Jewish population in world with no Christianity?

Are you arguing that anti-semitism is somehow inherent to human nature? :confused:

I don't think he's arguing that, but hatred of people with different beliefs/customs/ideas is an unfortunately common trend in human nature. Given that the Jews have a reasonably unique religion and culture that tends towards introversion, it seems reasonable that they will still suffer a fair degree of dislike and persecution from other people.

The OTL Romans were certainly none too fond of Jewish culture and religion, but since the Jews voluntarily submitted to Roman rule Rome was willing to tolerate their odd ideas (at least until those ideas led to rebellion). Assuming the temple is still destroyed and the diaspora still occurs there will be small, isolated, spread out Jewish communities that are not going to be treated too well by the larger societies which they will likely refuse to assimilate into.

(And that's post # 1000)
 

Hendryk

Banned
Given that the Jews have a reasonably unique religion and culture that tends towards introversion, it seems reasonable that they will still suffer a fair degree of dislike and persecution from other people.
Jewish religion and culture is unique in the sense that every religion and culture is unique.

The OTL Romans were certainly none too fond of Jewish culture and religion, but since the Jews voluntarily submitted to Roman rule Rome was willing to tolerate their odd ideas (at least until those ideas led to rebellion).
My point exactly.

Assuming the temple is still destroyed and the diaspora still occurs there will be small, isolated, spread out Jewish communities that are not going to be treated too well by the larger societies which they will likely refuse to assimilate into.
Small, isolated Jewish community? Well, there was the one in Kaifeng, China. It survived unmolested for 900 years. Pogrom? None. Persecution? None. Harassment? None. The Chinese had no problem whatsoever with the Jews; they let them build their synagogue, practice their religion and their customs; they traded with them, occasionally gave them women to marry. I guess the Chinese didn't get the memo that they were supposed to hate the Jews.
 
Name one example of anti-semitism in a non-Abrahamic culture.

The destruction of the Temple by the Romans doesn't count; this was SOP as far as they were concerned (one need only look at Carthage).

There was some rather nasty anti-Semitic writings by classical authors--Tacitus said that the Jews were a bunch of lepers expelled from Egypt and an Egypto-Greek writer claimed that they worshipped a donkey's head in the Temple.

And let's not forget Antiochus IV Epiphanes who deliberately desecrated the Temple.
 
There was some rather nasty anti-Semitic writings by classical authors--Tacitus said that the Jews were a bunch of lepers expelled from Egypt and an Egypto-Greek writer claimed that they worshipped a donkey's head in the Temple.

And let's not forget Antiochus IV Epiphanes who deliberately desecrated the Temple.


The Romans wrote nasty things about all barbs, i.e. non-romans. They admired the greeks and still denigrated them as being more sybariticthen even the worst Romans.
 
My views:

It's already been mentioned that a POD with no Christianity makes for a very different world than our own...in other words, the conditions of Jews in the world will probably vary from place to place. In most places, they'll probably be treated with indifference. Some rulers will be tolerant, while others will be rather nasty (akin to Antiochus IV).

Overall, I'd say that the Jewish population would probably be higher compared to our world's (although not by a significant amount, unless a state like our world's Khazaria or the Himyar Empire survives to the present day), without our world's inquisitions, forced conversions, expulsions, and pogroms.
 
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