Johnny Canuck2 said:
It has everything to do with religion. They were discriminated against because they were members of the jewish faith.
yep, and because of that, they couldn't fall under the church's influence and behaved in a different way, ate differently, did different things, etc.
Then explain the anti semitism of North America that has existed up to the present time.
it doesn't necessarily have to be a war - it could be an economic crisis.
the early settlers of the USA were people who were puritans from england, many of whom were very prejudiced, and fundamentalist christianity has played a very important part of the lives of many americans to this day. even if it didn't, they still picked up on that stuff and told it to their children who told it to theirs etc.
for a long time the US was an incredibly divided society with lots of people who were discriminated against simply because of race and because people wanted cheap labour and slaves. once you accept one it's psychologically easier to accept the other - this stuff goes hand in hand, and if someone's anti-semitic it's highly unlikely that they won't be prejudiced against other groups, too, and vice versa.
it still is incredibly divided, with billionaires and people who have almost nothing. jews in america have often been quite successful, so there is resentment because of that, but at the same time there's also the same feeling among many of the rich that they're not quite "one of us".
the early involvement of the jews in the civil rights movement and the anti-abolitionist movement before that made a lot of people fearful that their society and values were under threat, and that was played upon by those who wanted to keep the status quo as it was, and had a vested interest in doing so.
for a long time the kkk were completely socially acceptable, and they still are in some parts of america.
then there was the fact that stereotypes simply grew about due to jews being successful in commerce and money, as it was one of the only things they were allowed to do so they had become used to it, and many of them just carried on doing the same when they got to the states. a lot of them were very poor when they arrived and there was resentment due to immigration, and people just looked down on them coz they were poor.
in recent years there's been a resurgence of it, partly because anti-semites have been given an excuse by the state of israel and its conduct, partly because of the revival of fundamentalist christianity (which is in itself imo partly due to economic disillusionment and fear over where the individual and society is going), fears over immigration etc and the fact that the internet has allowed anti-semites to spout their views to a much wider audience.
oh, and i think america IS heading towards a serious economic and social crisis, and it's been coming for a very long time.
