Comments by "Not Today" (@nottoday3817) on "Karl Marx's Anti-Semitism" video.

  1. The 'Pharisee' is almost never refered to as a member of a Jewish sect. Mostly because it was not a Jewish sect. A sect means a branch of a religion (denaturated meanings tend to the more general ideea of a branch of a philosophical belief/ideea) interpreting the 'sacred texts' in a different way (more liberal or more fanatic way). Pharisees were not a sect, but more of a social class, a distinguished part of the clergy (like the Greco-Roman priests -note by Greco-Roman I mean the ones found in the Ancient Greek and Roman civilisations, not the ones following the later established Greco-Roman religion). They appear multiple times in the Bible as anti-examples of moral and religious corruption of the Jewish faith and how it strayed from the true word of God. They are even allocated a full story in one of Jesus' teachings and that one strongly resembles the incident Marx is refering to. Sorry if I get the words wrong, but I do not know the English version of the story (God bless King George and King John and basically every king using linguistics and translators to push forward their version of the Bible), but in that teaching Jesus compares a pharisee with a border tax collector/guard. The Pharisee is considered a negative character because he knows that he's corrupt (especially spiritually), but during his prayer he dares boast of how much he serves his God and His teachings and degrades the guard for he is also corrupt. The guard is seen as a 'redeemable' character since he aknowledges his sins and his corruption. (Not going into the philosophy of the story here and its implications here).In a similar way, Marx' Pharisee is clearly a symbolic meaning as he (the pharisee, aka the morally corrupt preacher of capitalism) is trying to justify his actions by claiming to cling to values like familly and protection children, but he himself would destroy such values if he suits his interest. Also, Judaism and Jews are technically not the same thing. Judaism is generally the belief of the Jews ('ethnic' group) and those who believe in Moses' teachings (The Torah if I am not mistaken). While most Jews would deny that you can be a Judaic without being a Jew, there were some tribes of Turkik people who did embrace Judaism. Funny enough, in the Old Testament you actually have ethnic Jews being disconsidered as Jews (Judaics) by the other 'puritan' Jews and even wars erupted between those branches. If I remember correctly this division makes way into Jesus' teachings as well as he often uses people from Canaan (a disconsidered branch of Jews) as positive examples. And this does not stop to 'ancient texts'. Even in modern day you have the scandal of Israel sterilising Ethiopian Jews or Israel accusing everyone that tries to defy their exceptionalist policies as an anti-Semite while other Jews condemn Israel. In the end, accusing Karl Marx of anti-semitism is actually a funny ideea since he's a Jew by 'ethnicity'/blood, but a christian and later mostly an atheist by belief, aka a non-judaic Jew. From most of the de-contextualised quotes you've provided he's not attacking the Jews as an ethnic group (aka you should not shoot/ fire/disconsider someone just because his parents were Jews), but rather criticising the lifestyle of the Jews as greedy oportunists. The quote of Engels put forward by your viewer which you try and discredit (the comment, not the guy) actually supports this: you can have Jews not adhering to the general view of the Jewish lifestyle. And frankly, this is perfectly fine. Life-style, life-choices are usually the product of thoughts and decisions made by people and they can be changed if a person so desires (severe health conditions are also exceptions that can also confirm the rule). Therefore, since they are subject to change, they should be criticised or supported. And Marx criticising the Jews is nothing more than the same principle of a black person criticising Black Lives Movement for the chaos they are creating or criticising the ghetto or gangsta lifestyle that some choose. Or a woman criticising the MeToo movement. Or a white denouncing white supremacy outside of political campaigns. TL:DR Seems mostly like a straw-man argument.
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