Answers/Anti-Semitism

Question: Jews have been hated for centuries. Why is that?

Answer: That is a question which requires a lengthy answer. Here is the beginning of one:

There is an interesting book called The Crux of World History, which explains early anti-Semitism (Greeks and Romans, for example) as fundamentally due to the fact that Judaism (that is, the Torah) is essentially egalitarian and therefore was seen by the aristocratic elites as revolutionary and subversive. The Romans passed on their attitude towards the Jews to the Christians whom they became.

The Christians as well as the Muslims who followed later, believe in "replacement theology"; that is to say that they are the real nation of Israel, whereas the Jews are rejected by God. Christians further believe that the Jews killed Jesus, and charges of "deicide" have been levelled against the Jews from the earliest times (just read the Gospels for corroboration).

European history has been mostly Christian with some Islam thrown in -- so it is not at all surprising that anti-Semitic attitudes pervade Europe

Though these are no doubt the immediate reasons, there is a meta-reason, which is that anti-semitism exists because it serves God's purposes: (1) to punish us for whatever we need punishing for as a people, and (2) to keep us from mixing with the other nations and disappearing. When we (as a people) behave according to Torah, really, then anti-semitism will go away.