Do many Jews believe their blood is superior ?

The claim that Jews think themselves better than others is a common anti-Jewish propaganda claim by those who hate Jews and want to encourage violence against Jews.

Here is a Jewish understanding of their "chosenness":

"Are you not like the children of the Cushites to Me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and Aram from Kir?" (Amos 9:7)

The Jewish religion and Jewish culture teaches that every nation is "chosen" for something and (since you mention modern land politics) that every nation has its own "promised land"

As for "blowing up the Gaza strip" -- you should realy look to real news instead of keeping your head in the Arab propaganda funnies.

The Jewish political leaders have wanted to live in peace with the Arabs the whole time. When the Ottoman Empire fell apart, the Jewish leadership entered into every sharing agreement that came up.

It was always the Arab leadership that chose war -- that wanted to eliminate the Jewish presence from the middle east.

If the Jews had had their way in 1948, there would have been a peaceful Jewish state side by side with an Arab state all that time -- with the two sharing great business and social partnerships.

The same was true with every Arab attack and every proposed peace agreement.

In 2005, after years of offering every possible peace deal to Arab militants, the Israeli government on its own initiative gave Gaza full political separation from Israel.

PLUS -- it expended massive amounts of money to preserve and give to the new Arab government the single most innovative and money making farm in the world -- "Gush Katif" -- a farm that had employed thousands of people and had been exporting produce throughout the world until that time.

And when the Arab government took control -- they televised an orgy of violence where they smashed every plant, every piece of machinery --

where they wiped out the entire infrastructure of the Gaza region on international TV.

AND - since 2005, the Gaza Islamist nationalist government has persisted in almost daily bombing of Israeli cities, and declared TWO full out wars against Israel --

with the stated purpose of all this activity

(stated to EVERY international reporter who is willing to listen)

to conquer all of Israel and kill or exile every Jew who lives there.

Your question is full of so many inaccuracies that I wonder if it's worth my time writing sincere answers to them.

"God chose to make a COVENANT with this family, but where is proof that means they are 'superior' for it."

Jews don't say we're superior.

"God also blessed Ismael, and assured Abraham that Ismael would ALSO be the father of many GREAT nations and KINGS upon the earth."

Yes, that's true. Isn't that the nail in the coffin of your theory that Jews believe we're superior to everyone else? We have access to the same scripture as you do, and we read and take it seriously.

"The days of killing people and taking over their homes and blowing up the Gaza strip are over."

You might have totally missed that Israel totally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, leaving the infrastructure it built there as a gift to the Palestinians. They promptly destroyed all of it, elected Hamas into power, and have been lobbing rockets into Israel ever since.

"Even if the Holy Land 'belongs' to those God made a covenant with, they should not be killing and blowing up people while scooping them out of their homes, slowly and surely, just because they feel entitled to it by 'God'."

The primary motive for creating Israel was not a religious one, but as a matter of national survival. Jews had suffered for being a religious and cultural minority in Gentile lands for almost 2000 years. The actions against Palestinians are part of a larger strategy to give Israel more security, and to communicate to Palestinians that every peace process delay and terrorist act has real-world consequences.

If the Palestinians were to signal a sincere interest in peace with Israel, Israel would reciprocate. This is not exactly a secret.

"Killing and stealing is an ill gotten gain. Killing is wrong period"

Everyone agrees with this. You are unfairly portraying Israel and Jews as bloodthirsty and arrogant when actually nothing could be further from the truth.

Please learn what "Chosen people" means to Judaism before asking such silly questions. I must have explained this 5,000 times on yahoo answers and it still gets asked every week in some form or another. The Jewish belief is that G-d asked all people as souls in heaven who wanted to hold his covenant on earth, Jews VOLUNTEERED after everyone else turned it down. Further, many groups of people contend they are special in some way. The Eskimo used to refer to themselves as "the one", I've had many Christians tell me they are so special only they can go to heaven and everyone who doesn't believe what they believe is going to burn in hell forever. I mean really? There are arrogant ***-hats in every group out there. And no I don't think my blood is special. P.S. your savior was a JEW himself. He lived and died as one. Christianity didn't even exist in his lifetime. You seriously have no idea what you are talking about historically, or religiously speaking. Jesus was more like me than he was like you. His teachings by and large were about staying true to Judaism and not being corrupted like the Romans, why do you think we turned over the money changers tables at the TEMPLE while he was there celebrating PASSOVER. Like it or not your savior was a member of the Jewish tribe, dear. And while i don't agree with Israel on many things, I think pointing out Jews taking over land coming from a Christian or Muslim as it often does is pretty comical, since, let's face it, Christians took over every inhabited continent in the world and raped, tortured and enslaved everyone they could find and Islam took over a good portion of Africa and commits mass atrocities to others and their own people daily. Will you defend what they do to the Kurdish people too? Lastly, the vast majority of Israelis are secular and do not practice religion at all. Zionism started as an ideology to escape persecution in Europe not simply because G-d promised it to us". Anyone who does anything in their life, Jew, Christian, Muslim or otherwise because "G-d said so" is brainwashed and suffering from psychosis.

Great.....so you feel the same way about people who kidnap girls and force them to convert, fly planes into buildings killing innocents, beheading "infidels", stoning rape victims etc etc?

Jews do not believe we are superior but Israel has a right to protect herself from those who murder innocent families in their sleep, lob rockets into Israel, murder Yeshiva students, blow up Passover Seders of holocaust survivors, send in homicide bombers to blow up buses, restaurants and markets.

We do not consider ourselves superior.....you need to look in a mirror to see how might believe they are superior based on ideology (or "blood")

I agree with Rose.

It is not about the blood of jews BUT the blood of one Jew named Yehoshua Ha Moshiach.

AND His blood avails for ALL who come to Him.

There are people of every religion who may believe this.

whatever happened to God created all people equally

The Jews were the chosen covenant race because of what they did in the pre-existence. But you see that is not enough for them to make it. That alone will have them fall short. It is true that Abraham was given the original covenant, and the Jews were always throwing that in Jesus face, but again they will not be saved if that is all they count on. They must be obedient to the commandments.

That applies to us today in that as we are baptized by someone having authority in the proper place we are then received into the covenant, or "adopted in", which happen when Peter brought the Gentiles in, but again it of itself does not save us.

your disgusting rant and propaganda dishonors you and your religion.

by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

Appreciating an often-misunderstood idea.

The Jewish nation is often referred to as "the Chosen People."

Many people (including Jews) are uncomfortable with this idea. They perceive the concept of a "Chosen People" as racist and mindful of the Nazi concept of a supreme "Aryan" nation. It appears to contradict the accepted Western ideal of all people being equal before God.

Is the Jewish concept of choseness racist? When the Torah refers to the Jewish people as "chosen," it is not in any way asserting that Jews are racially superior. Americans, Russians, Europeans, Asians and Ethiopians are all part of the Jewish people. It is impossible to define choseness as anything related to race, since Jews are racially diverse.

Yet while the term "Chosen People" (Am Nivchar) does not mean racially superior, choseness does imply a special uniqueness. What is this uniqueness? Historically, it goes back to Abraham. Abraham lived in a world steeped in idolatry, which he concluded was contradicted by the reality of design in nature. So Abraham came to a belief in G-d, and took upon himself the mission of teaching others of the monotheistic ideal. Abraham was even willing to suffer persecution for his beliefs. After years of enormous effort, dedication and a willingness to accept the responsibility to be G-d's representative in this world, G-d chose Abraham and his descendents to be the teachers of this monotheistic message. In other words it is not so much that G-d chose the Jews; it is more accurate that the Jews (through Abraham) chose G-d.

The essence of being chosen means responsibility. It is a responsibility to change the world -- not by converting everyone to Judaism, but by living as a model community upheld by ethics, morals and beliefs of one God. In that way, we can influence the rest of mankind, a "light unto the nations" (Isaiah 42:6).

Judaism is Universal : Further, Judaism is not exclusionary. A human being need not to be Jewish to reach a high spiritual level. Enoch "walked with God," and Noah had quite a high level of relationship, though neither were Jewish. Our tradition is that all of the 70 nations must function together and play an integral part in that "being" called humanity.

According to Judaism (Talmud - Sanhedrin 58b), any person can achieve a place in the World to Come by faithfully observing the seven basic laws of humanity. These seven laws are named the "Laws of Noah," since all humans are descended from Noah:

1) Do not murder. 2) Do not steal. 3) Do not worship false gods. 4) Do not be sexually immoral. 5) Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed. 6) Do not curse God. 7) Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

Torah is for all humanity. King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, he specifically asked God to heed the prayer of non-Jews who come to the Temple (1-Kings 8:41-43). The Temple was the universal center of spirituality, which the prophet Isaiah referred to as a "house of prayer for all nations." Non-Jews were welcome to bring offerings to the Temple as well. In fact, the service in the Holy Temple during the week of Sukkot featured a total of 70 bull offerings, corresponding to each of the 70 nations of the world.

Most other religions say that non-believers are condemned to eternal damnation. Even the calendar systems of Christianity and Islam reflect an exclusionary philosophy; each begins with the birth of their respective religion. The Jewish calendar, on the other hand, begins with the creation of Adam, the first man, teaching us the intrinsic value of every human, even though the Jewish religion was not yet born. For this reason, Jews do not proselytize in search of converts. One can still merit a place in heaven, no conversion necessary.

Thanks to Mark S