I live in a kind of snobby, 90% Mormon suburb full of gossipers and cliquey behavior. The non-members are treated pretty poorly. People won't talk to them or invite them to neighborhood BBQs. Anyway, there's a Jewish lady and her twenty year old son that live on our street and I'm shocked by the openly anti-Semitic comments a lot of my LDS neighbors make.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2015 09:33PM by xe.

Actually, I've seen quite the reverse: mormons who are bursting with pride at any Jewish members of the ward as if it confirms the church is true, and the entire membership as a "Lost Tribe of Israel".

They were all just gentiles in my little LDS world, nevermos and Jews.

If your description of the neighborhood is accurate I would guess that it isn't anti-semitism.

My best guess would be this, If she was Muslim, they would do it,
if she was hispanic, they would do it, if she was poor they would do it, if she had divorced an active member of the church, they would do it, If she couldn't speak English they would do it. if she was black they would do it, if she did menial work they would do it.

There's a specific mentality that goes with this behavior. I call it small-town mentality, especially prevalent within the Mormon community which is often a community within a community.

I've lived many years around people like this and when you wonder why they do it? Because they can. Basically it's "if you aren't one of us you never will be" I've seen it go on for years unfortunately.

No, I usually find that Mormons think they are Jews.

I've been explaining for a quarter century to non-mormons how mormons are wannabe jews.

According to the definition of Semite, they can be very anti-Semitic.

Semite:

noun
1.
a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
2.
a Jew.
3.
a member of any of the peoples descended from Shem, the eldest son of Noah.

They tend to think Muslims and Arabs are satanic tools. At the same time, they have a real soft spot for Jews, since to reject the notion that Jews are God's chosen people would reject the ancient scriptures and prophets. Therefore, Mormons pretend like they are the new Jews and the old Jews need them for protection. Something like that. That is my observation.

Mormons have a small town racist mentality, and they

feel good about it, as if they have a right to be that way.

It doesn't seem to occur in places other than Utah, but then

what do you expect.... its Utah, the place where the clocks

have been set 50 years back. At least that's what used to be

said about life there. They are small minded people who live

small narrow lives.

No I do not. I mostly see Zionism. Israel can do no wrong in the eyes of Mormons, even if the things Israel is doing would be seen as human rights abuses in any other place in the world.

That's pretty much Christianity in general. Since they're God's chosen people, and god will be angry at anyone who disses his chosen, therefore no one better say anything negative against Jews.

Anyone remember that Living Scriptures video series? They came out in the '80s-'90s as I remember. I noticed that the more "villain" the Jew, the bigger the nose. I sent a lot of them back and cancelled the rest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2015 12:40AM by GodLedMeOut.

"I would rather undertake to convert five thousand Lamanites, than
to convert one of those poor miserable creatures whose fathers killed the Savior, and who say, 'Amen to the
deed,' to this day. Yea, I would rather undertake to convert the devil himself, if it were possible."
Journal of Discourses 2:143, Brigham Young, Dec 3rd, 1854.

According to Brigham Young it is easier to convert 5,000 Lamanites or the devil to Mormonism than a Jew.

Is this correct?

So Mel Brooks Killed Jesus? Wow, I never knew.

Oh sorry mymmistake his father killed jesus. Why didn't he get the authorities to press charges against Mel Brooks's dad?

3X - "pride at any Jewish members of the ward" - you had Jews in the ward? They must have been real strict Jews, NOT!

I've never set foot in the ward, but DW goes sometimes. Her closest friend in the ward is Jewish(*), and several of DW's nephews in another state have married Jewish girls.

* This lady's family were aghast when she became mormon.


I don't really know what to make of it ...

Well, Mormons usually consider ANYONE not Mormon as lesser than, including Jews.

That being said, most Mormons are Republican/conservative and these types generally side with Israel and/or want to usher in the the whole Jewish/Israel end times crap so I'd be surprised if they didn't like Jews.

Now, that being said, there's an even more extreme element of conservativism that thinks everyone is part of some kind of conspiracy, especially the Jews/Israel. My dad's one of those. The Jews and Israel are part of the New World Order, so with those types of Mormons I can see that they would be anti-Semitic.

Other than that, there's really no official type anti-Semetic doctine being taught by the church. They probably Morgasims if a Jew joined, actually.

But two of my aunts married men with Jewish parentage. I have trouble understanding why a Jew would convert to Mormonism.

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But two of my aunts married men with Jewish
> parentage. I have trouble understanding why a Jew
> would convert to Mormonism.

The reverse happens, though. I read Mayim Bialik's writing online sometimes. (She's the actress who played "Blossom" on the sitcom of that name in the 80s and now plays Sheldon's girlfriend on "The Big Bang Theory." She's also well-known for her writings about "attachment parenting," of which she is a strong adherent--not that I'm a fan of that philosophy.)

Anyway, Bialik is a very committed Jew. Her ex-husband converted from Mormonism to Judaism, and sometime later her mother-in-law did the same. Bialik wrote an interesting piece about that a few years ago:

http://www.kveller.com/article/from-mormon-to-jew/

I am a Jew who grew up in a fairly Mormon neighborhood in SoCal. I never felt any anti-semitism from them -- the opposite, in fact. They considered us a fellow lost tribe of Israel, so they respected us and considered us colleagues. Today I have a few Mormon friends, and I get the same reaction.

Another example -- my husband's relative married a Mormon man. As a Jewish/Mormon couple, they haven't experienced any problems. He's a Jack mo, though.

By what stretch of the imagination are Mormons from a lost hebrew tribe, the vast majority are of european descent.

the investigator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By what stretch of the imagination are Mormons
> from a lost hebrew tribe, the vast majority are of
> european descent.

Whether the discussion is about Jews in Europe beginning their ancient migrations from the East (Eurasia), or from the (Atlantic Ocean, etc.) West, Jews have been part of "European descent" since ancient times.

All of the academic debates (example: Khazars...were they Jewish?) aside, there is written evidence that Jews were part of what is now Spain by the tenth century B.C.E. (the time of the biblical King Solomon, and the Phoenicians, etc.---ten centuries before the era attributed to the life of Jesus), and the evidence of Jewish heritage in European ancestry becomes ever increasingly more definitive by the time of the ancient Greek voyages. (Contemporary example: about twenty percent of present-day Spaniards share a Y-chromosome haplotype with Sephardic Jews.) As for Scandinavia, there appears to be Jewish DNA in Scandinavians by at least 800 C.E.

From the beginnings of the Jewish people, Jews were explorers, sailors, and traders. They got around.

So, for a great many people of "European descent," part of their genetic heritage comes from Jewish ancestors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2015 11:11AM by tevai.

It's part of their wacky doctrine. First, they believe Native Americans are descended from a tribe of Jews who immigrated from Israel to the Americas in 600 BC. Half of of the LDS church is found in Latin America, thus a majority of those members have at least some Native American blood, or Jewish if you think like a Mormon. Mormons even believe Polynesians are the descendants of Israel!

Second, they believe Mormons are "adopted" into Israel. When Mormons are given their Patriarchal blessing, they are assigned one of the Israelite tribes.

Thanks, Ex-cultmember. :) :) :)

When I read the investigator's post, my impression from what I was reading was that a misleading distinction was being drawn between "the vast majority [of Mormons] of European descent" and [my characterization] "Jewish descent"/"lost Hebrew tribe."

Since Jewish ancestry is so [relatively] common in Europe, I wanted to point out that---"lost Hebrew tribe" or not---plenty of people whose ancestry is "European" have, simultaneously, genetic Middle Eastern Jewish ancestry as well.

Jewish ancestory is not that common in western europe, particularly at the time of the pioneers, tere would have been a few but hardly the lost tribe. i hope you are not infering I am a racist. I couldn't give a damn about peoples origins but to suggest mormons are descended from a lost tribe any more than anyone else is ridiculous.

the investigator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jewish ancestory is not that common in western
> europe, particularly at the time of the pioneers,
> tere would have been a few but hardly the lost
> tribe. i hope you are not infering I am a racist.
> I couldn't give a damn about peoples origins but
> to suggest mormons are descended from a lost tribe
> any more than anyone else is ridiculous.

In no way am I inferring that you are racist---and I DO understand what you are saying about there not being a "lost tribe" of ancient Jews.

However, in the time of the Mormon pioneers (1800s), I am saying that some percentage of western Europeans WERE descended from Jews...

...NOT a "lost tribe" of Jews, but just plain ol' ordinary Jewish ancestors who began (so far as we know) arriving in ancient times Europe during ANCIENT TIMES...

...and just kept on arriving (probably in very small numbers), year by year, and decade by decade, across the Mediterranean (originally from the Middle East and northern Africa), plus from Eastern Eurasia. (Think of pincers, because this was a kind of V-E-R-Y long term, across-much-of-Eurasia-wide, "pincer" movement.) Those Jewish transients or newcomers often reproduced with the locals (undoubtedly beginning with male Jews and female locals, but this would fairly soon have expanded to female Jews and male locals). (With Jewish traders especially, female Jews were at least fairly often an integral part of the migrations.)

Even if the numbers of incoming 100% Jews were small, once they reproduced, their children, grandchildren, etc. would soon (in a couple of decades or less) be reproducing...there would be part-Jews reproducing with part-Jews...and so on, so a Jewish genetic presence would become permanent, and would spread throughout the general population over time (though, as in today's Spain, it might affect only one in five Spaniards).

By the time the Mormon missionaries began arriving in in western Europe in the 1830s, they would have been attempting to convert [at least some of the locals] who, as part of their genetics, had ancestors who had initially arrived in that area Jewish...and who had arrived there centuries, if not millennia, before. (These transits and migrations were well underway by ancient Greek times, so anywhere the ancient Greeks and Romans went, that's where there were undoubtedly once Jews there too...as well as their part-Jewish descendants.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2015 05:59PM by tevai.

My guess is that one reason this is part of their wacky doctrine is because of the Tower of Babel story and the myth of how different languages came to exist since the tribes were split. If I remember correctly from the fairy tale known as the Book of Mormon, one of those tribes traveled in submarines to the New World and became known as the ancestors of the Native Americans.

When my TBM "best friend" of 30 years came to my house for dinner and learned that my father was Jewish, she got up from the table, THREW her plate in my sink and stomped out.

Good riddance.

That was because your dad had been 'doing' her and had been telling her that he was a descendant British royalty, and had at one time been a Vicar in the Anglican church. So when you spilled the beans about his jewishness, it wasn't that fact that disturbed her, it was all the lies he'd told her to get her into bed!

The spirit has confirmed to my bosom that this is true. I heard it say, quite clearly, "Lub dub" which is reformed Egyptian for all of the above, again proving what a great shorthand language it is.

I think anti-Semitism was common in the 1800s among Mormons but now it is uncommon. Many Christians resented the way the Jews treated their religious ancestors and Jesus Christ himself. Christian White Supremacists claim that Whites are the real Jews spoken of in the Old Testament and that the Jews are impostors (or that the tribe of Judah was an evil tribe). Thus the White and Delight-some people are OK but the Jews or descendants of Judah are bad. Joseph Smith didn't describe the Nephites like they were Jews. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon like they were Caucasian. Joseph Smith said they were Jews but clearly didn't understand Jewish culture.