October 17, 2016 Monday
Bedtime Story
Antisemitism in Europe and Russia - Another Random Factor That Favored Success of the United States as a nation
It is very hard for me to understand the feeling of disgust,
rancor and loathing that existed in Russia and Europe (perhaps still exists
beneath a thin veneer of accommodation and bonhomie) against the Jews for the
last 3 centuries or more.
Historians say that Jews have been persecuted in Europe
since ages, even in early 1300s.
But it was in the Russian Empire or the Imperial Russia
that targeted persecution of Jews became systematic and frequent.
The Russian Empire had expanded with a series of
conquests towards the west starting from 1720s occupying a large part of
Eastern and Central Europe to become the third largest empire in the history of
mankind (superseded only by the British and Mongol Empires).
Along with this expansion came territories of Central
Europe where most of the Ashkenazi Jews were settled after having migrated from
Israel (they were marginalized even by the Roman Empire and the Ancient
Greece).
Russian Empress Elizabeth in 1950s tried to evict all
the Jews from Russia, but having failed in that her successor Catherine the
Great in 1791 created a small area in Western most border of the Empire where
Jews would be restricted to.
This was the beginning of formal ghettoisation of the
Jews.
This area came to be known as the Pale of Settlement
(Pale derived from the Latin palus, a
stake, suggesting an area enclosed by a fence).
This zone fell over region which is now Ukraine and
Belarus.
Such settlements would be repeated in history time and
again for other minorities in different societies.
The confinement of the Russian Jews within the constraints
of Pale where opportunities were few and poverty rampant made their targeting easier
and methodical.
From Russia, somewhere in 1800s, originated the word
pogrom (погро́м, pronounced [pɐˈgrom]) from the Russian verb
“gromit” (громи́ть, pronounced [grɐˈmʲitʲ]) meaning
to destroy or to wreak havoc.
The word pogrom is now referred to a targeted riot by a
mob against a specific ethnic or religious group, more specifically against
Jews.
Pogroms were frequent in the Russian Empire and got
even worse during the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and 1922.
This Russian hatred towards the Jews was imported,
polished, refined and reduplicated several fold by the Nazi Germany which
eventually led to the Kristallnacht that frightened the mother of Hans Bethe.
Nazi Germany would turn out to be the greatest live
demonstration of the Milgram Experiment, the guinea pigs of which would be average
simple human apes who happened to hold Jewish blind faith.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or
login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an IIT graduate and
a former professor at BARC, actually does and teaches real mathematics and physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All
his books can be downloaded for free through this link.
For
edu-tainment of your children may I suggest Kids Songs channel.
As early as in 1340s and 1350s when the Black Plague pandemic (caused by bacteria Yersinia pestis) struck Europe killing somewhere between 75 to 200 million people, Jews and marginalized people like lepers and people with acne and psoriasis were blamed and were murdered en mass.
Kishinev pogrom of 1903 (Kishinev is now called Chișinău and is the capital and the largest city of Republic of Moldova)
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