maccabean Revolt, where Jewish religious practices were outlawed, culminating in the Hanukkah story.

   - **Roman Rule:** 

     - The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE after the First Jewish-Roman War marked a significant event in Jewish persecution. 

     - The Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136 CE) led to further dispersion of Jews with Hadrian's severe restrictions on Jewish practices, including circumcision, and renaming Judea to Syria Palaestina.

5. **Middle Ages:**

   - **Christian Europe:** The rise of Christianity and its adoption as the state religion in the Roman Empire led to a new form of anti-Jewish sentiment. Jews were often blamed for Christ's crucifixion, leading to pogroms, expulsions, and forced conversions:

     - **1096 Crusades:** Jewish communities were massacred by crusaders.

     - **1290 England, 1306 France, 1492 Spain:** Expulsions of Jews from these countries due to religious, economic, and political reasons.

   - **Islamic Territories:** Under Islamic rule, Jews generally had dhimmi status, which offered protection but also came with restrictions and occasionally led to persecution, especially during times of political instability.

6. **Modern Era (19th-20th Century):**

   - **Rise of Racial Antisemitism:** 

     - The Enlightenment and nationalism in Europe led to the transformation of religious anti-Judaism into racial antisemitism, where Jews were seen as a distinct, inferior race rather than just a religious group.

     - **Russian Empire Pogroms:** Late 19th to early 20th century saw violent attacks against Jews.

     - **Nazi Germany and the Holocaust:** The culmination of antisemitic ideology led to the systematic extermination of 6 million Jews during WWII.

### **Explanations and Theories:**

- **Religious Differences:** 

  - Jews were often seen as a theological threat to both Christianity and Islam due to their refusal to convert, maintaining their unique practices, and claiming to be the chosen people of God.

- **Economic Factors:**

  - Jews were often involved in finance and trade, which led to envy and resentment, particularly during economic downturns when they were scapegoated for societal woes.

- **Scapegoating:**

  - Historically, Jews have been blamed for plagues, economic crises, and other societal ills, as seen in the Black Death accusations or after World War I in Germany.

- **Political Expediency:**

  - Rulers sometimes used antisemitism to deflect blame or consolidate power by targeting a minority group, as seen with the Spanish Inquisition or Nazi Germany's policies.

- **Cultural Isolation:**

  - The Jewish practice of maintaining distinct cultural and religious practices made them stand out, fostering suspicion and hostility in societies where integration was not normative.

- **Conspiracy Theories:**

  - Over centuries, myths like the "Blood Libel" or the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" have been propagated, suggesting Jews held secret power or engaged in nefarious activities.

Persecution of Jews has been multifaceted, involving religious, economic, political, and cultural dimensions, often interwoven with each other across different historical epochs and regions. This complex history reflects how societal changes and prejudices have repeatedly targeted Jewish communities.

My Note On Peter Grizzi’s Poem In Defense Of Nothing

 In Defense of Nothing

Peter Gizzi

I guess these trailers lined up in the lot off the highway will do.

I guess that crooked eucalyptus tree also.

I guess this highway will have to do and the cars

     and the people in them on their way.

The present is always coming up to us, surrounding us.

It's hard to imagine atoms, hard to imagine

     hydrogen & oxygen binding, it'll have to do.

This sky with its macular clouds also

     and that electric tower to the left, one line broken free.

Me: 

The speaker describes the quiet weight of things by taking in their ordinariness and flaws yet accepting and appreciating them with a mix of resignation and admiration. So he describes the fragmented landscape: trailers, highways, and a crooked eucalyptus tree. 

The repeated "I guess" is effective understatement that posits a kind of hesitant embrace of flawed ordinariness, imperfect, not completely knowable, but sufficient. 

The speaker evokes the present as an encroaching force and highlights time’s flight, while his mention of incomprehensible atoms and molecular bonds adds—what to call it?—“prosaic mystery” to the ordinary, unknowable amazing undetectable workings forming the ordinary. 

The imagery of “macular clouds”, hinting at eventual blindness, and the “broken electric tower” continues the idea of imperfection, now tainted by decay. Yet isn’t the poem's tone one of quiet acceptance, a defence or nothing, suggesting that a fractured world "will have to do”?

Isn’t there drama in this constrained lyricism? Isn’t there the intimation of the value of a kind of—again what to call it?—existential humility and of reconciling ourselves to limits, imperfections from which paradoxically we can derive value and meaning—again, the defence of nothing.

In the last line the phrase "one line broken free,” has some reverberations. It seems to join rupture or brokenness with freedom. It suggests dysfunction and disconnection. So it  concludes the flaws set out in the preceding imagery. 

Yet, doesn’t “broken free" create an unexpected shift, as if the brokenness leads as well to a release or an escape and, so, new possibilities? 

This concluding tension resolves what the poem is about, the acceptance of flaws and brokenness in the ordinary that match all that in us and yet is the ground for the meaning we can give to our lives, including being the ground for possibilities, possibilities arising from brokenness. 

And so we have the defence of nothing.

The poem’s title defends that which we might dismiss and reject.  So “nothing” is that which we don’t value, as in they’re nothing to us, the merely prosaic. But yet we can elevate them with a reluctant embrace. The poem defends these nothings, asserting their worth which is at one with the little they are to us.

And too, the titular nothing being defended points to a deeper sense of absence, a metaphysical one, the nothingness of all things, our inclination to meaninglessness, to nihilism, populated and suggested by detritus. 

But the world weary speaker is at peace with all that might be thought to objectify that feeling of utter emptiness. 

In his half hearted engagement of it—his repeated “I guess”, in his observation of flaws and brokenness that also reflect what is going on inside him, he too breaks free.