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Anti-Semitism is hostility toward Jewish people. It ranges from ad hoc antagonism towards Jews on an individual level to the institutionalized prejudice once prevalent in European societies, of which the highly explicit ideology of Hitler's National Socialism was perhaps the most extreme form.
This article describes the development and history of anti-Semitism from its earliest inception up until World War II. A separate article exists on modern anti-Semitism, which deals with anti-Semitism after World War II up to the present.
Some forms of anti-Semitism include:
The political writer Wilhelm Marr is credited with coining the German word Antisemitismus in 1873, at a time when racial science was fashionable in Germany but religious prejudice was not. This term was offered as an alternative to the older German word Judenhass, meaning Jew-hating. In his book, The Victory of Judaism over Germanicism (1879), Marr took up secular racist ideas of Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853, though direct influence is debatable. Marr's book became very popular, and in the same year he founded the League of Anti-Semites (Antisemiten-Liga), the first German organization committed specifically to combatting the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews, and advocating their forced removal from the country. The 1870s were times of heightened social tensions in Germany due to the October 1873 stock market crash.
So far as can be ascertained, the word was first printed in 1881. In that year Marr published "Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte," and Wilhelm Scherer used the term "Antisemiten" in the "Neue Freie Presse" of January. The related word semitism was coined around 1885. See also the coinage of the term Palestinian by Germans to refer to the nation or people known as Jews, as distinct from the religion of Judaism.
The term has always referred to prejudice towards Jews alone, and not to other people who speak semitic languages (e.g., Arabs) and this has been the only use of this word for more than a century. In recent decades some people have argued that the term anti-Semitism should be extended to include prejudice against Arabs, since Arabic is a semitic language. However, this usage has not been widely adopted.
Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms Semitic and Anti-Semitic are not antonyms. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many writers on the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim of the Hebrew University) now favor the unhyphenated term antisemitism.
Prejudice against Jews can be traced back to the Graeco-Roman period and the rise of Hellenistic culture. Most Jews rejected efforts to assimilate them into the dominant Greek (and later Roman) culture, and their religious practices, which conflicted with established norms, were perceived as being backward and primitive. Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, for example, writes disparagingly of many real and imagined practices of the Jews, while there are numerous accounts of circumcision being described as barbarous.
Throughout the Diaspora, Jews tended to live in separate communities, in which they could practice their religion. This led to charges of elitism, as appear in the writings of Cicero. As an ethnic minority, Jews were also dependent on the goodwill of the authorities, though this was considered irksome to the indigenous population, which regarded any vestiges of autonomy among the local Jewish communities as reminders of their subject status to a foreign empire. Nevertheless, this did not always mean that opposition to Jewish involvement in local affairs was anti-Semitic. In 411 BCE, an Egyptian mob destroyed the Jewish temple at Elephantine in Egypt, but many historians argue that this was provoked by anti-Persian sentiment, rather than by anti-Semitism per se -- the Jews, who were protected by the imperial power, were perceived as being its representatives.
The enormous and influential Jewish community in the ancient Egyptian port city of Alexandria saw manifestations of an unusual brand of anti-Semitism in which the local pagan populace rejected the biblical narrative of the Exodus as being anti-Egyptian. In response, a number of works were produced to provide an "Egyptian version" of what "really happened": the Jews were a group of sickly lepers that was expelled from Egypt. This was also used to account for Jewish practices -- they were so sickly that they could not even wander in the desert for more than six days at a time, requiring a seventh day to rest, hence the origin of the Sabbath. It was these charges that led to Philo's apologetic account of Judaism and Jewish history, which was so influential in the development of early church doctrine.
Prejudice against Jews in the Roman Empire was formalized in 391, when the Edict of Theodosius established Christianity as the only legal religion in the Roman Empire, although already as early as 305, in Elvira, a Spanish town in Andalusia near Granada, the first known laws of any church council against Jews appeared. Christian women were forbidden to marry Jews unless the Jew first converted to Christianity. Jews were forbidden to extend hospitality to Christians. Jews could not keep Christian concubines and were forbidden to bless the fields of Christians. In 589, in Christian Spain, the Third Council of Toledo ordered that children born of marriage between Jews and Christians be baptized by force. A policy of forced conversion of all Jews was initiated. Thousands fled, and thousands of others converted. []
Judaic traditions extend for centuries BCE, and are the historical predecessor for the religions of Christianity and Islam, both of whom hold some Judaic traditions and texts as sacred, though differ in aspects that are central to each distinct branch of religion.
Hence Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each took different course in terms of beliefs, as well as traditional customs; each creating a separate and distinct culture, from the parent Judaism. Those who held to traditional Judaic belief were considered "deniers" of the newer beliefs and traditions, in much the same way that every religion considers people of other religions to be denying the truth.
Christian theological anti-Semitism was stimulated by the New Testament's replacement theology, or supersessionism, which taught that with the coming of Jesus a new covenant has rendered obsolete and has superseded the religion of Judaism. It was believed that "the wicked Jews", as a people, were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. A number of Christian preachers, particularly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, additionally taught that religious Jews choose to follow a faith that they actually know is false out of a desire to offend God.
Examples of passages in the New Testament that are seen as anti-Semitic, or have been used for anti-Semitic purposes:
In the Middle Ages there were many reasons for prejudice against Jews in Europe. The most obvious reason is religious persecution. However, this does not explain why violence increased greatly during the High Middle Ages, so other more complex reasons have been put forth by scholars.
In the Middle Ages a main source of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. The Catholic Church taught that the Jewish people were collectively and permanently responsible for killing Jesus (see Deicide). The belief in Christianity was very strong in the Middle Ages, and Jews were a direct affront to Christian beliefs.
There were a number of socio-economic factors. Local authorities, rulers, and some church officials closed many occupations to the Jews, but opened the door for them to be local tax collectors and lenders. Lenders of money were seen as a necessary evil in the Middle Ages; it was a profession seen as greedy and dirty. This eventually created increased tensions between creditors (Jews) and debtors (Christians). This was associated with the increasing population and rise of urban towns during the High Middle Ages.
Jews in some areas were discriminated against because of their participation in the slave trade, especially between Slavic countries and the Muslim empire.
Because of their alien status, Jews often were excluded socially and politically from the societies in which they lived, or they were forced to enter professions that were considered socially inferior (tax- and rent-collectors, money-lenders, and so on), which provided a basis for claims that the Jews engaged in usury. Over time, these professions engendered animosity among the people who came into contact with Jews—peasants who were forced to pay their taxes to Jews could personify Jews as the people taking their earnings while remaining loyal to the lords on whose behalf the Jews worked.
From around the 12th century through the 19th there were Christians who believed that some (or all) Jews possessed magical powers; some believed that they had gained these magical powers from making a deal with the devil.
Main articles: blood libel, list of blood libels against Jews
On many occasions, Jews were accused of a blood libel, the supposed drinking of blood of Christian children in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. According to the authors of these blood libels, the 'procedure' for the alleged sacrifice was something like this: a child who had not yet reached puberty was kidnapped and taken to a hidden place. The child would be tortured by Jews, and a crowd would gather at the place of execution (in some accounts the synagogue itself) and engage in a mock tribunal to try the child. The child would be presented to the tribunal naked and tied and eventually be condemned to death. In the end, the child would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross. The cross would be raised, and the blood dripping from the child's wounds would be caught in bowls or glasses. Finally, the child would be killed with a thrust through the heart from a spear, sword, or dagger. Its dead body would be removed from the cross and concealed or disposed of, but in some instances rituals of black magic would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the alleged descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.
The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is the first known case of ritual murder being alleged by a Christian monk. It does not mention the collection of William's blood for any purpose. The story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) said that after the boy was dead, his body was removed from the cross and laid on a table. His belly was cut open and his entrails removed for some occult purpose, such as a divination ritual. The story of Simon of Trent (d. 1475) emphasized how the boy was held over a large bowl so all his blood could be collected.
Many blood libel accusations and trials of Jews took place during 1250 CE to 1840 CE. In England, 1255, the case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln resulted in the execution of 19 Jews. In 1475, Simon of Trent, aged two, disappeared, and his father alleged that he had been kidnapped and murdered by the local Jewish community. Fifteen local Jews were sentenced to death and burned. Simon was regarded as a saint, and was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. His status as a saint was removed in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, though his murder is still promoted as a fact by a handful of extremists. In Kiev, Russia, 1911, a Jewish factory manager, Menachem Mendel Bailis, was accused of murdering a Christian child and using his blood in matzos. He was acquitted by an all-Christian jury after a sensational trial in 1913. In the 20th century, blood libel stories have appeared a number of times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, in Arab television shows, and on websites.
The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 was the first to proclaim the requirement for Jews to wear something that distinguished them as Jews. It could be a colored piece of cloth in the shape of a star or circle or square, a hat, or a robe. This practice has its origins in the Islamic world where it was common for various religions to wear badges of faith. Because other members of society in medieval Europe who wore badges included lepers, reformed heretics and prostitutes, it was not seen as a good thing. Jews sought to evade the badges by paying what amounted to bribes in the form of "exemptions" to kings, which were revoked and re-paid for whenever the king needed to raise funds.
Jews were falsely accused of torturing consecrated host wafers in a reenactment of the Crucifixion; this accusation was known as host desecration. See also Judensau.
The Crusades were a series of several military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy that took place during the 11th through 13th centuries. They began as Catholic endeavours to capture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars. The initial conquest of Palestine by the forces of Islam in the 7th century did not interfere much with pilgrimage to Christian holy sites or the security of monasteries and Christian communities in the Holy Land. However, in the year 1009 the Fatimid caliph of Cairo, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre destroyed. His successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it, and pilgrimage was permitted again. The decisive loss of the Byzantine army to the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 brought the beginning of Byzantine pleas for troops and support from the West.
The mobs accompanying the first three Crusades attacked the Jewish communities in Germany, France, and England, and put many Jews to death; this left behind for centuries strong feelings of ill will on both sides. The social position of the Jews in western Europe was distinctly worsened by the Crusades, and legal restrictions became frequent during and after them. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III, and formed the turning-point in the medieval history of the Jews.
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(to be written) Main article: Christianity and anti-Semitism
Bohdan Khmelnytsky (that being his Ukrainian name; he was known in Polish as Bohdan Zenobi Chmielnicki, and in Russian as Bogdan Khmelnitsky) was the leader of what came to be known as the Khmelnytsky massacres.
Khmelnytsky (c. 1595 - August 6, 1657) was a Polish (arguably) noble, leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, hetman of Ukraine, noted for his revolt against Poland (1648 - 1654), and a Treaty of Pereyaslav which led to annexing Ukraine by the Russian Empire.
For centuries after creation of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the people of Ruthenia had felt oppressed by the nobles and Jewish traders. Although Ruthenian nobility enjoyed full rights, they quickly Polonised and therefore were alienated from common people; the advent of Counter-Reformation meant troubles in relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic faiths. Unwilling to attend to the details of administration themselves, Polish magnates made the Jewish citizens a go-between in the transactions with the peasants of Ukraine. They sold and leased certain privileges to Jews for a lump sum, and, while enjoying themselves at the court, left it to Jewish leaseholders and collectors to become the embodiment of hatred to the oppressed and long-suffering peasant. Although Chmielnicki's personal resentment influenced his decision to rid the Ukraine of Polish and Ruthenian magnates and Jews, it seems that it was his ambition to become the ruler of Ukraine which was the main motive that led him to instigate the uprising of the Ruthenian people against the magnates and the Jews.
Khmelnytsky told the people that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews." With this as their battle-cry, the Cossacks massacred a huge number of Jews during the years of 1648-1649. The precise number of victims may never be known, but estimates range from a minimum of 10,000 to well over 100,000 Jews murdered. See the article on Bohdan Khmelnytsky for a fuller treatment of this subject.
The Pale of Settlement was the border region of Imperial Russia in which Jews were allowed to live. Consisting of a vast swathe of territory of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Crimea, that were annexed with the existing numerous Jewish populations and, as Tsars government intended, where Jews had to remain. The "Pale" included much of present-day Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.
At its heyday the Pale had a Jewish population of over 4 million and constituted the largest concentration of Jews in the world. During 1881-1884 a wave of anti-Semitic pogroms swept Jewish communities in southern Russia, causing world-wide outcry and propelling mass Jewish emigration. At least some pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Russian okhranka. Although no hard evidence is presented so far, such facts as the indifference of Russian police and army was duly noted, e.g., during the three-day First Kishinev pogrom of 1903, as well as the preceding inciting anti-Jewish articles in newspapers, a hint that pogroms were in line with the internal policy of the Imperial Russia.
Racial anti-Semitism, the most modern form of anti-Semitism, is a type of racism mixed with religious persecution. Racial anti-Semites believe that Jews are a distinct race and inherently inferior to people of other races.
Modern European anti-Semitism has its origin in 19th century pseudo-scientific theories that the Jewish people are a sub-group of Semitic peoples; Semitic people were thought by many Europeans to be entirely different from the Aryan, or Indo-European, populations, and that they can never be amalgamated with them. In this view, Jews are not opposed on account of their religion, but on account of their supposed racial characteristics: greed, a special aptitude for money-making, aversion to hard work, clannishness and obtrusiveness, lack of social tact, and especially lack of patriotism.
One of the most infamous 19th century anti-Semitic tractates is the Russian literary hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal which divided France for many years during the late 19th century. It centered on the 1894 treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French army. Dreyfus was, in fact, innocent: the conviction rested on false documents, and when high-ranking officers realised this they attempted to cover up the mistakes. The writer Emile Zola exposed the affair to the general public in the literary newspaper L'Aurore (The Dawn) in a famous open letter to the Président de la République Félix Faure, titled J'accuse! (I Accuse!) on January 13, 1898.
The Dreyfus Affair split France between the Dreyfusards (those supporting Alfred Dreyfus) and the Antidreyfusards (those against him). The quarrel was especially violent since it involved many issues then highly controversial in a heated political climate.
Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899, readmitted into the army, and made a knight in the Legion of Honour. An Austrian Jewish journalist named Theodor Herzl was assigned to report on the trial and its aftermath. The injustice of the trial and the anti-Semitic passions it aroused in France and elsewhere turned him into a determined Zionist; ultimately turning the movement into an international one.
Also see Alfred Dreyfus and the Dreyfus Affair.
Passion plays, dramatic stagings representing the trial and death of Jesus, have historically been used in Christian communities to arouse hatred of local Jews; the plays usually depict the entire Jewish people as condemning Jesus to crucifixion and being collectively guilty of deicide, murdering God.
In 2003 and 2004 some have compared Mel Gibson's recent film The Passion of the Christ to these kinds of passion plays, but this characterization is hotly disputed; an analysis of that topic is in the article on The Passion of the Christ.
The reign of Casimir III, the Great (1333 - 1370) made Poland a safe asylum for Jews. The Jewish population of Poland played a very prominent role and their position was comparable with the status of nobles. After the partitions of Poland, and the final defeat of the January Uprising (1863 - 1864), Polish nationalists and Jews began to diverge on many issues.
See History of the Jews in Poland, Jacob Frank and Massacre in Jedwabne.
Main article: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
The religion of Islam is, if of itself, not Anti-Semitic. The Qur'an, Islam's holy book, criticizes the Jews for corrupting and not following the Hebrew Bible. Muslims refer to Jews and Christians as a "People of the book"; Islamic law demands that they should be tolerated as dhimmis, second-class citizens who have limited rights. Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increased in the twentieth century, as anti-Semitic motives and blood libels were imported from Europe.
Anti-Semitism within Islam is discussed in the article on Islam and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in the Arab World is discussed in the article on Arabs and anti-Semitism.
In the USA, in the years leading up to America's entry into World War II, Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic radio preacher, as well as many other prominent public figures, condemned "the Jews" because they were leading America into war. While most Jews in America supported the interventionist camp, not all did. Jews were often condemned by populist politicians for their left-wing politics at the turn of the century.
The most horrific manifestation of anti-Semitism this century, subsequent to the rise of far-right ideologies in Europe, led to the "Jewish holocaust" during World War II, in which millions of Jews in Europe were systematically murdered. See Holocaust, Warsaw Ghetto, and Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka.
Holocaust revisionists often claim that "the Jews" or a "Zionist conspiracy" is responsible for the exaggeration or wholesale fabrication of the events of the Holocaust. Critics of such revisionism point to an overwhelming amount of physical and historical evidence that supports the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust. It should be noted that most academics also agree that there is no creditable evidence for any such conspiracy.
Anti-Zionism is a term that has been used to describe several very different political and religious points of view (both historically and in current debates) all expressing some form of opposition to Zionism. A large variety of commentators - politicians, journalists, academics and others - believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and attribute this to anti-Semitism. In turn, critics of this view believe that associating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is intended to stifle debate, deflect attention from valid criticism, and taint anyone opposed to Israeli actions and policies. This subject is discussed in the main article on Anti-Zionism.
In recent years some scholars of religion and many Jewish groups, have noted what they describe as the new anti-Semitism. This subject is discussed in a separate article, modern anti-Semitism, which deals with anti-Semitism after World War II up to the present.
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