Why do Jews find the document titled "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion" to be so offensive?

Question

If I was a Jew, I would personally find the print to be laughable because the whole context of it is just so blatantly absurd. So why can other Jews not do the same?

Also, WHY was it forged in the first place? There were over one-hundred and fifty minority groups residing in Russia and beyond the Russian Empire when the document was first written, so why out of all those groups, would they have chosen to incriminate the Jews?

Answer 1

To an extent, I agree with you: The entire premise of the document is wrong, and there are so many inconsistencies and baseless statements that one can't help but not take it seriously. I find it's hateful nature to be absurd to the first place.



However, PEOPLE HAVE DIED BECAUSE THAT DOCUMENT HAS BEEN PRINTED. Lots, and lots, of Jews, to be exact. Jews are well aware of this, so we can't take it seriously. You don't get it because you aren't Jewish, but from our prospective, it's not funny.



In addition, the document still caries over hatred today, as I've seen clips of an Egyptian tv show that basically depicted what the forgers intended people to see. It's blatantly anti-Semitic, and from what I've heard the Protocols are a best-seller in those countries. It makes a lot of Jews nervous.



Traditionally, the Jews were seen as the scapegoat. I don't know how influenced the Russians were by others, but off all the groups, the Jews were probably chosen because they were located in major Russian areas, were few in number, and held a different religion that denied Jesus' importance. Muslims were removed from the important parts of the Russian regime, accepted Jesus in a different way, and by far had more backing, for example.

Answer 2

"If I was a Jew, I would personally find the print to be laughable because the whole context of it is just so blatantly absurd. So why can other Jews not do the same?"



So would I if it remained within the realm of a joke or the fevered imagination of a few inconsequential antisemites.



The reality though is that the book has had traction. Thus, it is a contributor to fueling antisemitism and giving justification for it.



Thus, it moves from the realm of a joke to something more serious.



"Also, WHY was it forged in the first place? "



That is a nonsense question. Antisemitism is not logical. Since it is not logical, antisemites do not need a coherent reason for specifically targeting Jews.

Answer 3

Seriously? Well, let's think. We find it offensive because people still believe it. It is printed in the muslim and arab world and is taken as fact. It was taught in school in the 3rd reich and in fact, Henry Ford paid for it to printed and distributed to all German school kids. Yes, its laughable but so is holocaust denial and you find people buying into that.



It was forged because Jews were a group that had "strange customs", "strange language", "strange style of dress" etc (at least in the eyes of the white Europeans). In addition, for years, the xtian church taught that "the Jews killed jesus" and that carries forward into today so of course, we were different and we killed their messiah. That is the making of a good scapegoat. On top of that, some Jews were well off having excelled in their chosen professions (education has always been important to a Jewish family) and that created envy and hatred.



We find it offensive because gullible people who hate Jews and look for ANYTHING to confirm their hatred as fact, actually believe it.



If someone wrote a book about your race/ethinc group/religion and it was totally false but full of wild accusations (and people believed those accusations as fact) you would probably be offended too.

Answer 4

It carries some truth so Jews are afraid and when someone points something out they will say how gullible and stupid you are for believing. In reality though, the writers must have been motivated by a certain Jewish behavior to have written it. I myself have seen this type behavior from Jews.



Regardless of whether it is a work of fiction it's the same as writing 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Mecca", how Muslims are trying to convert the world to Islam. Of coarse they will deny it and say " you're a fool", but in behavior you often wonder.



Now, lets see how.quickly this answer will be thumbed down. I give it about 45 minutes. Jews are on high alert.

Answer 5

Because it never existed. The protocol talks about Jews as some "organized" bad group. Whats their fault that some of them were blessed with being rich? And some blessed with smart heads? Every culture has some rich or smart people. Its also an innaccuracy. It's such an open lie also because many of them are very low income, specially the ones with some 10 children. So the ideas there are utter fantasy fabricated by some person who hated or was Jealous of Jews. In response to some of the insinuations there : Jews just help each other out of the Old testament (Jewish Bible) that tells and COMMANDS to "help another person if his donkey fell to the ground due to his heavy packages" and comands to have piety - humanity towards others. In contrast to many many other cultures and commumities: I come from a south american country and there was a huge flood in one of it's areas and they were doing clotes drives for clothing for the flooded area, we asked our neighbors: are you giving clothes? they said, why do I need to send clothes? they are not my kids. That never ever happens in Jewish communities, they love to volunteer with clothes drives etc. They are just tought (or taught? Sorry for my english ignoramus) to do volunteer and charity out of humanity. Now antisemites love to call & quote that protocol of.... I dont even want to finish the phrase... Maybe it's jealowsy? I can tell you that I was in Manhattan and my cell died. No one of the food cart prople wanted to change my pennies and nickels into a quarter to make a phone call on a public phone. But in a Jewish Store on Broadway, the Jewish Religious woman let me use her cell, no questions asked. Again the COMMAND by the Bible to help others. So Jewish people have more kindness to each other, and not the bad organized resolutions that the protocol insinuates.

Answer 6

It's 100% true and only the Jews deny it! Everyone else agrees with it!

It is impossible that someone Christian would have ever written such a terrible book!

Answer 7

Like others have said, the dangers of those gullible people who believe it. The strongest argument I can give you is that Palestinian 10th graders learn it in school, as if it were true. It's in their history book:

"The schoolbook, published in 2004, by the Palestinian Ministry of Education, teaches that among the foundations of Zionism, agreed upon at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, 'there is a group of confidential resolutions adopted by the Congress and known by the name ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ the goal of which was world domination.'"

http://www.palwatch.org/STORAGE/OpEd/Protocols_of_the_Elders.pdf



This truly explains a lot of what posters on here say if they grew up being taught these things in school. This lie is institutionalized. It's a brainwashing of sorts. And so antiSemitism is entwined in every aspect of their lives growing up: in school, on television, from the government, from parents and friends, etc.



If Jews are the enemy, and this is serving as a catalyst for more hatred and more violence resulting in terrorism, and hence, more deaths, then yes, it offends me.

Answer 8

We consider it offensive because so many people justify their hate and incitement against Jews by claiming it is real and use it to incite hate and violence against Jews.



The forgery didn't really take much work as it is pretty much a cut and paste job of an existing essay, whose target was not Jews, but an imaginary discussion about Napoleon and his followers in Hell, planning their NEXT take over of the world.

Answer 9

"So why would they have targeted Jews and not Muslims?"



Theology. Have you looked into it yet? The early Church Fathers' writings about Jews. The idea of keeping Jews alive but desecrated as a symbol of what Gd does to those who don't accept Jesus. It's not officially part of many Christian theologies now, but it was common & part of the relationship going back before Islam existed. My links from my research were removed when several sites rewrote themselves, so I'll leave it to you to find.



Here are some of the quotes:

http://restorationoftorah.org/SeedsofSeparation/SeedsOfSep1.html

What's notable is that scholars on the topic, state that the nastiest of the writing was typical polemic of the times. Also a lot of it is political competition under the arm of the Roman imperialism on who'd be beat up more. Then there was when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire.



It was when it's use was continued for several more centuries, but without the political context of the Roman times (which were like this) that it was taken more literally & directly & viciously at Jews. Which is why the harassment of Jews took a while to get off the ground. It's as the Church took the words & the more & more literally as it developed totalitarian-style over it's own people (for instance not letting them become educated or read the bible themselves.)



Of course once put into action... the scapegoat tends to be targeted again & again as the known thing to target.



If you track antisemitism, it exists in places where Christianity took it. It does not match as well to where Jews are. It correlates best to where Xtianity has been in the past. Which is revealing. It's also been but differently, where Islam has been. Both of whoms theology includes references to Jews in a less than kind way.



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Also, Jews aren't obligated to have these answers. You are wanting to know why the harassers harassed, by asking the victims. We can dig for answers, but we dig by looking at the harassers' words, & have no more wisdom than anyone else on this outside of the harassers.

Have you found any answers? Do you have specific speculations?



If Jews had the answers & solution to respond to them - Jews would have. Jews have tried varied approaches. Some worked, others haven't. We know assimilation doesn't fix it, because German Jews were very assimilated more than Jews had been before -- right before the Nazis. (The Reform movement popular in Germany was in large part initially an attempt to be more like neighboring Christians in order to reduce being targeted.) We know religious dialog with Christian leaders has helped hugely, post-Holocaust when they were more open to addressing the "interrelational" problems.



There are a number of books on the topic, written by scholars with special research interest into the field. Have you checked into any of them yet? They'd know much more than people here.



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Were there a lot of Muslims in Russia proper, or was it in the Stans to the south? Those were more isolated, less developed regions that weren't integrated with the north Russia. Jews were in the major northern Russia cities, & put into shtels on the outskirts. So they were accessible. Muslims in the Stans at a time of slow travel, were "far away." Incidentally, they also didn't have a lot of antisemitism in the Stans among those Muslims from what I understand (by family that wound up there during the war).





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The Protocols talks about ME as though I'm evil. With all sorts of crazy ideas. I also find books that talk about blacks as inferior, offensive.



All that would make it inconsequential & a book I'd not think about -- if I didn't see real live significantly power politicans & leaders in Muslims countries, some in Europe restating & believing the sludge in the book as factual.



"I would personally find the print to be laughable because the whole context of it is just so blatantly absurd. "

From your brain... may it go to that of other humans.



The thoughts in it have been slung at me daily in YA. Also, more scarily, in real life, real incidents. It doesn't carry the emotion of absurd once it becomes dangerous. Then it's absurd AND offensive that someone would take it seriously & throw it at you in order to denigrate you. The whole Nazi idea that blues eyes are better, is the epitome of absurd. When it meant that Nazis were forcing darker eyed Jews to lick sidewalk filth with their tongues to humiliate them, then additional emotions happen, along with "absurd." In those emotions is, that they, their thoughts & behaviors are hateful. & that includes offensive.



---> Those words in the book are written to be denigrate, to lie about others, to steal their honor & integrity & replace it with hateful ideas about them.

(That's the crux of my answer. Wish I'd thought of it before I'd written the rest :). )

con't

Answer 10

Because if you read it, the truthfulness of the document, no matter who wrote it, whether plagarized, forged or not, becomes self evident.



The Protocols of the Elders of Zion literally, a living document and the historical events have occured as were predicted (ie. the consolidation of the media and the economies of Western Nations, lies , wars and moral perversions of society) in them fit the state of the world today.



It goes without saying that many Jews are behind these events and due to their unusual tribal instincts of survival, this is very offensive to the Jews who are not involved in any criminal consiracies and moral perversions of society.



Believe it or not the gays have their own version of the Protocols and just like the Jews, many in the LGTB movement are just as offended by the truthfulness presented in the document "STRATEGIES OF THE HOMOSEXUAL MOVEMENT: The Overhauling of Straight America."

Answer 11

To tell the truth, I do not find it offensive and I could not care less about what some fools think of me.

I find this fake story idiotic and laughable, and those who seriously believe it are in my mind the ready clients of the mental clinics.

Answer 12

If I were a Jew I would

Answer 13

Because it was used--and still is--by hate groups to foster anti-Semitism.

Answer 14

It is FALSE AND ANTISEMITIC!!!

Answer 15

To answer your second paragraph, you see my friend to acknowledge that anti-Jewish sentiment/behavior may be rooted in real and rational conflicts of interest, as opposed to being a psychopathology or something like that (a much more popular interpretation in the Jewish world), is to falsify what has become the Jewish prerogative to the victim industry and all that it entails (such as the Jewish only prerogative to be exempt from all criticism).



In reality there were very real conflicts of interest in Russia that engendered the Protocols: these were, for example, the Jewish yoke on the Russian economy, the hold on the Russian media and all the subsersion of Russian culture that came with it and the Jewish critical involvement in Communism. Refer to Chapter 2 "Themes of Anti-Semitism" in "Seperation and Its Discontents: Toward and Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism".



An interesting source I found not mentioned in the above book is this Jewish source on the Jewish influence on the modern Russian economy and media (which would probably be even less than it was during the times of the Protocols considering Jews are now much smaller population in Russia then they were):

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp414.htm



"That Jews control a disproportionately large share of the Russian economy and Russian media certainly has some basis in fact. Between 50 and 80 percent of the Russian economy is said to be in Jewish hands, with the influence of the five Jews among the eight individuals commonly referred to as "oligarchs" particularly conspicuous. (An oligarch is understood to be a member of a small group that exercises control in a government. The five oligarchs of Jewish descent are Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Friedman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Alexander Smolensky. The other oligarchs are Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Potanin, and Rem Vyakhirev.)



Perhaps the most famous (and simultaneously the most infamous) of the oligarchs is Boris Berezovsky. In common with most of the other Jewish oligarchs, Berezovsky controls industries in three critical areas: the extraction and sale of a major natural resource, such as oil, as a source of great wealth; a large bank (useful in influencing industry and transferring assets abroad); and several major media outlets (useful for exerting influence and attacking rivals). He also controls a significant share of the Aeroflot airline and the Moscow automobile industry. He is a long-time, close associate of the Yeltsin family and is often perceived as a Rasputin-type figure in his relationship with Tatiana Dyachenko, Yeltsin's very influential daughter. Berezovsky's leading lieutenant is another Jew, Roman Abramovich, a shadowy individual in his early 30s. Abramovich manages Berezovsky's vast oil interests (Sibneft and related companies), arranges major financial and industrial positions in the Russian Cabinet, serves as cashier to the Yeltsin family, and controls access to Berezovsky himself.



Vladimir Gusinsky owns a large stable of media outlets through Media Most, including NTV, several newspapers, and a news magazine; interests in oil, construction, and pharmaceuticals; and a bank (Most Bank). He was the leading organizer in financing the 1996 election campaigns of Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.



Mikhail Friedman and his Jewish colleague Peter Aven are the principals in a large bank (Alfa Bank) and also are prominent in construction materials and food processing. The banking interests of Alexander Smolensky (SBS Agro) and Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Menatep) were damaged severely in the 1998 financial crisis. However, Smolensky shares holdings in some media and oil concerns with Berezovsky, and Khodorkovsky remains influential in an oil company (Yukos), mining and construction enterprises, and businesses producing chemicals, textiles, and paper.



Jewish oligarchs made their considerable holdings in Russian media available to the Yeltsin and Luzhkov 1996 political campaigns. The victory of the oligarchs in the elections - and it was as much their victory as it was victory for Yeltsin and Luzhkov - empowered them to lobby the President and the Mayor for business-friendly policies and various privileges. President Yeltsin and Mayor Luzhkov have responded accordingly.



However, whereas almost all oligarchs were united in support of Yeltsin and Luzhkov in 1996, they are bitterly divided in 1999. Vladimir Gusinsky is backing the All Russia/Fatherland coalition led by former Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Boris Berezovsky will support whomever preserves the control now exercised by "the family." A vicious media war has erupted, with the television channels and print publications of each oligarch attacking the other."