By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

This next documentary starts all the way back before the creation of the Torah.

Showing the struggle of the Jewish people before Zionism, then shows the events to what's happening today.

The Big Picture – How Israel Won the West



The documentary, The Big Picture: How Israel Won the West, examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and protected place in the Western world.

It traces the journey of the Jewish people from biblical stories of origin through centuries of persecution and the advent of Zionism, all the way to the creation of Israel and its ensuing occupation of Palestinian territory.

Along the way, what is revealed is a process of transformation: Of how Jews went from being despised by early Christians as “Christ killers”, to being considered part of the white Western world and sharing a common Judeo-Christian heritage.



Correction on this documentary

It has one terrible mistake at 8:25 They perpetuate the myth of exclusion from professions outside of money lending. A claim that has no historical basis and in some cases the exact opposite

 @cyberninjazero5659 
Yeah it was more by choice than restriction, also Christian money lenders did exist.

The question is: Why did the Jews move into these occupations whereas almost all other inhabitants remained engaged in agriculture?

Our thesis is that the distinctive characteristic of the Jews at that time was that almost all Jewish men were literate. The Jews had a comparative advantage in the skilled, high-paid occupations demanded in the new urban centers developed by the Muslim rulers. Why were Jewish farmers (and Jews in general) literate whereas the rest of the rural population was illiterate at the beginning of the seventh century? The Jewish religion made primary education mandatory for boys in the first century when the high priest Joshua ben Gamala (64 fh) issued an ordinance that “teachers had to be appointed in each district and every city and that boys of the age of six or seven should be sent.”4 In the first century fh, the Jewish warrior and writer Josephus underlined that children’s education was the principal care among the Jews. 5

https://www.bu.edu/econ/files/2012/11/dp124.pdf

Another thesis states that Jewish money lenders were often preferred over Christian since they were considered neutral and not part of the many conflicts between Christians.

If medieval Jews had one advantage in participating in the financial business of elites, it was the perception of their neutrality: They were not engaged in the Christian political conflicts that pushed elites to borrow money. Unlike Christian financiers whose business catered to the powerful, Jews could not use finance and credit to create influence and patronage among Christian elites.

For example, in 1359, the elites of the town of Andernach needed to raise funds to pay debts to the powerful Archbishop of Cologne, with whom they had been in conflict for the past few years. Rather than borrowing from Italian financiers, who were already involved with financing the Archbishop and the Catholic Church, the Andernach elites borrowed from the Jewish Bonefant family of Koblenz, a city about 20km away that was home to the second largest Jewish community in German lands.

https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/global-judaism/debunking-myth-jewish-elites-bankers-europe-history/

From the 1800s on it seems all accurate, anti-semitism in Europe was terrible (and still around, next to rampant Islamophobia) Europe created the ongoing conflict in the ME and now pretends their nose bleeds. I'm fed up with the "concerned" and "condemn" nonsense. It's not worth any more than "hearts and prayers" without actions. Paralyzed by guilt or hatred of Muslims?


Anyway not relevant to the current genocide, but I have been getting more interested in history the older I get. And this remark stood out when I watched it, then I saw someone comment on it so did some digging.

Last edited by SvennoJ - 4 days ago