Jains and Jews

Jains and Jews

-Mahavir Sanglikar

Some Jains like to compare Jain community with the Jews. No doubt that there are some similarities between them, like Jains and Jews were persecuted by followers of other religions/ creeds (Jews know well about the persecutions, most Jains do not know anything about their own history), both the communities have a very old history and both the communities do not want to share their religions with others and that is why both the community are minority communities. We do not find any other similarity between them except that there is the letter ‘J’ at the beginning of the names of both the communities.

On other fronts, comparing Jains with Jews is just foolishness! Jains are nowhere when compared to Jews. Jains are just like the Gangu Teli in front of King Bhoj in the Hindi Saying Kahaan Raja Bhoj aur Kahaan Gangu Teli. Jews have been awarded for more than 135 times with the most prestigious Nobel Prize. This is out of the total number 760! On the other hand, forget about the Nobel Prize, not a single Jain has been awarded by Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civil award.

Jew is an international community, which is dominant in many countries including United States, while Jain are the most ignored people in the world and even in their own country.

Jews are dominant in every filed of the life like Science, Sports, Media, Defense, Agriculture, Education, Hollywood, Art, Industry, Trade; in United States and other countries. How can you compare Jains with them, as Jains know just to make money by this or that way and construct temples? Jews have won hundreds of Gold medals in Olympics and many other international sports events, what about Jains (Their contribution to sport is just to watch Cricket on Television!)

Jews are strong enough to create their own nation, i.e. Israel, and defend it’s boundaries from more than a dozen enemy countries. In Israel, in United States and even in some other countries, Jews have been awarded with the highest gallantry awards. What about Jains? What is their contribution to the defense of India? They are live just because of other communities who give their lives while fighting with enemies. Remember the attack on Mumbai, there was not a single Jain cop, commando or soldier in the forces to fight against the terrorists.

Jews have given great thinkers like Karl Marx and scientists like Albert Einstein and Karl Segan. Jews have given the world Jesus Christ, the most influential person on the earth. On the other hand, Mahavir, another great personality of the world, was kidnapped by Jains, still he is in their custody in the jails called temples. Jains have nothing to do with his great thoughts.

So it is a very wrong thing to compare Jews with Jains. It is just like to compare a lion with a microbe.