Ambulances Set on Fire in Suspected Anti Jewish Attack

[StartingStar]

Horrible news that ambulances run by a Jewish charity have been set on fire in Golders Green today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyj1p49gdpo

AIBU to feel it's got to to with the rise in anti Jewish hate since the allowance of horrible slogans on the weekly marches and in everyday society? What on earth makes people commit such a horrible attack.

I'm 100% with the Jewish community and pray for peace.

And this is the crux of the matter. Israel is probably one of the most valuable pieces of land in the world, esp up to the invention of flight. Giving access from the East to the West. Gaining access to control this route was a highly motivating factor in the invention of of Islam (and yes all 3 Abrahamic faiths were invented by ordinary blokes for very earthly purposes -god is just a very useful back drop). Jewish people hace suffered for Millenia because their homeland was this valuable piece of land.

Huh. Didn’t expect this thread to get to the crusades.

I think the point is that all religions have a subset of fanatics who tend to behave badly because they are sure their religion is much better than their religion. And g-d loves them the most or whatever.

Jewish people aren’t inherently better or worse than anyone else. We have always been a tiny minority of anywhere we’ve lived (which is one of the reasons Israel is so, so important to many), and have been harassed into and out of neighbourhoods and countries and anything else you can imagine since the beginning of time. We have been expelled then invited back then hated then stuck in ghettos then kicked out of ghettos - all around the world. When this wave picks up again we know it’s just a new version of the same old thing so while we are exhausted and sad, we aren’t surprised.

But, but Israel is just a distraction as this happened to my grandmother before Israel existed as a modern state. And my great grandmother. And every generation before her. My children are old enough to notice this version so it’s harder for me, that’s the only difference. My dad’s synagogue had a mass shooting in 2018, my grandmother’s nursing home was attacked in 2005, my great grandparents were kicked out of their Russian ghettos in 1882… and my daughter was attacked in her school hallway in 2023. Maybe but Israel blah blah has nothing to do with any of it.

Agree. But nonetheless Judaism predates Christianity and Islam significantly- I believe Judaism was the first monotheistic religion? Personally I think Jerusalem is still the crux of it all.

Yes sorry, massive ( but interesting ) diversion.

How do explain all the antisemitism before the state of Israel, during that long period when only a few 10s of 1000s Jews lived in Israel, and a mass Jewish return to the area was vanishingly unlikely?

@PurpleThistle7 so true 💐
Jews were blamed for the Black Death in Medieval Europe. Well before the existence of modern Israel.

You don’t have to be quibbling over the crusades. There are loads of examples of Christian terrorism, the Christchurch shooting. The KKK. Anti-Jewish Pogroms

Right? My ancestors were all in Russia (à la fiddler on the roof) before 1880s and were blamed for crops failing and rain falling and rain not falling. And as per that movie, when they were kicked out they ended up in America, Israel (well the land that’s now Israel) or Europe (to be murdered a generation later). Am sure their ancestors had their own stories that have been lost now. In the 1930s Germany somehow it was their fault that Germany was in a financial depression. It’s always something.

Yes, post WW1, Jews were blamed for Germany losing the war, for capitalist profiteering, hyper inflation in Germany, and also Communism.
No Israel to explain/contextualise/excuse.
They found other ways. This is just a modern take on an old racism.

The difference here though is that these modern (post WW2)examples are very very isolated to small outlier groups or individuals. What we have with the antisemitic attacks is the backing of entire countries. Whilst groups like the KKK are abhorrent it’s an entirely different situation to the state sponsored terrorism we are seeing levelled against Jewish people.,

Because by then it was an embedded rhetoric. The Babylonian exile of of the 7/6 century BCE was the first example, after that it was people after people intent on. Controlling that area, as part of that, the Jewish people were demonised, the Christians then increasingly needed to separate themselves (and therefore Jesus) from being Jewish (then Christian’s started labelling Jews “Christ killers” -thankfully, at least officially this has finished as a rhetoric). This demonisation in a magical world of pre reformation Europe led to Jews being blamed for everything (linked in various levels to punishment from God for killing his son - yes I know it’s ridiculous). Jews became an easy scape goat, and a very convenient one as it kept Jews in a place where it would be difficult for Z Jews to gather together to challenge the Christian supremacy. Islam, once it was invented, followed a similar rhetoric - they needed that access to the med. Hence ridiculous notions of people being beamed up from Jerusalem - all territory marking, over other religions.

Unfortunately, this became to embedded within the collective European and Middle Eastern psyche it was fairly easy to resurrect even after Christianity lost its hold on state power the origins of it for most seem to be lost in time.

1000% this. Same with my family, constantly murdered, terrorised, and chased out of their homes with nothing. At no point has anyone 'sought revenge,' they just try and pick up the pieces, assimilate and rebuild their lives because the antisemites can't just leave them alone.

Posters twisting themselves in knots with complicated explanations and divisions are ignoring the very obvious fact that Jews and Israel are not separate. The antisemites don't separate them, the Jewish people don't separate them. Israel is attacked because it is the Jewish state. The Jewish people are attacked with a new made-up excuse. Israel's response is attacked by people who, if their beliefs are realistically interrogated, don't see any acceptable response from Israel apart from allowing itself to be annihilated.

The sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD was perpetrated by the Romans not the Crusaders.

Or are you talking about the end of the First Crusade in 1079 ?

The sack of Constantinople 1204 was when Crusaders got sidetracked and were motivated by greed.

I would say these were close to being genocides but sadly common in that type of warfare of the day.

Likewise the campaigns of the Mongol Empire the Mongol conquests led to massive death and destruction across Eurasia, with the Mongol army invading hundreds of cities and killing millions

The end of the 1st Crusade. Sorry not generally called a 'sack' but certainly had all the features of one. Except perhaps the taking of slaves.

OK thanks for the clarification.

Complete sidetrack but I studied ancient Israelite religion during my undergraduate, so am speaking from a non Jewish/belief perspective - textual analysis from the Bible and Torah by modern scholars purports that Judaism emerged from earlier polytheistic beliefs and gradually became an exclusively monotheistic religion - this seems to have happened around the time of the Babylonian exile and started firming up around the time of King Josiah and his reforms. Many modern scholars agree that the Torah underwent multiple revisions, some of which would have been to align it with monotheistic beliefs that later emerged

Zoroastrianism emerged as a recognisably monotheistic religion (around 2000BCE) earlier than the Babylonian exile.

So depends on when your start date for monotheistic Judaism is - if you believe it's always been strictly monotheist from the time of Abraham then yes it's possibly the oldest known monotheistic religion. Else, Zoroastrianism is probably the oldest known monotheistic religion still practiced

BBC News - Two men arrested over Jewish charity ambulance arson attacks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v6rx6dxz6
Some good news, 2 arrests and replacement ambulances in place.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v6rx6dxz6o
Sorry I think this link should work.

Evil doesn't always triumph; the charity can continue their good work today.

Very good news.
I hope they can be prosecuted with the full force of the law 😡

We need to start normalising this way of teaching religion, in its historical context, showing how and why they were conceived and how they’ve changed throughout time. If we starting normalising this, showing how they’ve changed throughout time in order to advantage (usually male) interests in maintaining gaining control over populations and this geographical areas maybe people would start seeing religions for what they are and really not worth fighting over. Judaism itself was most likely conceived as a way of unifying different peoples of the area round the Eastern Mediterranean.

As mentioned previously, my family left Iraq due to antisemitism before the modern state of Israel even existed. They were chased out. Some were murdered. At no point have I ever thought that the sensible response to this would be to go out and kill / harm / terrorise Iraqis. I also haven't tried seeking revenge on Germans for killing off one whole side of my family except for my grandma.😀

This is exactly the point I made upthread that Diaspora Jews do not commit acts of terrorism against citizens of their home countries. Even now when we are beginning to experience what German Jews went through in the early 1930s (before being shipped off to the concentration camps in cattle trucks) we knuckle down and rely on the protection of a security apparatus that no other minority in this country needs. And I do know of what I am speaking. It all began almost insiduously, to the extent that German Jews never believed what was to come.
I remain grateful to non Jewish posters who are supportive of the British Jewish community. Thank you all so much x

@SunnyAfternoonToday thank you for sharing that, and these family stories are worth repeating. Please understand that many of us who aren't Jewish are horrified at the increase in antisemitism, and the attacks on your community. It's up to us to speak out.

Did anyone else think of they put the new ambulances back in the same place it might happen again,?

Yes, I was wondering if - sadly - they need to be kept in a lockable garage.