How were the Jews of eastern and western Europe different?

Answer 1

At that time of Abraham the Hebrew, the area where he lived was full of pagan cults; they were polytheistic, worshiping multiple deities. Abraham was the first to advance the idea of ethical monotheism: the worship of One God, and the appropriate ethical code of conduct.
Judaism differed from other ancient religions in the following ways:1) It was the only religion in which God spoke to the entire assembled nation (Exodus ch.19) of over two million people.

2) It made a complete break from the surrounding idolatry. Their monotheism (belief in One God) set the Jews apart because other ancient nations did not share it. We've heard (for example) of Greek mythology and Roman mythology. What not everyone is aware of is that idolatry tended to go hand in hand with cruel, licentious and excessive behavior, since the caprices which were narrated concerning the pagan gods were adopted as an excuse to imitate those types of behavior.

(See: cruelties of the polytheists)

Compare that to God, who reveals His attributes in the Torah as wise, kind, holy, and pure. God is One, so the command to imitate His attributes (Deuteronomy 8:6) was (and is) a straightforward matter once one is even minimally familiar with the Torah.

(See: What do Jews believe God is like?)

Accordingly, Judaism was:

3) The only ancient religion in which a large percentage of its adherents were literate and scholars.

4) It was the only religion in which the people were ruled by God, with no need for a king, for several centuries (see Judges 8:23 and 1 Samuel 8:4-7).

5) The concept of morality was also the work of the Hebrews' religion, including the dignity and value of a person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through.

6) Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, poor person, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm. Compare this to those societies in which (at most) only mature, land-owning males had rights.

7) Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God.

(See: What was the role of the Israelite prophets?)

And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).

8) A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike in many other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed (Roman Twelve Tables of Law, 3:10).

It is important to note that every one of the above existed in Judaism thousands of years earlier than in other nations. Here's just one example: Infanticide was practiced in classical European nations until Judaism and its daughter-religions put a stop to it.

Answer 2

The Jews WERE Germans, in every context. Jews were the same as Protestants, Catholics, Muslims or any other religious category of German citizens. Jews enlisted in the German armed forces and died in battle for Germany, in every war that they encountered. Jews represented every facet of German life, every job, and every aspect of German life. And, then Hitler and the Nazi Party arrived.

Hitler ordered the extermination of all Jews in Europe, to be carried out by Adolf Eichmann and the SS. Under Hitler's orders, concentration camps and death camps were created, for the purpose of isolating, imprisoning, enslaving and murdering millions of innocent Jewish men, women and children. Six million Jews were forced from their homes, had all of their money and possessions taken by the Nazi government, were moved into ghettos and camps, forced into slave labor and finally murdered, mostly in gas chambers. The millions of bodies of the dead Jews were then cremated in giant furnaces at the Nazi death camps.

The Jews were some of the best workers and intellectuals of Europe. They were artists, professors, physicians, engineers, dentists, teachers, social workers, soldiers, bus drivers, salesmen and every other viable occupation you can imagine. They WERE Germans, in every sense of the word - until Hitler ordered them murdered. Their children and grandchildren could have discovered a cure for cancer or built alternate forms of energy for all of our future generations. Instead, their parents were murdered by Nazi orders. They never had a chance to live.

Jews were among the very best of German society. Yet, they were all murdered - men, women and children, because of their faith. Six million innocent Jews were systematically exterminated, only because of the way they loved God.

Charles Weinblatt

Author, Jacob's Courage

http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/

______

"The Jews WERE Germans, in every context".

I doubt if that applied to Jews in most of Eastern Europe, and I'd be surprised if it applied to French or Italian Jews, for example. The above only applies to German, Austrian and probably also Czech Jews.

If the question is simply asking, 'Were the German Jews conspicuously different from other Germans in the period c. 1850-1940?' then the answer is no. Germany was the great bastion of Reform Judaism in Europe. They did not dress differently and had ceased to speak Yiddish at least two generations before.

Answer 3

It depends on who "us" is and it depends on how the word "different" is construed. Jews are no more or less human than any other religious or ethnic group. They have unique traditions and religious laws and these come from a different understanding of Divine Revelation.