Can someone who is knowledgeable give me a brief history lesson of why the Jews are so hated.

[Igel]

19. The Jews were widely despised before 33 AD.

They rebelled against Rome and refused to be like other citizens. They fought for and got the right not to include Caesar in their Pantheon. They weren't even "good citizens" under the Greek dynasties--that entire Maccabean rebellion thing.

Their very religion said their religion was better than the Greeks', the Romans', the Egyptians, the Capadocians', the Cretans'--all of whom, along with those that attended the Mysteries, found ways to find common ground. Zeus = Jupiter. Even the Mysteries had local variants were the locally prominent god was included in the ceremonies and worship. But the Jews were clearly separatist in religion, in tradition, in practice--and if you were a Pharisee instead of one of the "Zadokians" or "Sadducees" you avoided Gentiles in social settings.

Now, most ethnicities are separatist until they merge--except that they refused to merge. I mean, they may have had an internal debate about Hellenism, but it wasn't a widely beloved set of behaviors and beliefs and cultural practices.

Then there were the Sicari, never a good thing. And their usually slightly less violent Zealots. What happened in the 70s just made them seem both diffident, haughty, defiant, and utterly defeated. (And yet they continued.)

Then there was a secondary, "Christian" religious thing. A lot of early Xians, esp. in the East, maintained the traditions of the first converts: They were Jews that transmogrified their Judaism to Christianity and saw no reason to depart from their traditions. In the West, this was not liked (maybe because it was vaguely Jewish, maybe because it was often Jews by ethnicity but Christians by religion that bore the faith)--and this was eventually decried as a kind of heresy in practice if not in name.

Later we get the "Christ killer idea," but that's just more negative halo effect. Their association with banking and usury (to the extent there was a different) was unfortunate, but if you're hated anyway may as well go into a field that won't make you any more hated--like Dalits going into the most unwanted fields almost by necessity.