Thursday, June 02, 2011

The Persistence of Hate: German communities that murdered Jews in the Middle Ages were more likely to support the Nazis 600 years later

From Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., to the "Little Rock Nine," who defied school segregation in Arkansas, most of the civil rights clashes of the 20th century played out on the turf where the Confederacy had fought to preserve slavery 100 years earlier.

If a century seems like a long time for a culture of racism to persist, consider the findings of a recent study on the persistence of anti-Semitism in Germany: Communities that murdered their Jewish populations during the 14th-century Black Death pogroms were more likely to demonstrate a violent hatred of Jews nearly 600 years later. A culture of intolerance can be very persistent indeed.

Click here to read this article from Slate.com


Click here to read the article Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany