Europe and the Jews: The Pressure of Christendom on the People of Israel for 1900 Years

Rating:
Summary: A rare history book that affects you emotionally
Review: Europe and the Jews is the definitive description of the birth and growth of anti-semitism in Europe, leaving the reader with a deep and disturbing understanding how the world can sit by and allow the systematic murder of millions of innocent people. The book is written clearly and with a surprisingly appropriate touch of irony. This book is an excellent companion to the "Hinges of History" books written by Thomas Cahill. It is a scholarly work that is extensively documented -- it would have to be considering the material covered, but it never becomes dry or impersonal. Mr. Hay never lets the reader forget he is describing the fate of millions of souls over the centuries. The lessons in this book should give us the courage to expose and resist those that would commit genocide anywhere in our world.

Rating:
Summary: The ironic Biblical cow.
Review: I give this book five stars because it is an extreme form of honesty. For that it deserves to get as much credit as it can get from anyone who longs to have the opportunity to read the truth about anything. I find the book difficult to read, but people whose minds have absorbed the awesome responsibility assumed by the United States at the end of World War II for maintaining a peace which surpasses the decency of any former age ought to see if they can relate to the author's position on this work as a classic example of how historical ethics can subsequently be applied to anything which tended to favor the worst kinds of behavior.

There is something in this book, and in Isaiah, about an ox and something too absurd to relate in a review as an actual sermon that has been preserved for hundreds of years. ...The problem with reading this book (for those who would consider such an activity to be anything other than a distraction from the daily activities of our mundane world) is the problem that anyone who seeks a foundation for an honest society might still express: among whom would an honest society be more likely, or even possible?

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest books of the 20th century
Review: This book is a little-known masterwork, written by a profoundly good Scot named Malcolm Hay. It was initially issued as "The Foot of Pride" and then later reprinted as "Europe and the Jews." It is really heartening to see that the book has been brought back into print again, with an additional preface by the noted philosopher Walter Kaufmann.

You will want to read this book when your mind confronts the question: How could Hitler and his Nazis have murdered six million Jews? How could this have happened?

A large part of the answer lies in this book, which opens one of the closets of European history and reveals a skeleton: the two-thousand year history of Christian anti-Semitism.

Extremely well-written, and documented so well as to make arguments not just futile but silly, Malcolm Hay traces the Christian persecution of the Jews from the earliest Fathers of the Church down to the twentieth century. He quotes the horrific sermons of St. John Chrysostom in his "Homilies Against the Jews" (or, "Homilies Against Judaizing Christians").

The book is so effective that I suspect it must have played a large part in the following historical events:

1. The public apology to the Jewish people from the Pope of Rome

2. The doctrinal change, where "Christ-killers" was permanently expunged from the language of the Catholic Church.

3. The ecumenical movement towards the Jews in Israel.

4. The purging of the anti-Jewish sermons from the latest edition of the complete works of St. John Chrysostom. (Talk about rewriting history! They were SILENTLY removed, as if they had never existed.)

In sum, as you have probably figured out, I cannot say enough good things about this book, and can find no fault with it. Read it, and keep a copy. You will learn things here that you will find nowhere else.

In stars -- oh, about 25 stars!!!

Rating:
Summary: the exposure of a profound truth...
Review: This book reveals a number of truths about the relationship between Christianity and anti-semitism, the first being the exposure of the early Christian leaders roles in the shaping of the negative image the Jewish people have been burdened with for the last two centuries. The distortion of the Jews involvement in the death of Jesus is exposed with particular clarity, focusing on how the anger at the Jews unwillingness to accept Jesus as the son of God led to the myth that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for death of Jesus. The author's statement that " seventy-five percent of the Jews in the land" had never even heard of Jesus at the time of his death is a comment worth serious contemplation. The suggestion that the anti-semitism perpetrated by the church led to an apathetic attitude toward the victims of the Holocaust and thereby enabled Hitler to more effectively accomplish his goal is a revelation of immeasurable value. This book should be read by anyone who cares not only for the relationship between Jews and Christians, but who cares to any agree about history, truth and the fate of mankind.

Rating:
Summary: An important and well written book
Review: Yes, this is an excellent book. And the prefaces by Thomas Sugrue and by Walter Kaufmann are good too.

As a Pagan, I've wondered about the horror some people have had for human rights. This goes for plenty of groups that have attacked others mainly in order to enslave them, kill them, and above all, deprive them of truth, justice, and human rights.

Pagans are not immune from behaving badly. But I wanted to see just what Christians did, and when they did it. And while Christians managed to kill most of the European Pagans they came across in short order, many Jews were not so, um, lucky: quite a few survived to be further oppressed.

Well, how did this all happen? Malcolm Hay asks this question after relating some of the horror of what happened to the Jews during World War 2. Where had this hatred and contempt come from? Why all the anti-Jewish propaganda? Was this contrary to Christianity? An integral part of it? Which Christian leaders were truly the most to blame for it? As a Christian, Hay clearly wants to know how to make sense of all this.

Hay starts with the Gospel according to St. John, which refers to "the Jews" in a very negative way, and more important refers to them in general. He then goes to the fourth century, and looks at some of the language used about the Jews by the leading Christians. That includes St. John Chrysostom, who is still very highly regarded by Christian writers. However, "the violence of the language used by St. John Chrysostom in his homilies against the Jews has never been exceeded by any preacher whose sermons have been recorded." This hatred is traced through the Dark Ages down through the centuries, to the present.

I think this confirms that a main source of the problem was from the time when Christianity first became powerful. And I think it raises the question of whether hatred was the main message of Christianity at that time.

We then see how this hatred became part of the culture, so that violence could erupt without any real provocation at numerous times. We see St. Bernard's indifference to Crusader attacks on Jews. We see outbreaks of blood-libels. Of the Inquisition. And mistreatment by one Pope after another. And of the viciousness against Jews displayed by Martin Luther. And the Dreyfus affair.

I think the most interesting part of the book is the description of how this culture contributed to slanders and injustices perpetrated against Zionists in the first half of the twentieth century. This book was written in 1950, and it is worth reading about the antisemitism of many Europeans towards the Levantine Jews (many of whom were of European origin). I think this helps one to see how European antisemitic attitudes supported some of the most racist Arabs and have helped perpetuate Arab intolerance for all non-Arabs and non-Muslims, not just for Jews.

All in all, it is a superbly written book. It's depressing to read it, of course. One wonders what is wrong with a species that can do so much damage to itself almost effortlessly.