If you look at Judaism, Christianity and Islam, you notice they are constructed in a way that it is difficult to reconcile them if you take at least one of them as true. For example, the most holy day in Judaism is Saturday, in Christianity it's Sunday, in Islam it's Friday; this alone would make some people want to kill the other groups. Then Judaism doesn't accept Christianity because it doesn't adhere to what is expected from Messiah, perfect justice and tradition. Christians on the other hand blame Jews for killing Christ, a Jew, and the main actor in this, pharisees, is what became the prevailing type of Judaism, causing disdain. Islam accuses both Judaism and Christianity of heresy, usurps Jerusalem as exclusively its holy site, and the newer Quran suras, which are more militant to other Abrahamic religions, supersede the older, milder ones (which is how Islam deals with internal inconsistency). What you can notice is that all three religions use each other as scapegoats whenever something goes wrong.

Imagine we live in a simulation, or a real-time strategy game of beings we can't comprehend; how would you make sure there is a permanent conflict in your game? Just make a few similar but incompatible religions claiming they are the right ones and the others are corrupt and watch the fun...

Since the time of the Roman Empire, Jewish people have constituted a significant, economically important population of non-Christians in a continent in which very specific versions of Christianity were the compulsory state religion and religious non-conformity was frequently persecuted. As such, their social and legal status varied considerably but was always extremely precarious.

The ancient Greeks were anti-Semitic when Rome was a republic, not an empire. And the Egyptians earlier than that. I think it has to do with their separation from other cultures, which God commanded them to do. No one likes people who won't conform to their ideas of what is right.

Maybe, but anti-Semitism in Europe today doesn't have much to do with the Ancient Greeks or Egyptians.

I'm not sure that's true anyway. The Egyptians certainly warred with Israel, but they warred with everybody. Solomon married an Egyptian princess, a prayer written by her praising her husband is in Psalms. Later there was a movement of Greeks attracted by the idea of monotheism[0 Historical background, third paragraph] that used to hang out near Synagogues and debate philosophy with Rabbis. In fact it's arguably this which made adoption of Christianity by Greeks so easy and rapid, kickstarting Christianity.

There's also other evidence of Jews living perfectly peaceably and integrating well into other middle-eastern cultures. For example the corpus of incantation bowls[1] used by members of many different religious groups, but interestingly often created by Jewish scribes for non-Jewish clients.

So I don't think there's much evidence for Jewish people being picked out in this way in the pre-Roman and pre-Medieval world.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism

[1] http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/magic-bowls/

Jews are a merchant minority. That explains most of it. Merchant minorities are subject to hostility even when the difference is as minor as being New Englanders in the South. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Chinese in Southeast Asia, Jews all over Europe, they get much more hostility, and pogroms because they're rootless cosmopolitans. For much more check out World On Fire, Amy Chua.

The Chinese in Southeast Asia get the same Elders of Zion level conspiracy theorising and craziness. There are elements that are distinct to the history of the Jews, like the blood libel, but getting peasants to riot and kill rich people of a different ethnos has never been that difficult. Usually the ruling classes of the areas they live are much friendlier to merchant minorities than the peasantry.

Very good point about Chinese in Southeast Asia. I had never considered the similarities but it is indeed similar.

And in all cases, using the minority as a scapegoat and inciting pogroms is a common playbook for dictators (like Suharto in indonesia)

I think an objective summary is going to be hard to come by.

The only thing I can add is that this view is common throughout history - think Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. The stereotype of Jewish people as being involved in the processes of finances and money lending may have been one seed for this.

In many places in 17-18th century Europe, foreigners (which usually included Jews and gypsies among others) were forbidden from owning land and engaging in quite a few honorable jobs.

Jewish practice converged to require praying from a book, so the literacy rate was extremely high (not so much among the general population, especially in Eastern Europe), and as a result of both this and the restrictions, Jews were constrained to jobs like trade, bankers, lawyers, doctors, which later became much more desirable than the (previously) more honorable jobs and ownership positions that they couldn't take.

IIRC, at some point in the late 19th century Germany, Jews were ~3% of the population, but were about 30% of the doctors and 70% of the lawyers; they were also over-represented among the rich. (Can't find a reference right now, so numbers might be off - but I'm quite sure about being over-represented in lucrative and rich circles).

I have no idea if a percentage of jews involved with finances (among all jews) was high; But they were definitely over-represented among finance people.

And besides, hating someone who's different is an established tradition among the people of the world.

I don't think it is entirely irrational to suspect a group that has non trivial dealing with the land's finances, law and health - yet is distinct, marries among itself, has its own "secret" languages and rituals, and has a demonstrated history of moving around and rotating loyalties. (My statements are not politically correct, I'm afraid)

I don't think it's a stereotype. In the Middle Ages Christianity and Islam both had strict usary laws forbidding the charging of interest on loans. Judaism only forbade it amongst fellow Jews so they could charge interest to followers of other religions. This allowed them to afford to make loans where others could not. Obviously they also became the focus of anger when people could not repay the loan and the subject of jealousy when they became rich from loaning money. This is probably the root of many historic pogroms.

It's a a very old prejudice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Europe

Irrational popular loathing, fueled by political powers.

Your question is valid and deserves a proper answer, but it won't do this topic any good. It is an extremely political topic, and discussing it in full would hijack this HN submission.

The other answers are correct, but there is more to the story.

Jews have a much higher average IQ. This is a result of being genetically separated population that was selected for "white collar" kind of jobs. As a result they are vastly over represented in many areas of life. For instance, 40% of nobel prize winners are jews, despite being a tiny minority of the general population. Jews are overrepresented in banking, CEOs, famously as producers in hollywood, successful writers, and jewish surnames even seem to be overrepresented among pro video game players.

As a result there have been a ton of conspiracies about jews trying to take over the world. In world war I, many of the bankers that loaned money to the allies were Jewish. Many of the notable communists were jewish. And in Nixon's case, big donors to democrats probably overrepresented Jews.

I'll answer with a book, which is Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

To (poorly) summarize the book, which has nothing directly to do with Jews, the protagonists create an imaginary secret society to take over the world conspiracy theory style for the sheer role playing hell of it, and they LARP the heck out of it until the world responds back to them as if they're real, with some pretty chilly consequences. Sorcerers Apprentice and "don't call up what ye can't put down" and all that kind of stuff. Heck of an interesting book.

So say you wanted to make an imaginary secret society to take over the world kinda like Eco's book. So your secret society would be closed to outsiders, foreign language, unusual rites, unusual lifestyle and food requirements, a cultural belief in prioritizing taking over finance, academics, mass communication and PR, entertainment, economics, professions in general so as to lead the society in ways that help your group over all others. Distributed all over the world including in revolutionary areas, communist areas. Very racially conscious WRT helping each other out in preference over other races (opposite of devoutly progressive white people). In, but eternally intentionally separate from, the community (opposite of a melting pot culture). Add a few centuries of interesting historical behavior such as usury at both high and low levels of society and some serious allegiance issues with the community you're temporarily residing in. In other words they're LARPing as something right out of a conspiracy theory book. So that's the imaginary theoretical conspiracy theory subject... which happens to sound culturally Jewish, the above is just their thing, what they do.

Groups that don't have cultural problems generally do the opposite of the Jews. They abandon the old language, maybe even the old countries religion. Cut back on the traditional food or add ethnic recipes to the local mix either way the food isn't unusual anymore. Don't try to run the place at least until you're a member of the place. Be fair to the locals not your own people first above all the locals. Patriotic to the local country first and back home a distant second. None of that is religiously or culturally possible to Jews, so they tend of have a bit of a rough time fitting in.

The moral of the Eco book is if you LARP, if you LARP really hard, the truth no longer matters and the worlds gonna come down on you like a stack of bricks, and right or wrong has little to do with how much the impact is gonna hurt. Welcome to human nature.

Actually its a footnote, and is mentioned in the article:

> You could create a bunch of characters based on the Nixon administration,

> You can also create custom skills appropriate for your particular campaign (Textile Tariff Negotiations; Remembering That Everything You’re Saying Right Now Is Being Recorded on the Taping System That You Yourself Installed, Yes, Even the Anti-Semitic Stuff).

This book is relevant: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17910108-why-the-germans...

Centuries of demonisation by the church for allegedly being to blame for the death of Jesus?

You're looking for a logical framework supporting hatred. Even if someone gives you a complete answer, you will surely remain disappointed.

EDIT: I've been proven wrong by some of the excellent replies.