Where do you think Jewish people come from?

[BlessedIsTheFruit]

Antisemitism is at full volume at the moment and I caveat this post with saying that I have absolutely no wish to make Jewish MNers feel uncomfortable but as an an atheist with no connection to Israel this really makes my blood boil.

I see so many SM posts about the Jews having 'colonized' Israel and Judea & Samaria, not having any claim to the land, not being indigenous and of course being 'Europeans settlers'.

They can't answer where they actually come from though so I thought anyone on here who shares their views might be able to give an answer and how they came to that conclusion.

I understand that Jews are an ethnicity with Judaism as their religion. Being Jewish is not a religion. Jews are still today spread out all over the world with the majority living in Israel and the US.

This has come into focus since the UK Government sanctions on Jewish businesses in Judea & Samaria recently with Jewish communities living there classed as 'illegal settlers'.

It's almost as if Jews and Judea have no connection at all.

So AIBU to ask where the Jews originated from if not from there?

I don't feel this belongs on the CITME board as although the war in Gaza has amplified beliefs, this not directly about that.

Oh, FFS, @BlessedIsTheFruit! They're as bad as each other. But unequal. Israel's richer and has stronger international support - as was the case in the 1940s.

Was three-quarters of the Jewish population displaced? As far as I'm aware, a dozen Jewish villages were depopulated and 400 Arab ones.

A one-sided perspective is all you'll accept, I see. So much for your wide-eyed introductory post. You can't even hear anyone looking at both sides. I'll take my smell elsewhere.

Thank you, that makes sense.

Wow such a helpful reply. Thank you!

You stated my reaction to your comment was increasing the hate, my reaction stems from:

1. People deny that Jews have a connection to Israel as a way to delegitimise Israel.
2. The same people push for the abolition of the state and the removal of the Jews (or for them to be ruled by others).
3. This (in their view) legitimises attacks on Israel.

I don't care if you thought the comment was light hearted and I'm pleased to hear you don't hate Jews, but your comment supported the perception above and has real world consequences for Jews. It was made on a thread where large numbers agree with the above narrative and supported that argument, intentionally or otherwise.

Humour can bring people together, but not when it pits them against each other.

It is this dishonest hyperbole that needs to stop.

wait, who had the power in the 1940s?

Yes, more Arabs were displaced because the Jews won. However, the Arab intent was very clear. If you look at % displaced in the areas held, the Arabs cleared the areas they held of 100% of the Jewish population, Israel did not displace 100% of the Arab population.

But if you're worried about making it fair, fear not! Because after Israel won, the Arab countries turned on their Jewish populations and displaced them. 800,000 of them!

Also it has stopped (not that there was mass starvation but anyway there's plenty of food there now).
Btu Sudan and Yemen? Yep, genocide going on there. Actual ongoing right now gencoide. Kids being bombed and starved. crickets
Apparently there is only ever one "genocide"

Hendon.

Yes, I agree with that and that's why the problem can't be solved. It's a zero sum game. Very unfortunate. I can imagine in a thousand years time the Israel-Palestine conflict will still be going on because neither side will give in.

Funny how often people use the collective trauma of Arabs or Palestinians to justify their hatred of Israel.

What about the collective trauma of many Israeli’s whose ancestors were persecuted for millennia or killed in the holocaust? Do the declarations of war by neighbouring states, calls for the destruction of Israel or the eradication of Jews excuse Israeli aggression? Maybe the slaying of their athletes, hijacking of planes or constant barrage of rockets by people who want them dead has an effect on them.

By your ‘eye for an eye’ should we have allowed them to kill a few million antisemites after the holocaust?

No, you think the Israeli’s should be held to higher standards and make peace with those who would destroy them.

Also holding ‘Arab survivors’ to a lower standard and suggesting they should automatically be expected to become aggressors rather than look for a diplomatic solution is racist and infantilising.

Likely because we don't have dozens of Burhan, Dagalo, Houti or Saudi supporters here, proclaiming moral superiority or unique victimhood.

Actually those two wars are so bloody complicated, I'd be surprised if the people stuck in the middle of them even know who's fighting for what nowadays 😢

So I think we need to move away from seeing it as a zero sum game. What's good for the Palestinians can be good for Israel and vice versa. At the end of the day, peace and prosperity will benefit everyone.

Either an ignorant or a disingenuous post. Nobody is telling you a White Christian to go back to where you came from. But Jews are being told to “go back to Poland“ or to leave Israel because ‘they don’t come from there.’

I don’t understand your point

No, it's because no one cares. There's not been one march for Yemen or for Sudan or for Nigeria or for Congo.
There weren't marches when the Rohingya gencoide was ongoing.
I remember Tamils despierately throwing themselves in front of buses to just get some attention during the Sri Lankan genocide.
Outrage is very selective apparently. And a keffiyeh looks cool. So....

I’d avoid getting information from Wikipedia entirely, particularly about anything related to Jews. according to a 2025 report by the anti-defamation league there’s been a network of Wikipedia editors engaging in a coordinated campaign to introduce anti-Israel bias and antisemitic narratives on the platform. This has included removing references to Jews having a homeland or being a nation of people and to historical examples of Jews or Hebrews living in the land. Hebrew has been changed to Canaanite to avoid indigenous people being associated with modern day Jews.

Yes, its really concerning https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-neutrality-to-bias-wikipedias-quiet-war-on-israel/

There have also been reports on similar happening regarding other groups (e.g. exaggerating Russian historical ties to other territory) but I don't know the history/details well enough.

‘ There’s no need for the Jews to hold all the power’
After all, why are the Jews deserving of self government and autonomy? Surely that’s only the rights of Christians, Muslim and other ethnicities/religions who hold the power in many many countries.

There’s so much antisemitism on this thread. It’s unreal.

What languages have official status in the UK? Or are the rules different for us?

Arab Israelis hold official citizenship with legal rights like voting and carrying passports. They occupy highly prestigious high ranking positions in many professional sectors, particularly healthcare and the judiciary. If that’s what people call apart, then they don’t understand the meaning of the word.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia have taken on the same air as transphobia, it seems to me. Unless you unconditionally agree with everything the group in question says & does, you're anti/phobic.

Oh, hold your nose, I'm being smelly again! Tsk.

Millions of Jews did - or tried to - consider themselves European. Unfortunately for them, Europe set them straight about that. As a school boy in 1920s Germany, my grandfather was told "go back" to Jerusalem, that "all the Jews should be rounded up and gassed" (yes, that was an idea already doing the rounds in the 1920s).

67% of Europe's jews were killed during WW2. Shouldn't be hard to understand why a vast number of them lost faith in the concept of assimilation.

I never saw Israel as the victim either. They were bigger, better armed, so surely the bad guy. But when I saw as I scrolled X on 7 October three years ago made me realise what they were up against, and why they have to be so defensive. It was horror beyond imagination.

Well for a start the Palestinian people could have avoided voting in Hamas. I think people forget that Hamas didn't appear in a mysterious way - they were voted in. The people voted for a terror organisation with the goal to destroy Israel, encourage worldwide jihad and align with the Muslim Brotherhood and all the rest of the terrorists. I have no idea how to negotiate with that and have yet to see any suggestions. Agree that probably plenty of people regret that, but it's not like they were secretive about what they intended.

All 'I' actually want is to live my slightly boring life, raise my kids and watch them thrive in life. However I am spending a lot of my time on the phone with their teachers about various incidents, driving my daughter back and forth to self-defense classes so she can protect herself against the violent bigots who attacked her at school, checking the news for the latest shooting / stabbing / whatever and comforting my children who are too scared to go to synagogue. While simultaneously defending my right to exist or have a place to run to when all this gets to be more frightening than exhausting.

My workplace is a cesspool of hate marches and a mess of a union covered in Palestinian flags and I am too scared to wear my Jewish star necklace most of the time (sometimes I'm too angry not to which is new. I think I prefer angry).

I promise, I hate war too. I really do. But even I struggle to see how to stop fighting against an enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy you. Hamas isn't going to stop because xyz civilians are massacred. They won't stop because the UN asks nicely. They will never stop. I have no idea what to do about that.

But so do other people, and there is no need for Jewish people to hold all the power, especially given how badly they treat the Muslims and Christians
who came from exactly the same place and who
have equal right to live there.

Did you actually just say that?
Also there are Muslim politicians in the Knesset, FYI. Jewish people are the population majority in Israel, is that what you mean by "holding all the power"?

Re treatment of Christians, the Gazan Christian population has plummeted in the last two decades. In the same time period, it's risen from 146K to 184K in Israel.

This thread still going then!
Have a good Sukkot everyone - hopefully without being too cold.