CÓ BẠN ĐỌC MUỐN BIẾT "SEMITISM LÀ GÌ? TẠI SAO PHONG TRÀO ANTISEMISTISM NGÀY MỘT LỚN RỘNG?"
Thưa cô Bác;
1/- SEMITISM bắt nguồn từ chữ SHEM trong Kinh Thánh. SHEM là tên của một trong các người con của NOAH. SHEM lần hồi coi như một biểu tượng của một nhóm dân tộc thuộc vùng Trung Đông sử dụng ngôn ngữ SEMITIC, được phát triển từ Thế Kỷ Thứ 18.
2/- Dựa vào ngôn ngữ SEMITIC, họ đã tạo ra một chữ mới "ANTISEMITISM" vào năm 1879 để diễn tả cử chỉ và hành động CHỐNG ĐỐI NGƯỜI DO THÁI.
3/- Phong trào chống đối Do Thái đã có từ lâu đời nhưng nó bột phát công khai, dữ dội dưới thời HITLER LÊN LÀM THỦ TƯỚNG ĐỨC. Hitler đã tạo Ra Thế Chiến Thứ II và đã giết hơn 6 triệu người Do Thái.
4/- Phong trào ANTISEMITISM, bài Do Thái khi lắng động và bột phát từng cơn, đã liên tục xảy ra trên khắp Thế Giới. Gần đây nhứt một tội phạm gốc Á Rập đã xả súng giết 15 người Do Thái tụ họp ăn mừng Lễ Hanaka của Người Do Thái tại Bondi Beach Sydney. Phong trào Antisemitism đang bùng nổ nhiều nơi 2026 là vì xung đột giứa Nước Do Thái với Người Palestine ở Gaza và Nước Iran đang còn tiếp diễn.
*Cô Bác có thời giờ xem qua các tài liệu căn bản dưới đây sẽ hiểu rõ phong trào ANTISEMITISM hơn./-Mt68
__________________
ABiblical figure Shem
Early animosity towards Jews
Louis H. Feldman argues: "We must take
issue with the communis sensus that the pagan writers
are predominantly anti-Semitic."[3] He
asserts that "one of the great puzzles that has confronted the students of
antisemitism is the alleged shift from pro-Jewish statements found in the first
pagan writers who mention the Jews ... to the vicious anti-Jewish statements
thereafter, beginning with Manetho about 270 BCE".[4] In
view of Manetho's anti-Jewish writings, antisemitism may have originated in
Egypt and been spread by "the Greek retelling
of Ancient Egyptian prejudices".[5] As
examples of pagan writers who spoke positively of Jews, Feldman cites Aristotle, Theophrastus, Clearchus
of Soli and Megasthenes. Feldman concedes that, after Manetho:
"The picture usually painted is one of universal and virulent anti-Judaism."[citation needed]
The first clear examples of anti-Jewish sentiment can be
traced back to Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE.[6] Alexandrian
Jewry were the largest Jewish community in the world and the Septuagint,
a Greek translation of the Hebrew
Bible, was produced there. Manetho, an
Egyptian priest and historian of that time, wrote scathingly of the Jews and
his themes are repeated in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius
Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus.[6] Hecateus of Abdera is quoted by Flavius
Josephus as having written about the time of Alexander the Great that the Jews
"have often been treated injuriously by the kings and governors of Persia,
yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think best; but that when
they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and
they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet them after an
extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the
religion of their forefathers".[7] One
of the earliest anti-Jewish edicts, promulgated by Antiochus Epiphanes in about 170–167 BCE,
sparked a revolt of the Maccabees in Judea.
The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria describes an attack on
Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE in which thousands of Jews died.[8][9] The
violence in Alexandria may have been caused by the Jews' being portrayed
as misanthropic.[10] Tcherikover
argues that the reason for the hatred of Jews in the Hellenistic period was
their separateness in the Greek cities, the poleis.[11][page needed] However,
Bohak has argued that early animosity against the Jews cannot be regarded as
being anti-Judaic or antisemitic unless it arose from attitudes that were held
against the Jews alone, because many Greeks showed animosity towards any group
which they considered barbaric.[12]
Statements which exhibit prejudice against Jews and their
religion can be found in the works of many pagan Greek and Roman writers.[13] Edward
Flannery writes that it was the Jews' refusal to accept Greek religious and
social standards that marked them out. Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek historian of the
early third century BCE, wrote that Moses "in
remembrance of the exile of his people, instituted for them a misanthropic and
inhospitable way of life". Manetho wrote that the Jews were expelled
Egyptian lepers who had been taught "not to adore the gods" by Moses. The same themes
appear in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius
Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus. Agatharchides of Cnidus wrote about
the "ridiculous practices" of the Jews and he also wrote about the
"absurdity of their Law", and he also wrote about how Ptolemy
Lagus was able to invade Jerusalem in
320 BC because its inhabitants were observing the Sabbath.[6] Edward
Flannery describes the form of antisemitism which existed in ancient
times as being essentially "cultural, taking the shape of a
national xenophobia which was played out in political
settings".[14]
In one recorded instance, an Ancient
Greek ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and banned Jewish
religious practices, such as circumcision, Shabbat observance,
and the study of Jewish religious books,[15] during
the period when Ancient Greece dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Statements
exhibiting prejudice towards Jews and their religion can also be found in the
works of a few pagan Greek and Roman writers,[16] but
the earliest occurrence of antisemitism has been the subject of debate among
scholars, largely because different writers use different definitions of
antisemitism. The terms "religious antisemitism" and
"anti-Judaism" are sometimes used in reference to animosity towards
Judaism as a religion rather than antisemitism, which is used in reference to
animosity towards Jews as members of an ethnic or racial group.[citation needed]
Roman Empire
Main article: History of the Jews in the
Roman Empire
Relations between the Jews in Judea and the occupying Roman
Empire were antagonistic from the very start and they resulted in
several rebellions. It has been argued that European antisemitism has its roots in
the Roman policy of religious
persecution.[17][page needed]
Several ancient historians report that in 19 CE, the Roman
emperor Tiberius expelled
the Jews from Rome. According to the Roman historian Suetonius,
Tiberius tried to suppress all foreign religions. In the case of the Jews, he
sent young Jewish men, under the pretence of military service, to provinces
which were noted for their unhealthy climate. He expelled all other Jews from
the city, under threat of lifelong slavery for non-compliance.[18] Josephus, in
his Jewish Antiquities,[19] confirms
that Tiberius ordered all Jews to be banished from Rome. Four thousand Jews
were sent to Sardinia but more Jews, who were unwilling to become
soldiers, were punished. Cassius
Dio reports that Tiberius banished most of the Jews, who had been
attempting to convert the Romans to their religion.[20] Philo
of Alexandria reported that Sejanus, one of Tiberius's lieutenants, may have been a prime
mover in the persecution of the Jews.[21]
The Romans refused to permit the Jews to rebuild the Temple
of Jerusalem after its destruction by Titus in 70 CE,
imposed a tax on the Jews (Fiscus
Judaicus) at the same time, ostensibly to finance the construction of
the Temple of Jupiter in Rome,
and renamed Judaea to Syria
Palestina. The Jerusalem Talmud relates that, following
the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), the Romans
killed many Jews, "killing until their horses were submerged in blood to
their nostrils".[22] However,
some historians argue that Rome brutally suppressed revolts in all of its
conquered territories and they also point out that Tiberius expelled all
adherents of foreign religions from Rome, not just the Jews.
Some accommodations, in fact, were later made with Judaism,
and the Jews of the Diaspora had privileges that others did not
have. Unlike other subjects of the Roman Empire, the Jews had the right to
maintain their religion and they were not expected to accommodate themselves to
local customs. Even after the First Jewish–Roman War, the Roman
authorities refused to rescind Jewish privileges in some cities. And
although Hadrian outlawed
circumcision as a form of mutilation which was normally inflicted upon people
who were unable to consent to it, he later exempted the Jews from the ban on
circumcision.[23] According
to the 18th-century historian Edward
Gibbon, there was greater tolerance of the Jews from about 160 CE. Between
355 and 363 CE, Julian the Apostate permitted the Jews to
rebuild the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
Rise of Christianity and Islam
The New Testament and early Christianity
Main articles: Antisemitism in Christianity and Antisemitism in the New Testament
Although most of the New
Testament was written, ostensibly, by Jews who became followers of
Jesus, there are a number of passages in the New Testament that some consider
antisemitic, and they have been used for antisemitic purposes.[24][page needed][25][page needed][26] A
key accusation is that of Jewish
deicide, i.e. the claim that Jews were collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus:[27][28]
- In
his First Epistle to the
Thessalonians 2:14–15. Paul described the Jews as those
"who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets" [29]
- After Pilate washes
his hands and declares himself innocent of Jesus' blood, the Jewish crowd
answers him, "His blood be on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:25, RSV). In an essay
regarding antisemitism, biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine argues that this passage
has caused more Jewish suffering throughout history than any other passage
in the New Testament.[30]
- Saint
Stephen speaking before a synagogue council just before his
execution: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always resist the Holy
Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your
fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the
coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you
who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." (Acts 7:51–53,
RSV)
- Jesus
speaking to a group of Pharisees:
"I know that you are descendants of Abraham;
yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you ... You are
of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He
was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth,
because there is no truth in him." (John 8:37–39,
44–47, RSV)
The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed
Christian antisemitism [31] and
spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the
Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and
torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.
Muhammad, the Quran, and early Islam
Main article: Antisemitism in Islam
Further information: Criticism of Muhammad, Criticism of the Quran, Early history of Islam, Historical reliability of the Quran,
and Historicity of Muhammad
The Quran, the holy book of Muslims,
contains some verses that can be interpreted as expressing very negative views
of some Jews.[32] After
the Islamic prophet Muhammad moved
to Medina in
622 CE, he made peace treaties with the Jewish tribes of Arabia and other
tribes. However, the relationship between the followers of the new religion and
the Jews of Medina later became bitter. At this point the Quran instructs
Muhammad to change the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca, and from this
point on, the tone of the verses of the Quran become increasingly hostile
towards Jewry.[33]
In 627 CE, Jewish tribe Banu
Qurayza of Medina violated a treaty with Muhammad by allying with the
attacking tribes.[34] Subsequently,
the tribe was charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by
Muhammad himself.[35][36] The
Banu Qurayza were forced to surrender and the men were beheaded, while all the
women and children were taken captive and enslaved.[35][36][37][38][39][excessive citations] Several
scholars have challenged the veracity of this incident, arguing that it was
exaggerated or invented.[40][41][42] Later,
several conflicts arose between Jews of Arabia and Muhammad and his followers,
the most notable of which was in Khaybar, in
which many Jews were killed and their properties seized and distributed among
the Muslims.[43]
Late Roman Empire
See also: Antisemitism in early Christianity
When Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the
4th century, Jews became the victims of religious intolerance and political
oppression. Christian literature began to display extreme hostility towards
Jews, which occasionally resulted in attacks against them and the burning of
their synagogues. The hostility against Jews was reflected in the edicts which
were imposed upon them by church councils and state laws. In the early 4th
century, intermarriage between unconverted Jews and Christians was prohibited
by the provisions of the Synod
of Elvira. The Council of Antioch (341) prohibited
Christians from celebrating Passover with
the Jews while the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians
from keeping the Jewish Sabbath.[44] The
Roman Emperor Constantine I instituted several laws concerning
the Jews: they were forbidden to own Christian slaves and they were also
forbidden to circumcise their slaves. The conversion of Christians to Judaism
was also outlawed. Religious services were regulated, congregations were
restricted, but Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem on Tisha B'Av,
the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple.
Discrimination against Jews became worse in the 5th century.
The edicts of the Codex Theodosianus (438) barred Jews from
the civil service, the army and the legal profession.[45] The
Jewish Patriarchate was abolished and the scope of Jewish courts was
restricted. Synagogues were confiscated and old synagogues could only be
repaired if they were in danger of collapsing. Synagogues fell into ruin or
they were converted to churches. Synagogues were destroyed in Tortona (350),
Rome (388 and 500), Raqqa (388), Menorca (418),
Daphne (near Antioch, 489 and 507), Genoa (500), Ravenna (495), Tours (585) and
in Orléans (590).
Other synagogues were confiscated: Urfa in 411,
several in Judea between 419 and 422, Constantinople in
442 and 569, Antioch in 423, Vannes in
465, Diyarbakir in
500 Terracina in
590, Cagliari in
590 and Palermo in
590.[46]
Accusations that the Jews killed Jesus
Main article: Jewish
deicide
Deicide is the killing of a god. In the context of
Christianity, deicide refers to the responsibility for the death of
Jesus. The accusation that the Jews committed deicide has
been the most powerful warrant for antisemitism by Christians.[47] The
earliest recorded instance of an accusation of deicide against the Jewish
people as a whole – that they were collectively responsible for the death of
Jesus – occurs in a sermon of 167 CE attributed to Melito
of Sardis entitled Peri Pascha, On the Passover.
This text blames the Jews for allowing King
Herod and Caiaphas to execute Jesus. Melito does not attribute
particular blame to Pontius Pilate, he only mentions that Pilate washed
his hands of guilt.[48] The
Latin word deicida (slayer
of god), from which the word deicide is derived, was used in
the 4th century by Peter Chrystologus in his sermon number 172.[49] Though
not part of Roman Catholic dogma, many
Christians, including members of the clergy, once held Jews collectively
responsible for the death of Jesus.[50] According
to this interpretation, both the Jews who were present at Jesus' death and the
Jewish people collectively and for all time had committed the sin of deicide,
or God-killing.[51]
Middle Ages
Main articles: Antisemitism in Europe (Middle
Ages) and Jews in the Middle Ages
Hostility to Judaism continued from the late Roman period
into medieval times. During the Middle Ages in Europe there was a full-scale
persecution of Jews in many places, with blood
libels, expulsions, forced
conversions and killings. In the 12th century, there were Christians
who believed that some, or possibly all, of the Jews possessed magical powers
and had gained these powers from making a pact with the devil. Judensau images
began to appear in Germany.
Although the Catholicised Visigothic kingdom in Spain issued a series
of anti-Jewish edicts already in the 7th century,[52] persecution
of Jews in Europe reached a climax during the Crusades.
Anti-Jewish rhetoric such as the Goad of Love began to appear and affect
public consciousness.[53] At
the time of the First Crusade, in 1096, a German Crusade destroyed flourishing
Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube. In the Second
Crusade in 1147, the Jews in France were the victims of frequent
killings and atrocities. Following the coronation of Richard the Lionheart in 1189, Jews were
attacked in London. When king Richard left to join the Third
Crusade in 1190, anti-Jewish riots broke out again in York and throughout
England.[54][55] In
the first large-scale persecution in Germany after the First Crusade, 100,000
Jews were killed by Rintfleisch knights in 1298.[56] The
Jews were also subjected to attacks during the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. In the 1330s Jews were assaulted
by the Armleder, led by Arnold von Uissigheim, starting in 1336
in Franconia and
subsequently by John Zimberlin during 1338–9 in Alsace who
attacked more than one hundred Jewish communities.[57][58] Following
these crusades, Jews were subject to expulsions, including, in 1290, the
banishing of all English Jews. In 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France
and in 1421, thousands were expelled
from Austria. Many of those expelled fled to Poland.[59]
As the Black
Death plague swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating
more than half of the population, Jews often became the scapegoats.
Rumors spread that they had caused this epidemic by deliberately poisoning
wells, an accusation that appeared before in the 1321
leper scare. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by the ensuing hatred and
violence. Pope Clement VI tried to protect Jews by
a papal
bull dated 6 July 1348, and by an additional bull soon afterwards, but
several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg, where the plague had
not yet affected the city.[60] The
Jews of Prague were
attacked on Easter of 1389.[61] The massacres of 1391 marked a decline in the
Golden Age for Spanish Jewry.[62]
Relations between Muslims and Jews in the Islamic world
Main articles: History of the Jews under Muslim
rule and Islamic–Jewish relations
From the 9th century onwards, the medieval Islamic world imposed dhimmi status
on Christian and Jewish minorities. Nevertheless, Jews were granted more
freedom to practise their religion in the Muslim
world than they were in Christian Europe.[63] Jewish communities in Spain thrived
under tolerant Muslim rule during the Spanish Golden Age and Cordova became
a centre of Jewish culture.[64]
With the entrance of the Almoravides from
North Africa in the 11th century, however, harsh measures were taken against
both Christians and Jews.[64] As
part of this repression there were pogroms against
Jews in Cordova in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[65][66][67] The Almohads, who by
1147 had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories,[68] took
a less tolerant view still and treated the dhimmis harshly.
Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians
took a third option if they could, and fled.[69][70][71] Some,
such as the family of Maimonides, went east to more tolerant Muslim lands,[69] while
others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[72][73][full citation needed] At
certain times in the Middle Ages, in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, decrees
ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted. Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face
death in parts of Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad.[74] 6,000
Jews were killed by a Muslim mob during the 1033
Fez massacre. There were further massacres in Fez in 1276 and 1465,[75][76][77] and
in Marrakesh in
1146 and 1232.[77]
Occupational and other restrictions
Restrictions upon Jewish occupations were imposed by
Christian authorities. Local rulers and church officials closed many
professions to Jews, pushing them into marginal roles which were considered
socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending,
occupations which were only tolerated as a "necessary evil". At that
time, Catholic doctrine taught the view that lending money for interest was
a sin, and an
occupation which Christians were forbidden to engage in. Not being subject to
this restriction, insofar as loans to non-Jews were concerned, Jews made this
business their own, despite possible criticism of usury in
the Torah and
later sections of the Hebrew Bible. This led to many negative stereotypes of
Jews as insolent, greedy usurers and the tensions between creditors (typically
Jews) and debtors (typically Christians) added to social, political, religious,
and economic strains. Peasants who were forced to pay their taxes to Jews could
see them as personally taking their money while unaware of those on whose
behalf these Jews worked.[citation needed]
Jews were subject to a wide range of legal disabilities and restrictions throughout
the Middle Ages, some of which lasted until the end of the 19th century. Even
moneylending and peddling were at times forbidden to them. The number of Jews
permitted to reside in different places was limited; they were concentrated
in ghettos and
were not allowed to own land; they were subject to discriminatory taxes on
entering cities or districts other than their own and were forced to swear
special Jewish Oaths, and they suffered a variety of
other measures. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed
that Jews and Muslims must wear distinguishing clothing.[78] The
most common such clothing was the Jewish hat,
which was already worn by many Jews as a self-identifying mark, but was now
often made compulsory.[79]
The Jewish badge was introduced in some places; it
could be a coloured piece of cloth in the shape of a circle, strip, or the
tablets of the law (in England), and was sewn onto the clothes.[80] Elsewhere
special colours of robe were specified. Implementation was in the hands of
local rulers but by the following century laws had been enacted covering most
of Europe. In many localities, members of Medieval society wore badges to
distinguish their social status. Some badges (such as those worn by guild members)
were prestigious, while others were worn by ostracised outcasts such as lepers,
reformed heretics and
prostitutes. As with all sumptuary
laws, the degree to which these laws were followed and enforced varied
greatly. Sometimes, Jews sought to evade the badges by paying what amounted to
bribes in the form of temporary "exemptions" to kings, which were
revoked and re-paid for whenever the king needed to raise funds.[citation needed] By the
end of the Middle Ages, the hat seems to have become rare, but the badge lasted
longer and remained in some places until the 18th century.
Crusades
See also: German Crusade, 1096; History of the Jews and the
Crusades; Siege of Jerusalem (1099); and Letter of the Karaite elders of
Ascalon
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned
by the Papacy in
Rome, which took place from the end of the 11th century until the 13th century.
They began as endeavors to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed
into territorial wars.
The People's
Crusade that accompanied the First Crusade attacked Jewish communities
in Germany, France, and England, and killed many Jews. Entire communities, like
those of Treves, Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were
murdered by armed mobs. About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in
the Rhineland cities
alone between May and July 1096. The religious zeal fomented by the Crusades at
times burned as fiercely against Jews as against Muslims, although attempts
were made by bishops during the first Crusade and by the papacy during the
Second Crusade to stop Jews from being attacked. Both economically and
socially, the Crusades were disastrous for European Jews. They prepared the way
for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope
Innocent III.
The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem retreated to their
synagogue to "prepare for death" once the Crusaders had breached the
outer walls of the city during the siege of 1099.[81][82] The
chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi states that the building was
set on fire while the Jews were still inside.[83] The
Crusaders were supposedly reported as hoisting up their shields and singing
"Christ We Adore Thee!" while they encircled the burning
building."[84] Following
the siege, Jews captured from the Dome
of the Rock, along with native Christians, were made to clean the city of
the slain.[85] Numerous
Jews and their holy books (including the Aleppo
Codex) were held ransom by Raymond of Toulouse.[86] The
Karaite Jewish community of Ashkelon (Ascalon)
reached out to their coreligionists in Alexandria to
first pay for the holy books and then rescued pockets of Jews over several
months.[85] All
that could be ransomed were liberated by the summer of 1100. The few who could
not be rescued were either converted to Christianity or murdered.[87]
In the County of Toulouse, in southern France,
toleration and favour shown to Jews was one of the main complaints of the Roman
Church against the Counts of Toulouse at the beginning of the 13th century.
Organised and official persecution of the Jews became a normal feature of life
in southern France only after the Albigensian Crusade, because it was only then
that the Church became powerful enough to insist that measures of
discrimination be applied.[88] In
1209, stripped to the waist and barefoot, Raymond VI of Toulouse was obliged to
swear that he would no longer allow Jews to hold public office. In 1229 his
son Raymond VII underwent a similar
ceremony.[89] In
1236, Crusaders attacked the Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou, killing
3,000 and baptizing 500.[90] Two
years after the 1240 disputation of Paris, twenty-four wagons piled
with hand-written Talmudic manuscripts were burned in the streets.[91] Other disputations occurred
in Spain, followed by accusations against the Talmud.
Papal restrictions and the persecution of Jews
.jpg)
While some popes offered protection to Jews, others
implemented restrictive policies and actions that contributed to their
marginalization and persecution. A key role was played by Pope
Innocent III who justified his calls for lay and Church authorities to
restrict Jewish "insolence" by claiming God made Jews slaves for
rejecting and killing Christ. He proclaimed them to be the enemies of Christ,
who must be kept in a position of social inferiority and prevented from
exercising power over Christians.[92]
- Devaluing
testimony of Jews. The Third Lateran Council, convened
by Pope Alexander III in 1179, declared
the testimony of Christians should be always accepted over the testimony
of Jews, that those who believe the testimony of Jews should be anathemized,
and that Jews should be subject to Christians.[93] It
forbade Christians serving Jews and Muslims in their homes, calling for
the excommunication of those who do.
- Prohibitions
on holding public office. The Fourth Lateran Council, of 1215,
convened by Pope Innocent III, declared: "Since it
is absurd that a blasphemer of Christ exercise authority over Christians,
we ... renew in this general council what the Synod of Toledo (589) wisely enacted
in this matter, prohibiting Jews from being given preference in the matter
of public offices, since in such capacity they are most troublesome to the
Christians"[93] These
prohibitions remained in effect for centuries.[94][95][96]
- Distinctive
clothing and badges: The Fourth Lateran Council required
Jews to wear distinctive clothing or badges to distinguish them from
Christians. The reason given for this was to enforce prohibitions against
sexual intercourse between Christians and Jews and Muslims.[93] This
practice of requiring Jews to wear distinctive clothing and badges was
reinforced by subsequent popes and became widespread across Europe.[96] Such
markings led to threats, extortion and violence against Jews.[97] This
requirement was only removed with the Jewish Emancipation following the Enlightenment, but the Nazis revived
it. The council also forbade Jews and Muslims from appearing in public
during the last three days of Easter.
- Condemnations
and burning of the Talmund: In 1239, Pope Gregory IX sent a letter to priest
in France with accusations against the Talmund by
a Franciscan. He ordered the confiscation of Jewish
books while Jews were gathered in synagogue, and that all such books be
"burned at the stake.” Similar instructions were conveyed to the
kings of France, England, Spain, and Portugal. 24 wagons of Jewish books
were burned in Paris. Additional condemnations of the Talmud were issued
by Popes Innocent IV in his bull of 1244, Alexander IV, John
XXII in 1320, and Alexander V in 1409. Pope
Eugenius IV issued a bull prohibiting Jews from studying the
Talmud following the Council of Basle, 1431–43.[98]
- Spanish and
Portuguese Inquisitions: In 1478 Pope
Sixtus IV issued a bull which authorized the Spanish Inquisition.[99] This
institutionalized the persecution of Jews who had converted to
Christianity (conversos), due to mass violence against Jews by
Catholics (e.g. the Massacre of 1391). The Inquisition employed
torture and property confiscation, thousands were burned at the stake. In
1492 Jews were given the choice of either baptism or expulsion, as a
result more than 160,000 Jews were expelled.[99] In
1536 Pope Paul III established the Portuguese Inquisition with a
papal bull. The major target of the Portuguese Inquisition were Jewish
converts to Catholicism, who were suspected of secretly
practicing Judaism. Many of these were originally Spanish
Jews who had left Spain for Portugal, when Spain forced Jews to
convert to Christianity or leave. The number of these victims (between
1540 and 1765) is estimated at 40,000.[100]
- Ghettos: In
1555, Pope Paul IV issued the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, which forced Jews
in the Papal States to live in ghettos. It
declared "absurd" that Jews, condemned by God to slavery for
their faults, had "invaded" the Papal States and were living
freely among Christians. It justified restrictions by asserting that Jews
were "slaves" for their deeds, while Christians were
"freed" by Jesus, and that Jews should see "the true
light" and convert to Catholicism. This policy was later adopted in
other parts of Europe. The Roman
Ghetto, established in 1555, was one of the best-known Jewish ghettos,
existing until the Papal States were abolished in 1870, and Jews were no
longer restricted[101]
- Forced
conversions and expulsions: Some popes supported or initiated
forced conversions and expulsions of Jews. For example, Pope
Pius V expelled Jews from the Papal States in 1569, with the
exception of Rome and Ancona. In 1593 Pope Clement VIII expelled the Jews
from the Papal States with the bull, Caeca et Obdurata Hebraeorum perfidia (meaning The
blind and obdurate perfidy of the Hebrews[102]) Pope Innocent III in 1201 authorized
the forced baptism of Jews in southern France, declaring that those who
had been forcibly baptized must remain Christian.[103]
- Restrictions
on Jewish economic activities: Various popes imposed restrictions
on Jewish economic activities, limiting their professions and ability to
own property. In 1555 Pope
Paul IV, in his bull Cum nimis absurdum, prohibited Jews
from engaging in most professions, restricting them primarily to
moneylending and selling second-hand goods. This bull also forbade Jews
from owning real estate and limited them to one synagogue per city.
Previously the Fourth Lateran Council, sought "to protect the
Christians against cruel oppression by the Jews", who extort
Christians with "oppressive and immoderate" interest rates.[93]
Blood libels and host desecrations
Main article: blood
libel
On many occasions, Jews were accused of drinking the blood
of Christian children in mockery of the Christian Eucharist.
According to the authors of these so-called 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 and then drunk. 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 Christian descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.
The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is often cited
as the first known accusation of ritual
murder against Jews. The Jews of Norwich, England
were accused of murder after a Christian boy, William, was found dead. It was
claimed that the Jews had tortured and crucified him. The legend of William of
Norwich became a cult,
and the child acquired the status of a holy martyr.[104] Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d.
1255), in the 13th century, reputedly had his belly cut open and his entrails removed
for some occult purpose,
such as a divination
ritual, after being taken from a cross. Simon
of Trent (d. 1475), in the fifteenth century, was held over a large
bowl so that all of his blood could be collected, it was alleged.
During the Middle
Ages, such blood libels were directed against Jews in many parts of Europe.
The believers in these false
accusations reasoned that the Jews, having crucified Jesus, continued
to thirst for pure and innocent blood, at the expense of innocent Christian
children.[105][page needed] Jews were
also sometimes falsely accused of desecrating consecrated hosts in a reenactment of the Crucifixion;
this crime was known as host
desecration and it carried the death penalty.
Expulsions from France and England
Further information: History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in England
The practice of expelling Jews, the confiscation of their
property and further ransom for their return was used to enrich the French
crown during the 13th and 14th centuries. The most notable such expulsions were
from Paris by Philip Augustus in 1182, from the
whole of France by Louis IX in 1254, by Philip IV in 1306, by Charles IV in 1322 and by Charles VI in 1394.[106]
Jewish expulsions inside England took place in Bury
St. Edmunds in 1190, Newcastle in 1234, Wycombe in
1235, Southampton in 1236, Berkhamsted in
1242 and Newbury in 1244.[107] Simon de Montfort banished
the Jews of Leicester in 1231.[108] During
the Second Barons' War in the 1260s, Simon de
Montfort's followers ravaged the Jewries of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Winchester, Cambridge, Worcester and Lincoln in an effort to destroy the
records of their debts to moneylenders.[107] To
finance his war against Wales in
1276, Edward I of England taxed Jewish
moneylenders. When the moneylenders could no longer pay the tax, they were
accused of disloyalty. Already restricted to a limited number of occupations,
Edward abolished their "privilege" to lend money, restricted their
movements and activities and forced Jews to wear a yellow
patch. The heads of Jewish households were then arrested with over 300
being taken to the Tower of London and executed. Others were
killed in their homes. All Jews were banished from the country in 1290,[109] where
it was possible that hundreds were killed or drowned while trying to leave the
country.[110][page needed] All the
money and property of these dispossessed Jews was confiscated. No Jews were
known to be in England thereafter until 1655, when Oliver
Cromwell reversed the policy.[citation needed]
Expulsions from the Holy Roman Empire
Further information: History of the Jews in Germany
In Germany, part of the Holy
Roman Empire, persecutions and formal expulsions of the Jews were liable to
occur at intervals, although it should be said that this was also the case for
other minority communities, whether religious or ethnic. There were particular
outbursts of riotous persecution in the Rhineland massacres of 1096 accompanying
the lead-up to the First Crusade, many involving the crusaders as they
travelled to the East. There were many local expulsions from cities by local
rulers and city councils. The Holy Roman Emperor generally tried to
restrain persecution, if only for economic reasons, but he was often unable to
exert much influence. As late as 1519, the Imperial city of Regensburg took
advantage of the recent death of Emperor Maximilian I to expel its 500
Jews.[111] At
this period the rulers of the eastern edges of Europe, in Poland, Lithuania and
Hungary, were often receptive to Jewish settlement, and many Jews moved to
these regions.[112]
The Black Death
Main article: Black Death Jewish persecutions
Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence
during the ravages of the Black Death, particularly in the Iberian peninsula
and in the Germanic Empire. In Provence, 40
Jews were burnt in Toulon as quickly after the outbreak as April 1348.[60] "Never
mind that Jews were not immune from the ravages of the plague; they were
tortured until they 'confessed' to crimes that they could not possibly have
committed. In one such case, a man named Agimet was ... coerced to say that
Rabbi Peyret of Chambéry (near Geneva) had
ordered him to poison the wells in Venice, Toulouse, and
elsewhere. In the aftermath of Agimet's 'confession', the Jews of Strasbourg were
burned alive on February 14, 1349."[113]
Early modern period
Spain and Portugal
See also: Antisemitism in Spain
In the Catholic kingdoms of late medieval and early modern
Spain, oppressive policies and attitudes led many Jews to embrace Christianity.[114] Such
Jews were known as conversos or Marranos.[114] Suspicions
that they might still secretly be adherents of Judaism led Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile to institute
the Spanish Inquisition.[114] The
Inquisition used torture to elicit confessions and delivered judgment at public
ceremonials known as autos de
fe before they gave their victims over to the secular authorities
for punishment.[115] Under
this dispensation, some 30,000 were condemned to death and executed by being
burnt alive.[116] In
1492, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile issued an edict
of expulsion of Jews from Spain, giving Jews four months to either
convert to Christianity or leave the country.[117] Some
165,000 emigrated and some 50,000 converted to Christianity.[118] The
same year the order of expulsion arrived in Sicily and Sardinia,
belonging to Spain.[119]
Portugal followed suit in December 1496. However, those
expelled could only leave the country in ships specified by the King. When
those who chose to leave the country arrived at the port in Lisbon, they were
met by clerics and soldiers who used force, coercion and promises to baptize
them and prevent them from leaving the country. This episode technically ended
the presence of Jews in Portugal. Afterwards, all converted Jews and their
descendants would be referred to as New
Christians or Conversos, and those were rumoured to practice crypto-Judaism were
pejoratively labelled as Marranos. They were given a grace period of thirty years
during which no inquiry into their faith would be allowed. This period was
later extended until 1534. However, a popular
riot in 1506 resulted in the deaths of up to four or five thousand
Jews, and the execution of the leaders of the riot by King Manuel. Those labeled as New Christians were
under the surveillance of the Portuguese Inquisition from 1536 until
1821.
Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, known as Sephardi
Jews from the Hebrew word for Spain, fled to North Africa, Turkey and
Palestine within the Ottoman Empire, and to Holland, France and Italy.[120] Within
the Ottoman Empire, Jews could openly practise their religion. Amsterdam in
Holland also became a focus for settlement by the persecuted Jews from many
lands in succeeding centuries.[121] In
the Papal states, Jews were forced to live in ghettos and
subjected to several restrictions as part of the Cum nimis absurdum of 1555.[122]
Anti-Judaism and the Reformation
See also: Luther and antisemitism and Christianity and antisemitism
Martin Luther, a Lutheran Augustinian friar excommunicated by
the Papacy for
heresy,[123] and
an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired
the Reformation, wrote antagonistically about
Jews in his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies,
written in 1543. He portrays the Jews in extremely harsh terms, excoriates them
and provides detailed recommendations for a pogrom against
them, calling for their permanent oppression and expulsion. At one point he
writes: "...we are at fault in not slaying them..." a passage that
"may be termed the first work of modern antisemitism, and a giant step
forward on the road to the
Holocaust."[124]
Luther's harsh comments about the Jews are seen by many as a
continuation of medieval Christian antisemitism. Muslow and
Popkin assert that, "the antisemitism of the early modern period was even
worse than that of the Middle Ages; and nowhere was this more obvious than in
those areas which roughly encompass modern-day Germany, especially among
Lutherans."[125] In
his final sermon shortly before his death, however, Luther preached: "We
want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might
become converted and would receive the Lord."[126]
Canonization of Simon of Trent
Simon of Trent was a boy from the city of Trento, Italy, who
was found dead at the age of two in 1475, having allegedly been kidnapped,
mutilated, and drained of blood. His disappearance was blamed on the leaders of
the city's Jewish community, based on confessions extracted under torture, in a
case that fueled the rampant antisemitism of the time. Simon was regarded as a
saint, and was canonized by Pope
Sixtus V in 1588.
17th century
During the 1614 Fettmilch uprising, mobs led by Vincenz
Fettmilch looted the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, expelling Jews from
the city. Two years later emperor Matthias executed Fettmilch and
made the Jews return to the city under protection by imperial soldiers.[127]
In the mid-17th century, Peter
Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New
Amsterdam, later New York City, sought to bolster the position of the Dutch Reformed Church by trying to stem
the religious influence of Jews, Lutherans,
Catholics and Quakers. He stated that Jews were "deceitful",
"very repugnant", and "hateful enemies and blasphemers of the
name of Christ". However, religious plurality was already a cultural
tradition and a legal obligation in New Amsterdam and in the Netherlands, and
his superiors at the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam
overruled him.
The Caribbean offered Jews amongst the most freedoms of
any place in the 17th century world. By the mid-century, Jews became a constant
presence in the West Indian colonies, particularly those
under British rule. The dearth of resources and lack
of common will to establish a strong Church presence
in the colonies allowed many Jews to acquire Letters of Denization,
granting them the status of English subjects. Nonetheless, Jews in colonies
like Jamaica were
subject to higher additional taxes, were prohibited from holding public office,
and could not serve in the militia. In 1661, Merchants in Barbados petitioned
for Jews to be barred from trade "the Jews are a people so subtle in
matters of trade" continuing "that in a short time they will not only
ingross trade among themselves, but will be able to divert the benefit thereof
to other places." Such antisemitic attitudes caused many Jews to settle in
the Leeward Islands; however, even across smaller
colonies, Jews continued to be treated as second-class citizens.[128]
During the mid-to-late-17th century the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was
devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of
its population (over 3 million people). The decrease of the Jewish population during that period
is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, including emigration, deaths from diseases
and captivity in the Ottoman Empire.[129][130] These
conflicts began in 1648 when Bohdan Khmelnytsky instigated the Khmelnytsky uprising against the Polish
aristocracy and the Jews who administered their estates.[131] Khmelnytsky's Cossacks massacred
tens of thousands of Jews in the eastern and southern areas that he controlled
(now Ukraine). This persecution led many Jews to pin their hopes on a man
called Shabbatai Zevi who emerged in the Ottoman
Empire at this time and proclaimed himself Messiah in
1665. However, his later conversion to Islam dashed these hopes and led many
Jews to discredit the traditional belief in the coming of the Messiah as the
hope of salvation.[132]
In the Zaydi imamate of Yemen, Jews were
also singled out for discrimination in the 17th century, which culminated in
the general expulsion of all Jews from places in Yemen to the arid coastal
plain of Tihamah and
which became known as the Mawza
Exile.[133]
18th century
In many European countries the 18th century "Age of Enlightenment" saw the dismantling
of archaic corporate, hierarchical forms of society in favour of individual
equality of citizens before the law. How this new state of affairs would affect
previously autonomous, though subordinated, Jewish communities became known as
the Jewish question. In many countries, enhanced civil
rights were gradually extended to the Jews, though often only in a partial form
and on condition that the Jews abandon many aspects of their previous identity
in favour of integration and assimilation with the dominant society.[134]
According to Arnold
Ages, Voltaire's "Lettres philosophiques, Dictionnaire philosophique,
and Candide, to name but a few of his better known works, are saturated with
comments on Jews and Judaism and the vast majority are negative".[135] Paul
H. Meyer adds: "There is no question but that Voltaire, particularly in
his later years, nursed a violent hatred of the Jews and it is equally certain
that his animosity...did have a considerable impact on public opinion in
France."[136] Thirty
of the 118 articles in Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique concerned
Jews and described them in consistently negative ways.[137]
In 1744, Frederick II of Prussia limited the
number of Jews allowed to live in Breslau to
only ten so-called "protected" Jewish families and encouraged a
similar practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750 he issued the Revidiertes
General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft: forcing these
"protected" Jews to "either abstain from marriage or leave
Berlin."[138] In
the same year, Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa ordered Jews out
of Bohemia but
soon reversed her position, on condition that they pay for their readmission
every ten years. This was known among the Jews as malke-geld (queen's
money).[139] In
1752 she introduced a law limiting each Jewish family to one son. In
1782, Joseph II abolished most of
these practices in his Toleranzpatent,
on the condition that Yiddish and Hebrew were
eliminated from public records and that judicial autonomy was annulled.[139] In
1768, thousands of Jews were killed by Cossack Haidamaks during
the massacre of Uman in the Kingdom of Poland.[140]
Jews in Switzerland were
greatly restricted in their freedom of work, movement and settlement, and in
the 17th century, Aargau was the only federal condominium where they were
tolerated. In 1774, the Jews were restricted to just two towns, Endingen and Lengnau.
While the rural upper class pressed incessantly for their expulsion, the
financial interests of the authorities prevented it. They imposed special taxes
on peddling and cattle trading, the primary Jewish professions. The Jews were
directly subordinate to the governor; from 1696, they were compelled to renew a
(costly) letter of protection every 16 years.[141]
During this period, Jews and Christians were not allowed to
live under the same roof, nor were Jews allowed to own land or houses. They
were taxed at a much higher rate than others and, in 1712, a pogrom took place
in Lengnau, resulting in considerable property destruction.[142] In
1760, they were further restricted regarding marriages and procreation. An
exorbitant tax was levied on marriage licenses; oftentimes, they were outright
refused. This remained the case until the 19th century.[141]
In accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox Church,[143] Russia's
discriminatory policies towards Jews intensified when the partition of Poland in the 18th century
resulted, for the first time in Russian history, in the possession of land with
a large population of Jews.[144] This
land was designated as the Pale of Settlement from which Jews were
forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia.[144] In
1772, the empress of Russia Catherine II forced the Jews of the Pale
of Settlement to stay in their shtetls and
forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the
partition of Poland.[145][better source needed]
19th century
Following legislation supporting the equality of French Jews
with other citizens during the French
Revolution, similar laws promoting Jewish emancipation were enacted in the
early 19th century in those parts of Europe over which France had influence.[146][147] The
old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that
limited their property rights, rights of worship and occupation, were
rescinded.
Despite laws granting legal and political equality to Jews
in a number of countries, traditional cultural discrimination and hostility to
Jews on religious grounds persisted and was supplemented by racial antisemitism.[citation needed]
Nationalism and racial antisemitism
The 19th century saw the emergence of nationalist
agendas based on ethnicity, known as ethnonationalism,
which usually excluded Jews from the national community as an alien race.[148] Allied
to this were theories of Social
Darwinism, which stressed a putative conflict between higher and lower
races of human beings, and often advocated the superiority of Aryans to Semitic Jews.[149] This
was particularly evident in Germany where after the unification of 1871
nationalists, striving for a German identity, sought to exclude minorities like
Jews as "the other", thus not truly German.[150] Some,
like the historian and politician, Heinrich von Treitschke, demanded that Jews
fully assimilate and abandon their cultural identity, "for we do not want
to see millennia of Germanic morality followed by an era of German-Jewish
hybrid culture"[150]
While many Jews assimilated, nationalists sought new ways to
exclude them, leading to the emergence of racial antisemitism. 19th century
writers like Arthur de Gobineau promoted theories of
"Aryan" racial supremacy. In 1835, the historian Friedrich Schubert
labeled Jews "an Asiatic tribe" incapable of being part of the German
nation.[150] The
newly coined term, "antisemitism", was a product of this racialized
thinking, most extensively popularized by Wilhelm
Marr. In his 1879 pamphlet, "The Victory of Judaism over
Germandom," Marr depicted a racial conflict between Germans and Jews,
asserting that liberalism and Jewish emancipation had allowed them to dominate
German finance and industry.[151] He
argued this struggle could only end with the destruction of one race by the
other and that a Jewish victory would mean the end of the German people. Marr
founded the League of Antisemites in 1879, which advocated for the forced
removal of Jews from Germany.[151] This
racial concept of antisemitism quickly spread across Europe, to France, Austria
and elsewhere, with rabidly antisemitic books and newspapers, like Édouard Drumont's La
Libre Parole (The Free Speech) and its motto
"France for the French", blaming Jews for all the nation's problems
and portraying them as a threat to all Frenchmen.[152]
This was exacerbated by capitalism, with its mass production
and industrialized agriculture, which threatened the livelihood of artisans and
peasants. Nationalist politicians blamed Jews for these ills.[153] The
influx of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Tsarist Russia in the 1880s
also fueled antisemitism. In 1887 Austrian nationalist
parties, advocating racist policies against minorities, voted for a bill to
restrict the immigration of Russian and Romanian Jews.[153] Similarly, antisemitic political parties in
Germany adopted a strong Christian identity and sought to restrict the
immigration of Russian Jews, as a first step toward striping all rights from
Jews.[154] In
1897, the populist Karl
Leuger, became mayor of Vienna, by wielding antisemitism and policies
against Slavic minorities
as a tool to gain political power and mobilize the masses. Carl Schorske, called this "politics in a
new key," characterized by emotion, charismatic leadership, and mass
movements, with antisemitism playing a major role, in contrast to the earlier,
more rational, parliamentary liberalism.[153] Adolf
Hitler, who spent the years 1907–1913 in Vienna, later described Karl
Leuger as a major inspiration.[153]
Catholic counter-revolution
While a new, nationalist antisemitism emerged, traditional
Christian antisemitism endured, in response to the liberalism and Jewish
emancipation of the French Revolution. Following the defeat of Napoleon, who
demolished the walls of the Roman ghetto, the Vatican rebuilt its walls and
Jews in the Papal States remained confined to overcrowded,
squalid ghettos, until the Papal States were abolished in 1870.[155] Conversionary
sermons were again mandatory, and if a Jew chose to convert, the police
forcibly took his family to the House
of Catechumens to ensure the couple remained together. Educational and
professional opportunities for Jews were severely restricted. Pope
Pius IX, opposing modern liberal movements, reinforced accusations of
Jewish ritual murder,[155]
The counter-revolutionary Catholic
royalist Louis de Bonald stands out among the earliest
figures to explicitly call for the reversal of Jewish emancipation in the wake
of the French Revolution.[156][157] Bonald's
attacks on the Jews are likely to have influenced Napoleon's decision to limit the civil rights
of Alsatian Jews.[158][159][160][161] Bonald's
article Sur les juifs (1806) was one of the most venomous
screeds of its era and furnished a paradigm which combined anti-liberalism,
traditional Christian antisemitism, and the identification of Jews with bankers
and finance capital, which would in turn influence many subsequent right-wing
reactionaries such as Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux, Charles
Maurras, and Édouard Drumont, nationalists such as Maurice
Barrès and Paolo Orano, and antisemitic socialists such as Alphonse Toussenel and Henry
Hyndman.[156][162][163] Bonald
furthermore declared that the Jews were an "alien" people, a
"state within a state", and should be forced to wear a distinctive
mark to more easily identify and discriminate against them.[156][164]
In the 1840s, the popular counter-revolutionary Catholic
journalist Louis Veuillot propagated Bonald's arguments
against the Jewish "financial aristocracy" along with vicious attacks
against the Talmud and the Jews as a "deicidal people" driven by
hatred to "enslave" Christians.[165][164] Gougenot
des Mousseaux's Le Juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples
chrétiens (1869) has been called a "Bible of modern
antisemitism" and was translated into German by Nazi ideologue Alfred
Rosenberg.[164] In
Italy, the Jesuit priest Antonio Bresciani's highly popular novel
1850 novel L'Ebreo di Verona (The Jew of Verona) shaped
religious antisemitism for decades, as did his work for La Civiltà Cattolica, which he helped
launch.[166][167] In
the Papal States, Jews were baptized involuntarily, and, even when such
baptisms were illegal, forced to practice the Christian religion. In some
cases, the state separated them from their families, of which the Edgardo
Mortara account is one of the most widely publicized instances of
acrimony between Catholics and Jews in the second half of the 19th century.[168]
Germany
Civil rights granted to Jews in Germany, following the
occupation of that country by the French under Napoleon, were
rescinded after his defeat. Pleas to retain them by diplomats at the Congress of Vienna peace conference
(1814–5) were unsuccessful.[169] In
1819, German Jews were attacked in the Hep-Hep
riots.[170] Full Jewish emancipation was not granted in
Germany until 1871, when the country was united under the Hohenzollern dynasty.[171]
In his 1843 essay On the Jewish Question, Karl Marx used
the stereotype of the practical "huckstering" Jew as an example of a
historical trend towards the dominance of Capital.[172] In
1850, German composer Richard
Wagner published Das Judenthum in der Musik ("Jewishness
in Music") under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
The essay began as an attack on Jewish composers, particularly Wagner's
contemporaries (and rivals) Felix
Mendelssohn and Giacomo
Meyerbeer, but expanded to accuse Jewish influences more widely of being a
harmful and alien element in German culture.
The term "antisemitism" was coined by the German
agitator and publicist, Wilhelm
Marr in 1879. In that year, Marr founded the Antisemites League and
published a book called Victory of Jewry over Germandom.[173] The
late 1870s saw the growth of antisemitic political parties in Germany. These
included the Christian Social Party, founded in
1878 by Adolf Stoecker, the Lutheran chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, as well as the German Social Antisemitic Party and
the Antisemitic People's Party. However,
they did not enjoy mass electoral support and at their peak in 1907, had only
16 deputies out of a total of 397 in the parliament.[174]
France
Antisemitic cartoon
in La Libre Parole (1893 edition)
The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) was blamed
by some on the Jews. Jews were accused of weakening the national spirit through
association with republicanism, capitalism and anti-clericalism,
particularly by authoritarian, right wing, clerical and royalist groups. These
accusations were spread in antisemitic journals such as La
Libre Parole, founded by Edouard
Drumont and La Croix, the organ of the Catholic order
of the Assumptionists. Between 1882 and 1886 alone, French
priests published twenty antisemitic books blaming France's ills on the Jews
and urging the government to consign them back to the ghettos, expel them, or
hang them from the gallows.[164]
Financial scandals such as the collapse of the Union
Generale Bank and the collapse
of the French Panama Canal operation were also blamed on the Jews.
The Dreyfus affair saw a Jewish military officer
named Captain Alfred Dreyfus falsely accused of treason in
1895 by his army superiors and sent to Devil's
Island, a penal colony in French
Guiana after being convicted. Dreyfus was acquitted in 1906, but the
case polarised French opinion between antisemitic authoritarian nationalists
and philosemitic anti-clerical republicans, with
consequences which were to resonate into the 20th century.[175]
Switzerland
Having been restricted in their rights of work and movement
since the Middle Ages, on 5 May 1809, Jews were finally declared Swiss citizens
and given limited rights regarding trade and farming. They were still
restricted to Endingen and Lengnau until 7 May 1846, when their right to move
and reside freely within the canton of Aargau was granted. On 24 September 1856,
the Swiss Federal Council granted them full
political rights within Aargau, as well as broad business rights; however, the
majority Christian population did not fully abide by these new liberal laws.
The time of 1860 saw the canton government voting to grant suffrage in all
local rights and to give their communities autonomy. Before the law was enacted
however, it was repealed due to vocal opposition led by Johann Nepomuk
Schleuniger and the Ultramonte Party.[142] In 1866, a referendum granted all Jews full
citizenship rights in Switzerland.[141] However,
they did not receive all of the rights in Endingen and Lengnau until a
resolution of the Grand Council, on 15 May 1877, when Jewish
citizens were given charters under the names of New Endingen and New Lengnau,
finally granting them full citizenship.[142]
United States
Main articles: Antisemitism in the United States and History of antisemitism in
the United States
Between 1881 and 1920, approximately three million Ashkenazi
Jews from Eastern Europe migrated to America, many of them fleeing
pogroms and the difficult economic conditions which were widespread in much of
Eastern Europe during this time. Many Americans distrusted these Jewish
immigrants.[176] Along
with Italians, Irish and other Eastern and Southern Europeans, Jews faced
discrimination in the United States in employment, education and social
advancement. American groups like the Immigration Restriction League,
criticized these new arrivals along with immigrants from Asia and southern and
eastern Europe, as culturally, intellectually, morally, and biologically
inferior. Despite these attacks, very few Eastern European Jews returned to
Europe for whatever privations they faced, their situation in the U.S. was
still improved.
Beginning in the early 1880s, declining farm prices also
prompted elements of the Populist movement to blame the
perceived evils of capitalism and industrialism on Jews because of their
alleged racial/religious inclination for financial exploitation and, more
specifically, because of the alleged financial manipulations of Jewish
financiers such as the Rothschilds.[177] Although
Jews played only a minor role in the nation's commercial banking system, the
prominence of Jewish investment bankers such as the Rothschilds in Europe,
and Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn,
Loeb & Co. in New York City, made the claims of antisemites
believable to some. The Morgan Bonds scandal injected populist antisemitism
into the 1896 presidential campaign.
It was disclosed that the government of President Grover
Cleveland had sold bonds to a syndicate which included J. P.
Morgan and the Rothschilds house, bonds which that syndicate was now
selling for a profit. The Populists used it as an opportunity to prove that
Washington and Wall Street were in the hands of the international Jewish
banking houses. Another focus of antisemitic feeling was the allegation that
Jews were at the center of an international conspiracy to fix the currency and
thus the economy to a single gold standard.[178]
Russia
Since 1827, Jewish minors were conscripted into the cantonist schools
for a 25-year military service.[179] Policy
towards Jews was liberalised somewhat under Tsar
Alexander II,[180] but
antisemitic attitudes and long-standing repressive policies against Jews were
intensified after Alexander II was assassinated on 13 March 1881, culminating
in widespread anti-Jewish pogroms in the
Russian Empire which lasted for three years.[181] A
hardening of official attitudes under Tsar Alexander III and his ministers,
resulted in the May Laws of 1882, which severely restricted the civil rights of Jews
within the Russian Empire. The Tsar's minister Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev stated
that the aim of the government with regard to the Jews was that: "One
third will die out, one third will leave the country and one third will be
completely dissolved [into] the surrounding population".[181] In
the event, a mix of pogroms and repressive legislation did indeed result in the
mass emigration of Jews to western Europe and America. Between 1881 and the
outbreak of the First World War, an estimated two and half million Jews left
Russia – one of the largest mass migrations in recorded history.[173][182]
The Muslim world
Historian Martin
Gilbert writes that it was in the 19th century that the position of
Jews worsened in Muslim countries.[183][184] According
to Mark Cohen in The Oxford Handbook of
Jewish Studies, most scholars conclude that Arab antisemitism in the modern
world arose in the 19th century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and
Arab nationalisms, and it was primarily imported into the Arab world by
nationalistically minded Christian
Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized").[185]
Hundreds of Algerian
Jews were killed in 1805.[186] There
was a massacre of Iraqi Jews in Baghdad in 1828.[187] In
1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob
burst into the Jewish Quarter, burned the synagogue and destroyed the Torah
scrolls, and it was only by forced conversion that a massacre was averted.[183] There
was a massacre of Jews in Barfurush in 1867.[187] In
1840, in the Damascus affair, the Jews of Damascus were falsely
accused of having ritually murdered a Christian monk and his Muslim servant and
of having used their blood to bake Passover bread. In
1859, some 400 Jews in Morocco were killed
in Mogador.
In 1864, around 500 Jews were killed in Marrakesh and Fez in
Morocco. In 1869, 18 Jews were killed in Tunis, and an Arab
mob looted Jewish homes and stores, and burned synagogues, on Djerba Island.
Concerning the life of Persian
Jews in the middle of the 19th century, a contemporary author wrote:
...they are obliged to live in a separate part of town...
for they are considered as unclean creatures... Under the pretext of their
being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they
enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs
with stones and dirt... For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when
it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully
the feet of the Mussulmans... If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he
is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and
sometimes beat him... unmercifully... If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he
is forbidden to inspect the goods... Should his hand incautiously touch the
goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them.[188]
One symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of
stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. A 19th-century traveler observed:
"I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat
toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and
one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and
literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine.
To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was
worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."[187] In
1891, the leading Muslims in Jerusalem asked the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople to
prohibit the entry of Jews arriving from Russia.[183]
20th century
In the 20th century, antisemitism and Social Darwinism
culminated in a systematic campaign of genocide,
called the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were exterminated
in German-occupied Europe between 1941 and
1945 under the National Socialist regime of Adolf
Hitler.[189]
Russia
Main articles: Antisemitism in the Russian Empire, Antisemitism in the Soviet Union,
and Antisemitism in Russia
In Russia, under the Tsarist regime, antisemitism
intensified in the early years of the 20th century and was given official
favour when the secret police forged the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
a document purported to be a transcription of a plan by Jewish elders to
achieve global domination.[190] Violence
against the Jews in the Kishinev
pogrom in 1903 was continued after the 1905 revolution by the
activities of the Black Hundreds.[191] The Beilis Trial of 1913 showed that it was
possible to revive the blood libel accusation in Russia.
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution ended official
discrimination against the Jews but was followed, however, by massive anti-Jewish violence by
the anti-Bolshevik White Army and
the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic in
the Russian Civil War. From 1918 to 1921, between
100,000 and 150,000 Jews were slaughtered during the White Terror.[192] White
emigres from revolutionary Russia fostered the idea that the Bolshevik regime,
with its many Jewish members, was a front for the global Jewish conspiracy,
outlined in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had by now
achieved wide circulation in the west.[193] The
pogroms were committed not only by White forces, but also by Red forces, local
warlords, and ordinary Ukrainian and Polish citizens.[194]
Poland
Main article: Antisemitism in Poland
In 1918, newly independent Poland had the largest Jewish
population in Europe. Between 1918 and 1921, some 130 pogroms resulted
in an estimated 300 Jewish deaths, driven by resentment over their perceived
economic power and claims of supporting "Judeo-Bolshevism".[195] Western
pressure led to Poland granting Jews equal rights and religious freedoms in its
1921 Constitution. While conditions improved under Józef Piłsudski's rule (1926–1935), antisemitism
grew during the Great Depression. Nationalists, like National Democracy ideologue Roman
Dmowski, promoted Nazi-style antisemitic propaganda, claiming Poland could
not accommodate 3 million Jews, demanding they emigrate.[196]
From 1935 to 1937, anti-Jewish violence killed 79 Jews and
injured 500.[195] In
1936, Cardinal Hlond, the Catholic primate of Poland,
published a pastoral letter condemning the attacks, but
also accused Jews of battling the Church, promoting atheism and communism,
corrupting morality, disseminating pornography, engaging in treachery and
usury.[197] The
Polish government likewise condemned the violence and sought ways to reduce the
Jewish populace through mass emigration,[198] even
exploring sending them to Madagascar.[199] In
1938, it stripped Polish citizenship from tens of thousands of Jews living
abroad.[200] By
the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the government was considering its own version of
the Nuremberg Laws.[201]
During the war the Nazis implemented the Holocaust in
Poland. They used Polish police and railroad personnel to guard the ghettos and
transport Jews. The Blue Police helped enforce German anti-Jewish
policies, such as the ghetto liquidations from 1942 to 1943.[202] Encouraged
by Nazi antisemitism, local residents attacked Jews in a number of small towns,
as during the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom where several hundred Jews
were murdered by their neighbors, and in Gniewczyna Łańcucka in 1942 where
residents tortured, raped, and killed dozens of their Jewish neighbors.[202]
France
Main article: Antisemitism in France
In France, antisemitic agitation was promoted by right-wing
groups such as Action Française, founded by Charles
Maurras. These groups were critical of the whole political establishment of
the Third Republic. Following the Stavisky
Affair, in which a Jewish man named Serge Alexandre Stavisky was revealed
to be involved in high-level political corruption, these groups encouraged
serious rioting which almost toppled the government in the 6 February 1934 crisis.[203] The
rise to prominence of the Jewish socialist Léon Blum,
who became prime minister of the Popular Front Government in 1936,
further polarised opinion within France. Action Française and other right-wing
groups launched a vicious antisemitic press campaign against Blum which
culminated in an attack in which he was dragged from his car and kicked and
beaten while a mob screamed 'Death to the Jew!'[204] Catholic
writers such as Ernest Jouin, who published the Protocols in
French, seamlessly blended racial and religious antisemitism, as in his
statement that "from the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of
religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity."[205] Pope
Pius XI praised Jouin for "combating our mortal [Jewish]
enemy" and appointed him to high papal office as a protonotary apostolic.[206][205]
Antisemitism was particularly virulent in Vichy
France during World War II. The Vichy government openly collaborated
with the Nazi occupiers to identify Jews for deportation. The antisemitic
demands of right-wing groups were implemented under the collaborating Vichy
regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain, following the defeat of the French
by the German army in 1940. A law on the status of Jews of
that year, followed by another in 1941, purged Jews from employment in
administrative, civil service and judicial posts, from most professions and
even from the entertainment industry – restricting them, mostly, to menial
jobs. Vichy officials detained some 75,000 Jews who were then handed over to
the Germans; approximated 72,500 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust in France.[207]
Nazism and the Holocaust
Main articles: The
Holocaust and Final
Solution
In Germany, following World War I, Nazism arose
as a political movement incorporating racially antisemitic ideas, expressed by
Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf.
The Nazi's blamed Jews for all of Germany's ills - defeat in WWI, the Versailles Treaty, inflation, the Great
Depression, etc. They demonized Jews as the driving force behind both
international Marxism and capitalism.
After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime sought the systematic
exclusion of Jews from national life. The Nuremberg
Race Laws of 1935 declared that only those of "German or related
blood" could be citizens, thus stripping Jews, and later Roma and Black
people, of their German citizenship and political rights. The Law for the
Protection of German Blood outlawed marriage or sexual relationships between
Jews and non-Jews.[208] The
Nazis employed mass media propaganda to dehumanize Jews, even depicting them as
rats and other vermin. This proved vital in motivating the later extermination
of Jews and ensuring the passive consent of millions of bystanders. Mass
violence against the Jews was encouraged by the Nazi regime. On the night of
9–10 November 1938, dubbed Kristallnacht,
the regime sanctioned the killing of Jews, the destruction of property and the
torching of synagogues.[209] Already
prior to WWII, German authorities rounded up thousands of Jews for the
first concentration camps, while many other
German Jews fled the country.
Initially, the Nazis sought to get rid of Jews by forcing
them to emigrate, but most countries, including the United States, Great
Britain, and France, refused to ease their immigration restrictions to accept
more Jews, with racial prejudice playing a major role.[210] In
1940 the Nazis drew up a plan to deport
Jews to Madagascar, something France and Poland had also explored before
the war, but this proved to be infeasible. As Nazi control extended during
World War II, antisemitic laws, agitation and propaganda were brought to
occupied Europe,[211] often
building on local antisemitic traditions. In the German-occupied Poland, where over
three million Jews had lived before the war in the largest Jewish population in
Europe, Polish Jews were forced into newly
established prison ghettos in 1940, including the Warsaw
Ghetto for almost half million Jews.[212][page needed] Following
the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, a
systematic campaign of mass murder in that country was conducted against Soviet
Jews (including former Polish Jews from Soviet-annexed
territories) by Nazi death squads called the Einsatzgruppen,
murdering over one million Jews and marking a turn from persecution to
extermination.[213] In
all, some six million Jews, about half of them from Poland, were murdered
outright or indirectly through starvation, disease and overwork in German and collaborationist captivity
between 1941 and 1945 in the genocide known as the Holocaust.[214][215][216]
On 20 January 1942, Reinhard
Heydrich, deputed to find a "final
solution to the Jewish question", chaired the Wannsee Conference at which all the ethnic
Jews and many of part-Jews resident in Europe and North Africa were marked to
be exterminated.[217] To
implement this plan, the Jews from Poland, Germany, and various other countries
would be transported to purpose-built extermination camps set up by Nazis in the
occupied Poland and in Germany-annexed territories,
where they were mostly murdered in gas
chambers immediately upon their arrival. These camps, located at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibór and Treblinka, accounted for about half of
the total number of Jewish victims of Nazism.[218]
United States
Main article: History of antisemitism in
the United States
Between 1900 and 1924, approximately 1.75 million Jews
migrated to America's shores, the bulk of them were from Eastern Europe. Where
before 1900, American Jews never amounted to even 1 percent of America's total
population, by 1930 Jews formed about 3½ percent of America's total population.
This dramatic increase in the size of America's Jewish community and the upward
mobility of some Jews was accompanied by a resurgence of antisemitism.[citation needed]
In the first half of the 20th century, Jews in the United
States faced discrimination in employment, in access to residential and resort
areas, in membership in clubs and organizations and in tightened quotas on
Jewish enrollment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. Some
sources state that the conviction (and later the lynching)
of Leo
Frank, which turned a spotlight on antisemitism in the United States,
also led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League in October 1913.
However, Abraham H. Foxman, the organization's National
Director, disputes this claim, stating that American Jews simply needed to
found an institution that would combat antisemitism. The social tensions which
existed during this period also led to renewed support for the Ku Klux
Klan, which had been inactive since 1870.[219][220][221][page needed][222]
Antisemitism in the United States reached
its peak during the 1920s and 1930s. The pioneering automobile
manufacturer Henry Ford propagated antisemitic ideas in his
newspaper The Dearborn Independent. The
pioneering aviator Charles
Lindbergh and many other prominent Americans led the America First Committee in opposing
any American involvement in the new war in Europe. However, America First's
leaders avoided saying or doing anything that would make them and their
organization appear to be antisemitic and for this reason, they voted to drop
Henry Ford as an America First member. Lindbergh gave a speech in Des Moines,
Iowa in which he expressed the decidedly Ford-like view that: "The three
most important groups which have been pressing this country towards war are the
British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt Administration."[223] In
his diary Lindbergh wrote: "We must limit to a reasonable amount the
Jewish influence... Whenever the Jewish percentage of the total population
becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a
few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country."[224]
In the late 1930s, the German American Bund held parades which
featured Nazi uniforms and flags with swastikas alongside
American flags. At Madison Square Garden in 1939, some
20,000 people listened to the Bund leader Fritz
Julius Kuhn as he criticized President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by
repeatedly referring to him as "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and calling
his New
Deal the "Jew Deal". Because he espoused a belief in the
existence of a Bolshevik–Jewish conspiracy in America, Kuhn and his
activities were scrutinized by the US House Committee on Un-American Activities
(HUAC) and when the United States entered World War II most of the Bund's
members were placed in internment
camps, and some of them were deported at the end of the war. Meanwhile, the
United States government did not allow the MS St.
Louis to enter the United States in 1939 because it was full of
Jewish refugees.[225] During race riot in Detroit in 1943, Jewish
businesses were targeted for looting and burning.
Eastern Europe after World War II
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union reached a peak in 1948–1953
and culminated in the so-called Doctors'
Plot that could have been a precursor to a general purge and a mass deportation of
the Soviet Jews as nation. The country's leading Yiddish-writing poets and
writers were tortured and executed in a
campaign against the so-called rootless cosmopolitans. The excesses largely
ended with the death of Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin and the de-Stalinization of
the Soviet Union. However, the discrimination against Jews had continued,
leading to a mass emigration once it was
allowed in the 1970s, followed by another during and after the breakup of the
Soviet Union, mostly to Israel.
The Kielce
pogrom and the Kraków
pogrom in communist Poland were examples further incidents of
antisemitic attitudes and violence in the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. A
common theme behind the anti-Jewish violence in the immediate post-war period
in Poland were blood libel rumours.[227][228] Poland's
later "March events" of 1967–1968 was a
state anti-Jewish (officially anti-Zionist)
political campaign involving the suppression of the dissident movement and a
power struggle within the Polish communist party against the background of
the Six-Day
War and the Soviet Union's and the Eastern
Bloc's new radically anti-Israeli policy in support of socialist Arab
countries. Both of these waves of antisemitism in Poland resulted in the
emigration of most of the country's Holocaust survivors during the late 1940s
and in 1968, mostly to either Israel or the United States.
United States after World War II
During the early 1980s, isolationists on the far right made
overtures to anti-war activists on the left in the United States to join forces
against government policies in areas where they shared concerns.[229] This
was mainly in the area of civil liberties, opposition to United States military
intervention overseas and opposition to U.S. support for Israel.[230][231] As
they interacted, some of the classic right-wing antisemitic scapegoating
conspiracy theories began to seep into progressive circles,[230] including
stories about how a "New World Order", also called the
"Shadow Government" or "The Octopus",[229] was
manipulating world governments. Antisemitic conspiracism was
"peddled aggressively" by right-wing groups.[230] Some
on the left adopted the rhetoric, which it has been argued, was made possible
by their lack of knowledge of the history of fascism and
its use of "scapegoating, reductionist and
simplistic solutions, demagoguery, and a conspiracy theory of history."[230] The Crown Heights riots of 1991 were a violent
expression of tensions within a very poor urban community, pitting African
American residents against followers of Hassidic Judaism.
Towards the end of 1990, as the movement against the Gulf War began
to build, a number of far-right and antisemitic groups sought out alliances
with left-wing anti-war coalitions, who began to speak openly about a "Jewish
lobby" that was encouraging the United States to invade the Middle
East. This idea evolved into conspiracy theories about a "Zionist-occupied government"
(ZOG), which has been seen as equivalent to The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion.[229]
Argentina
Main article: Antisemitism in Argentina
In Argentina, some antisemitism emerged in the form of the
association of Jews to psychoanalysis beliefs
during the 1930s and 40s. Psychoanalysis was invented by Austrian
neurologist, Sigmund Freud, whose ideas were often associated with
Jews and Jewishness. Prominent Catholic priests, such as Virgilio
Filippo, attacked Freudian psychoanalysis by claiming that it was an ideology
created to suppress Argentine society and undermine the Catholic Church.[232] Filippo
viewed psychoanalysis as part of a Jewish plan to dominate by sexual means.
Filippo linked Freud's Jewishness to his sexual perversion as "related to
the sexual perversion of the Jewish physiological constitution."[232] Antisemitism
was also prevalent in texts from Christian writers; a popular one being Gustavo
Martínez Zuviría or "Hugo Wast."[233] Writers
like Huge Wast wrote political essays to "expose" Jews for their
destructive force in Argentina and in the world.[233] Wast
wrote a two-part novel titled Kahal (Congregation) and Oro (Gold),
where the Kahal plot was inspired by conspiracy theories and
Jewish tropes of Jews taking control of the economy, media, culture, and
government, much like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[233] Filippo's
antisemitism was a combination of traditional Catholic antisemitism, like Hugo Wast's work,
and racial antisemitism based on the ideas of
Freudian psychoanalysis and its connection to Jewish biological makeup.[232]
The Muslim world
See also: Antisemitism in the Arab world, Antisemitism in Islam, and Relations between
Nazi Germany and the Arab world
While Islamic antisemitism has increased in the wake of
the Arab–Israeli conflict, there were riots
against Jews in Middle Eastern countries prior to the foundation of Israel,
including unrest in Casablanca,[234] Shiraz and Fez in
the 1910s, massacres in Jerusalem, Jaffa and broadly throughout Palestine in the
1920s, pogroms in Algeria, Turkey and Palestine in the 1930s, as
well as attacks on the Jews of Iraq and Tunisia in
the 1940s. As Palestinian Arab leader Amin
al-Husseini decided to make an alliance with Hitler's Germany during
World War II, 180 Jews were killed and 700 Jews were injured in the
Nazi-inspired riots of 1941 which are known as the Farhud.[235] Jews
in the Middle East were also affected by the Holocaust. Most of North Africa
came under Nazi control and many Jews were discriminated against and used as
slaves until the Axis defeat.[236] In
1945, hundreds of Jews were injured during violent demonstrations in Egypt and
Jewish property was vandalized and looted. In November 1945, 130 Jews were killed during
a pogrom in Tripoli.[237] In
December 1947, shortly after the UN
Partition Plan, Arab rioting resulted in hundreds of Jewish
casualties in Aleppo, including 75 dead.[238] In Aden,
87 Jews were killed and 120 injured.[239] A
mob of Muslim sailors looted Jewish homes and shops in Manama.
During 1948 there were further riots against Jews in Tripoli, Cairo, Oujda and Jerada. As
the first Arab–Israeli War came to an end in
1949, a grenade attack against
the Menarsha Synagogue of Damascus claimed a
dozen lives and thirty injured. The 1967 Six-Day
War led to further persecution against Jews in the Arab world,
prompting an increase in the Jewish exodus that
began after Israel was established.[240][241][better source needed] Over
the following years, Jewish population in Arab countries decreased from 856,000
in 1948 to 25,870 in 2009 as a result of emigration, mostly to Israel.[242]
21st century
Further information: Antisemitism § Current situation, Antisemitism in Europe § In the 21st
century, and Islam and antisemitism § 21st century
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The first years of the 21st century have seen an upsurge of
antisemitism. Several authors such as Robert S. Wistrich, Phyllis
Chesler, and Jonathan Sacks argue that this is antisemitism
of a new type stemming from Islamists,
which they call new antisemitism.[243][244][245] Blood libel stories have appeared
numerous times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, on
Arab television shows, and on websites.[246][247][248] Other
scholars, such as Antony Lerman, contest the notion of new
antisemitism.[249]
In 2004, the United Kingdom set up an all-Parliamentary
inquiry into antisemitism, which published its findings in 2006. The inquiry
stated that: "Until recently, the prevailing opinion both within the
Jewish community and beyond [had been] that antisemitism had receded to the
point that it existed only on the margins of society." However, it found a
reversal of this progress since 2000 and aimed to investigate the problem,
identify the sources of contemporary antisemitism and make recommendations to
improve the situation.[250] A
2008 report by the U.S. State Department found
that there was an increase in antisemitism across the world, and that both old
and new expressions of antisemitism persist.[251] A
2012 report by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor also noted a continued global increase in
antisemitism, and found that Holocaust
denial and opposition to Israeli policy at times was used to promote
or justify antisemitism.[252]
In 2025, the Anti-Defamation League released the
results of a survey of 58,000 adults from 103 countries taken in 2024,
estimating that 2.2 billion people, representing 46% of the world's adults,
harbor deep antisemitic attitudes.[253][254]
2023 Israel–Gaza war
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Main article: Gaza war
Further information: Antisemitism during the Gaza war and Violent incidents in
reaction to the Gaza war
Amid the Gaza war,
federal law enforcement in the United States reported a spike in antisemitic
harassment, threats and violence. A man was charged for leaving an antisemitic
voicemail containing death threats against Senator Jacky
Rosen.[255]
In late October, a group of prominent US law firms signed a
letter condemning "reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and
assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews
and the elimination of the State of Israel" urging universities to take
action.[256]
Antisemitism in the English-speaking world
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William D. Rubenstein, a respected author and
historian, outlines the presence of antisemitism in the English-speaking world
in one of his essays with the same title. In the essay, he explains that there
are relatively low levels of antisemitism in the English-speaking world,
particularly in Britain and the United States, because of the values associated
with Protestantism, the rise of capitalism, and the
establishment of constitutional governments that protect civil liberties.
Rubenstein does not argue that the treatment of Jews was ideal in these
countries, rather he argues that there has been less overt antisemitism in the
English-speaking world due to political, ideological, and social structures.
Essentially, English-speaking nations experienced lower levels of antisemitism
because their liberal and constitutional frameworks limited the organized,
violent expression of antisemitism. In his essay, Rubinstein tries to
contextualize the reduction of the Jewish population that led to a period of
reduced antisemitism: "All Jews were expelled from England in 1290, the
first time Jews had been expelled en masse from a European country".[257]
Protestantism
As mentioned above, Protestantism was
a major factor that curbed antisemitism in England beginning in the sixteenth
century. This assertion is supported by the fact that the number of reported
instances in which Jews were killed in England was significantly higher prior
to the birth of Protestantism albeit this was also affected by the number of
resident Jews. Protestants were comparatively more understanding of Jews
relative to Catholics and other religious groups. One
possible reason as to why Protestant groups were more accepting of Jews was the
fact that they preferred the Old
Testament rather than the New
Testament, so their doctrines shared both content and narrative with Jewish
teachings. Rubenstein attests that another reason as to why "most of these
[Protestants] were predisposed to be sympathetic to the Jews" was because
they often "view[ed] themselves, like the biblical
Hebrews, as a chosen group that had entered into a
direct covenant with God."[257] Lastly,
Protestantism's anti-Catholic bend contributed to lower levels
of antisemitism: "All of these groups were profoundly hostile to Catholicism. Anti-Catholicism,
at both the elite and mass levels, became a key theme in Britain, tending to
push antisemitism aside."[257] Overall,
the emergence of Protestantism lessened the severity of
antisemitism through its use of the Old
Testament and its anti-Catholic sentiment.
Capitalism
In post-Napoleonic England, when there was a notable absence
of Jews, Britain removed bans on "usury and moneylending,"[257] and
Rubenstein attests that London and Liverpool became economic trading hubs which
bolstered England's status as an economic powerhouse. Jews were often
associated with being the moneymakers and financial bodies in continental
Europe, so it is significant that the English were able to claim responsibility
for the country's financial growth and not attribute it to Jews. It is also
significant that because Jews were not in the spotlight financially, it took a
lot of the anger away from them, and as such, antisemitism was somewhat muted
in England. It is said that Jews did not rank among the "economic elite of
many British cities" in the 19th century.[257] Again,
the significance in this is that British Protestants and non-Jews felt less
threatened by Jews because they were not imposing on their prosperity and were
not responsible for the economic achievements of their nation. Albert
Lindemann also proposes in the introduction to his book Antisemitism:
A History that Jews "assumed social positions, such as
moneylending, that were inherently precarious and tension creating."[258] Lindemann
believes that moneylending is inevitably riddled with tension, so as long as
Jews were moneylenders, they would always be at the center of the problem and
synonymous with fraught financial affairs.[citation needed]
Constitutional government
The third major factor which contributed to the lessening of
antisemitism in Britain was the establishment of a constitutional government,
something that was later adopted and bolstered in the United States. A
constitutional government is one which has a written document that outlines the
powers of government in an attempt to balance and protect civil rights. After
the English Civil War, the Protectorate (1640–60)
and the Glorious Revolution (1688), parliament was
established to make laws that protected the rights of British citizens.[259] The Bill of Rights specifically outlined laws
to protect British civil liberties as well. Thus, it is not surprising that
having a constitutional government with liberal principles minimized, to some
extent, antisemitism in Britain.
In further attempts to minimize antisemitism within
government, the United States' Declaration of Independence embraced
the liberal principles that were previously put forth in England and inspired
the formation of a republic that had executive, judicial, and legislative
powers and even a law that served to "forbid the establishment of any
religion or any official religious test for office holding."[260] Having
a government that respected and protected civil liberties, especially those
pertaining to religious liberties, reduced blatant antisemitism by
constitutionally protecting the right to practice different faiths. These
sentiments go back to the first President of the United States, George
Washington, who asserted his belief in religious inclusion. Rubinstein
believes that though instances of antisemitism definitely existed in Britain
and America, the moderation of antisemitism was limited in English-speaking
countries largely because of political and social ideologies that come with a
constitutional government.
Other English-speaking countries
In addition to being low in the United States and Britain,
antisemitism was also low in other English-speaking countries such as Canada,
Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Australia has had a historically
positive attitude towards Jews and as a result, it had "remarkably little
overt antisemitism at any point."[261] Similarly,
Ireland and New Zealand also experienced a lower presence of antisemitism. This
is not to say that English-speaking countries have less antisemitic sentiment
because their populations speak English, instead, the ideologies that often exist
in English-speaking countries affect their acceptance of Jews.[261]
While antisemitism tended to be low in English-speaking
regions of Canada, it was higher in Quebec where
the native language is French. Quebec has a "long history of blaring
antisemitism, enunciated by French-speaking nationalists steeped in the most
extreme forms of Catholic hostility towards Jews."[262] This
is important because other English-speaking parts of Canada were more tolerant
of Jews than its non-English speaking parts were, which suggests a correlation
between lingual diversity and the level of Jewish hate. Additionally, it seems
that Quebec's firm Catholic hostility towards Jews contributed to local
antisemitic behavior.[262]