How did the Jewish nation develop?

The Jewish nation originated from a branch of Semite in ancient West Asia. In the middle of BC18th century, Jews migrated to Canaan (the ancient name of Palestine) under the leadership of their ancestor Abraham, and were called Hebrews, meaning "people on the other side of the river". Later, in order to avoid natural disasters, it moved to the East Nile Delta in Egypt. At the end of13rd century BC, he returned to Canaan and formed a unified Hebrew kingdom in 1 1 century BC. King David captured the city of Jebus (the ancient name of Jerusalem) and built his capital on Mount Zion in the south of the city. In 926 BC, the Hebrew Kingdom was divided into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judea. In 722 BC and 586 BC, the two countries were destroyed by Assyrians and Babylonians respectively. Since then, the Jewish nation has been in exile and persecution for more than two thousand years.

There are different opinions about why Jews have been persecuted by anti-Semitism all over the world for generations. Some say that Jews are too smart and "have no obedient disciples"; Some people say it is religious because Jesus Christ, a Christian, was betrayed and killed by Jews. Some scholars believe that in the Middle Ages, Christian countries regarded lending money and collecting interest as a sin. But at that time, Jews were forbidden to engage in other "legal" occupations and could only engage in this "evil" business, which deepened other people's hatred of Jews. In the long history of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism, Jews were branded as profiteers or misers, and even Shakespeare did not get rid of his prejudice against Jews. Shylock was once regarded as a representative of Jews in his works.

Pretentious Jews not only claim to be God's voters, but also dare to compete with God. They contributed the Bible (Old Testament) to mankind, and hundreds of millions of believers found their spiritual home here. Their "criminal activities" of collecting rent and lending money laid the financial law of Business Times: they accounted for less than 0.3% of the world population, but they won the Nobel Prize as high as 30%. Traditionally, Jews attach great importance to education. They don't do rough work, but hire Arabs or other foreign workers to undertake heavy physical labor such as paving roads, building houses, farming and collecting garbage.

Judaism is an ancient nation. Jews have a troubled history. The earliest record is the so-called Exodus. Moses led the Jews who didn't want to be slaves and went through hardships to return to their hometown. As soon as the country was founded, the belligerent Babylonians destroyed it, and the Jews had to flee everywhere. On the day when Jerusalem was destroyed, a large number of nobles were exiled to Babylon, and they were known as "prisoners of Babylon" in history. As a result, Jews began to appear as survivors of the Jewish kingdom.

After the fall of Babylon, Jews quickly took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild the Jewish state.

Later, the Hebrews were ruled by Persians and Macedonians. Since then, although it has been independent for 100 years, unfortunately, it was immediately ruled by the Romans. After the failure of the second uprising against the Romans in A.D. 136, the Hebrews were either killed or sold, and the rest were forcibly expelled from Palestine. At this point, all Hebrews became Jews. The Jews fled again and began a "great exile" for nearly two thousand years. The flowing Hebrews became the flowing Jews. This time they fled to Europe, and by the time they rebuilt Israel again, two thousand years had passed.

After this ancient Jewish country was destroyed by the Romans. Jews gradually migrated to Europe. At that time, Europe, except the Mediterranean, was sparsely populated and economically backward. Jews quickly gained a foothold, and their main activity was business. Jews wander around and live in the world. They don't like to settle down and farm, and business earns more than farming. Jews have another advantage that Europeans can't compare with, that is, Jews are scattered all over the world, with smooth horizontal contacts and tight associations. In fact, they are a super transnational trade network.

As new immigrants, it is difficult for Jews to enter the division of labor system of mainstream society at once and become an organic part of it. Because the economies of all countries at that time were basically natural economies, the division of labor was closely intertwined with the ties of blood, kinship and geography. In any place, it is basically self-enclosed, and it is impossible to accept outsiders easily. Under this economic system, Jews can only live on the edge of a closed division of labor system and survive as an intermediary between different systems. This kind of marginal intermediary activity is also commonly referred to as commercial activity to communicate different division of labor systems. The marginal genes and marginal identity of the Jewish nation coincide with the marginal status and marginal activities here.

When the Roman Empire regarded Christianity as the state religion, it began to decline, and there was no time to discipline these Jewish pagans. Later, Charlemagne and his descendants were Christians, but the tax money paid by Jews was more important to them, so they always protected Jews. In the Middle Ages, European lords, large and small, also adopted similar policies. Although Jews have no position in religion and politics, they have developed smoothly in economic life. After the 7th century A.D., Muslim countries rose in the Middle East and confronted European Christian countries, especially non-Jews, in international trade. From Northern Europe to North Africa, from Britain to China, it is a Jewish market. It is said that when Jewish businessmen went abroad to purchase goods, they only needed to bring a draft drawn by a bank in Rome or Baghdad. You can pay for goods in other countries.

Smart Jews do not make staple food, such as rice, flour, oil and salt, but silk, spices, precious stones and slaves, which are loved by rich and powerful people. Besides these goods, they have other interests to consider. Jews are strangers in a foreign land in Europe, and they are pagans who are criticized by name in the Bible. They must strive for the protection of local dignitaries.

When there is a conflict between Jews and locals, they always turn to local elites, and of course they will not turn to them empty-handed. It can often be seen in historical documents that some Jews were falsely accused of murder or other crimes and had to send some money to local officials for help, and the final result was acquittal. In the eyes of Jews, this is the joint oppression and extortion of Jews by local officials and bandits. In the eyes of ordinary local people, this is undoubtedly a collusion between money and power, which has deepened the resentment against Jews.

The opposition between Jews and local ordinary people forced kings and dukes to issue official documents, declare that Jews belonged to them, and enclose Jewish residences with walls for strict protection. This makes Jews more isolated from the local people not only in religious, cultural and economic activities, but also in daily communication. Looking at European history, whenever there is social unrest, the Jewish residential area is always the first to be looted by mobs.

This kind of isolation was a protective measure at that time, but later it became a means of persecuting Jews, and later it became an excuse to accuse Jews.

By the 1 1 century, Europe's economy had a certain development, and the Crusades also opened the road to trade in the Middle East, and local businessmen began to gradually replace Jewish businessmen in trade. Since then, Jews have also changed their roles and shifted their business focus to lending. Many Jewish scholars believe that this change is forced by the situation, but I am afraid it is more voluntary. Since the purpose of doing business is to make money, why not borrow money to make money? Moreover, the lowest loan interest rate at that time was 43%. With the cleverness of Jews, how can you give up such profits? Thus, in Europe, Jews have become synonymous with usurers, which is the image of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

That's when the real bad luck of the Jews began. It is immoral to charge interest for lending money to others, which directly violates the teaching of the Bible. Only an evil person would do such a bad thing for nothing.

For Jews, the attitude of dignitaries is much more important than that of ordinary people. The attitude of ordinary people has never been very friendly, and Jews may not care much about what ordinary people think of them. Jews used to do business, and even if they had no money to pay tribute, they could still maintain social operation. Now Jews have become the pockets of the powerful. They treat Jews well when they have money, but ignore them when they have no money. The kings of Britain and France even imposed heavy taxes on Jews. Those who fail to pay taxes on time will be arrested and tortured. The Jews were really at a loss and applied to leave, but they were not allowed. When these Jews were squeezed out of everything, they were deported, and of course all the money owed to them by others was wasted. Anyway, in the eyes of powerful people, these Jews are lazy and exploitative parasites. Looting them will neither arouse public anger nor make people feel guilty.

After the French Revolution, the enlightenment thought of natural human rights was widely spread in various countries, and Jews also obtained the same civil rights as other nationalities. At that time, European and American countries were in the primary stage of the vigorous development of capitalism. Jews who have always been good at business and financial management are like a duck to water. Opening a shop, building a factory and repairing a railway have become the trend of the times. Of course, what Jews are best at is financial banking. 1862, there were 642 banks in Prussia, of which 550 were run by Jews, who only accounted for 1% of the local population.

Among these Jews, the Rothschild family who made a fortune in Frankfurt, Germany, was the richest family in the world at that time. It can be said that it is extremely rich, and the German, French and British governments have to raise war expenses from home. Whatever the outcome of the war, the Rothschild family will surely win. From the perspective of investors, this can be said to be perfect. But the biggest problem is that the defeated party must hate the Rothschild family, and the crime of "funding the enemy" is gone.

Throughout the Middle Ages and even modern history. Jews' road to business is not only "bumpy", they are completely walking in the fire of purgatory. Expulsion orders, stakes and butcher knives are always with them. One of the most cruel is Hitler's "final settlement" in Germany. The tragic death of 6 million innocent Jewish civilians ended a series of massacres of Jews since the Crusade.

However, in such an absurd economic stage, it has repeatedly presented extremely strange scenes: Jews who live and develop purely in the form of economy have been pushed into the abyss of poverty again and again by barbaric religious and political forces, while Jews have successfully re-entered the rich situation by purely economic means every time. So much so that in the eyes of many secular rulers, Jewish businessmen have almost become their coin-making machines and special drugs to get rid of economic difficulties. When the market is depressed, trade is not smooth, and finance is underdeveloped, monarchs will call in Jewish businessmen. As long as the economy develops with the arrival of Jewish businessmen, monarchs will not be satisfied with the high taxes paid by Jewish businessmen and "kill the goose to get the egg" to expel Jewish businessmen and confiscate all their property. The typical example here is the French monarch.

This process can also be said to be a mutually causal transformation process: without such merchant genes, Jews could not survive in such a harsh political, cultural and economic environment. There are too many persecuted peoples in history, and only the Jewish people have survived in the form of pure business or pure money. On the other hand, it is the repeated political and economic blows that force Jews to constantly improve their business talents and strive for perfection until they are fully compatible with economic operation. At this stage, the political liberation of the Jewish nation is approaching.

Jews have long been troubled by conflicts between nations and countries, and they try to solve these problems in different ways. Jews have taken two diametrically opposite measures. One is Zionism, which adheres to the nationalist line and strives to establish a Jewish state in Jerusalem in the Middle East. The other is to take the road of * * * to completely destroy the country and liberate all mankind and the Jews themselves.

Jews have been away from Jerusalem for more than two thousand years, and they are used to life in Europe. Besides, living next to Arabs who believe in Islam is not necessarily much better than living among Europeans who believe in Christianity. Under the social conditions at that time, the ideology of * * * prevailed. For Jews living in foreign countries, capitalism is the most ideal society. Although they can't make money and get rich, at least they can live a quiet life without worrying about life. Jews are easily attracted by the slogan "The working class has no motherland". So the Jews became the mainstay of the proletarian movement in European countries. * * * Marx, the founder of the theory of productism, is a Jew, Luxembourg and Liebknecht, the leaders of the famous German workers' movement, are Jews, and Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, is also a Jew.

In the long exile, in order to overcome all kinds of adversity, nationalism became the spiritual power of Jews. Without this spiritual support, Jews would have been assimilated by the local people. At the same time, the nationalism of the surrounding ethnic groups is also the biggest threat to the existence of Jews. In fact, not only Jews, but also every minority faces a similar situation. Especially those who immigrated to foreign countries became ethnic minorities. When the new motherland and the old motherland have conflicts of interest or even wars. The new motherland may regard you as an untrustworthy alien, and the old motherland may also regard you as a traitor who forgets his ancestors.

Jews are a nation with strong national consciousness all over the world. Nowadays, many American Jews ask their children to keep Jewish consciousness and go to the Hebrew cram school run by the church after class.

According to statistics, 70% or 80% of young men and women have received traditional Jewish education. However, parents hope that their traditional culture will not prevent their children from entering American society and succeeding. Generally speaking, German-speaking Jews from Central Europe are more receptive to western culture and more open-minded. Those from Eastern Europe are more conservative, stick to tradition, only carry out activities in the community, and even only intermarry within the family. Now their extended families and communities are no longer ethnic bases, and the customs kept at home have also decreased a lot.

However, at the end of March every year, during the Jewish Passover, the whole family can still be seen reunited and full of children and grandchildren. At the dinner table, the host reads Hebrew scriptures, and then everyone reads a passage from the Bible. Those who can't speak Hebrew can read English prayers and eat unleavened cakes. This is to commemorate that when the ancestors of the Jews fled Egypt, the dough was hastily made into bread to eat on the road before it was fermented. It was these cakes that kept them from starving to death. This festival will last for seven or eight days and is a preserved Jewish national festival.

When human society finally got rid of the domination of the "visible hand" of politics and religion, and entered an era when the "invisible hand"-the hand of the market-issued the highest instructions, the Jews, an extremely successful nation that has existed in the form of pure money for thousands of years, naturally ushered in their own new era and ushered in their own prosperity. "The world's first businessman" finally got the result!

After World War II, Jews became rich and developed everywhere. In 197 1 year. Among Jews, 40% are managers or administrators, and 29% are professionals. The proportion of people working in the clothing industry has declined, and most of those who stay in the clothing industry have become managers. At present, there are many Jewish businessmen engaged in real estate and housing construction. Another outstanding feature is that American Jews are highly educated, and 70% of young people have obtained degrees. Many Jewish intellectuals teach in American universities.

In a word, the Jewish nation is a great nation, and human civilization has made today's achievements. This is inseparable from the contribution of Jews.