Antisemitism
Anti-Semitism, alternatively antisemitism, is hostility towards Jews. It ranges from ad hoc antagonism towards Jews on an individual level to the institutionalized prejudice and persecution once prevalent in European societies, of which the highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism was perhaps the most extreme form.
This article describes the development and history of anti-Semitism from its earliest inception up until World War II. A separate article exists on modern anti-Semitism, which deals with anti-Semitism after World War II up to the present.
Some forms of anti-Semitism include:
- Racist anti-Semitism, a kind of xenophobia. Some people perceive Jews as people of a racially distinct origin from other peoples, and claim that discrimination on the basis of such distinctness is valid.
- Religious anti-Judaism. Like other religions, Judaism has faced discrimination and violence from people of competing faiths and in countries that practice state atheism. Unlike anti-Semitism in general, this form of prejudice is directed at the religion itself, and so does not affect those of Jewish ancestry who have converted to another religion.
- Socio-economic anti-Semitism rooted in the disproportionate success and/or influence, relative to their numbers within the general population, that individual Jews have achieved in a variety of occupations, including academic, legal, medical, scientific, financial and most rarely political.
Etymology and usage
The political writer Wilhelm Marr is credited with coining the German word Antisemitismus in 1873, at a time when racial science was fashionable in Germany but religious prejudice was not. This term was offered as an alternative to the older German word Judenhass, meaning Jew-hatred. The aim of the effort to rename "Jew-hatred" into Anti-Semitism, was to give "Jew-hatred" a more scientific basis, however, it was never intended to eliminate the concept of hatred towards Jews based on the Christian conspiracies and legends so popular with the general population. In his book, The Victory of Judaism over Germanicism (1879), Marr took up secular racist ideas of Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853, though direct influence is debatable. Marr's book became very popular, and in the same year he founded the League of Anti-Semites (Antisemiten-Liga), the first German organization committed specifically to combatting the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews, and advocating their forced removal from the country. The 1870s were times of heightened social tensions in Germany due to the October 1873 stock market crash.
So far as can be ascertained, the word was first printed in 1881. In that year Marr published "Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte," and Wilhelm Scherer used the term "Antisemiten" in the "Neue Freie Presse" of January. The related word semitism was coined around 1885. See also the coinage of the term Palestinian by Germans to refer to the nation or people known as Jews, as distinct from the religion of Judaism.
Misnomer
The term has always referred to prejudice towards Jews alone, and not to other people who speak semitic languages (e.g., Arabs) and this has been the only use of this word for more than a century. In recent decades some people have argued that the term anti-Semitism should be extended to include prejudice against Arabs, since Arabic is a semitic language. However, this usage has not been widely adopted.
Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms Semitic and Anti-Semitic are not antonyms. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many writers on the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim of the Hebrew University) now favor the unhyphenated term antisemitism.
An alternative term, "Judeophobia", stands for fear or irrational hatred of Jews. It was invented by Leon Pinsker and first appeared in his 1882 pamphlet Autoemancipation (text). As a professional physician, Pinsker preferred the medical term as he knew that a combination of mutually exclusive assertions is a characteristic of a psychological disorder.
Historical forms of anti-Judaism
Prejudice against Jews can be traced back to the Graeco-Roman period and the rise of Hellenistic culture. Most Jews rejected efforts to assimilate them into the dominant Greek (and later Roman) culture, and their religious practices, which conflicted with established norms, were perceived as being backward and primitive. Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, for example, writes disparagingly of many real and imagined practices of the Jews, while there are numerous accounts of circumcision being described as barbarous.
Throughout their diaspora, Jews tended to live in separate communities, in which they could practice their religion. This led to charges of elitism, as appear in the writings of Cicero. As a minority, Jews were also dependent on the goodwill of the authorities, though this was considered irksome to the indigenous population, which regarded any vestiges of autonomy among the local Jewish communities as reminders of their subject status to a foreign empire. Nevertheless, this did not always mean that opposition to Jewish involvement in local affairs was anti-Semitic. In 411 BCE, an Egyptian mob destroyed the Jewish temple at Elephantine in Egypt, but many historians argue that this was provoked by anti-Persian sentiment, rather than by anti-Semitism per se — the Jews, who were protected by the imperial power, were perceived as being its representatives.
The enormous and influential Jewish community in the ancient Egyptian port city of Alexandria saw manifestations of an unusual brand of anti-Semitism in which the local pagan populace rejected the biblical narrative of the Exodus as being anti-Egyptian. Accordingly, a number of works were produced to provide an "Egyptian version" of what "really happened": the Jews were a group of sickly lepers that was expelled from Egypt (see Manetho, Apion). This was also used to account for Jewish practices — they were so sickly that they could not even wander in the desert for more than six days at a time, requiring a seventh day to rest, hence the origin of the Sabbath. It was these charges that led to Philo's apologetic account of Judaism and Jewish history, which was so influential in the development of early church doctrine. Ancient anti-semitic tales were also picked apart in Josephus Flavius' pamphlet Against Apion.
Prejudice against Jews in the Roman Empire was formalized in 438, when the Code of Theodosius II established Christianity as the only legal religion in the Roman Empire, although already as early as 305, in Elvira, a Spanish town in Andalusia, the first known laws of any church council against Jews appeared. Christian women were forbidden to marry Jews unless the Jew first converted to Christianity. Jews were forbidden to extend hospitality to Christians. Jews could not keep Christian concubines and were forbidden to bless the fields of Christians. In 589, in Christian Spain, the Third Council of Toledo ordered that children born of marriage between Jews and Christians be baptized by force. A policy of forced conversion of all Jews was initiated. Thousands fled, and thousands of others converted. [[1]]
Judaic traditions extend for centuries BCE, and are the historical predecessor for the religions of Christianity and Islam, both of whom hold some Judaic traditions and texts as sacred, though differ in aspects that are central to each distinct branch of religion.
Hence Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each took different course in terms of beliefs, as well as traditional customs; each creating a separate and distinct culture, from the parent Judaism. Those who held to traditional Judaic belief were considered "deniers" of the newer beliefs and traditions, in much the same way that every religion considers people of other religions to be denying the truth.
Anti-Judaism in the New Testament
Christian theological anti-Semitism was stimulated by the New Testament's replacement theology, or supersessionism, which taught that with the coming of Jesus a new covenant has rendered obsolete and has superseded the religion of Judaism. It was believed that "the perfidious Jews", as a people, were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. A number of Christian preachers, particularly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, additionally taught that religious Jews choose to follow a faith that they actually know is false out of a desire to offend God.
Examples of passages in the New Testament that are seen as anti-Semitic, or have been used for anti-Semitic purposes:
- Jesus said to them [i.e., the "Jews"], "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. . . . He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is you are not of God." (John 8:44-47)
- 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 not your fathers 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)
- Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie -- behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you. (Rev. 3:9).
Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages there were many reasons for prejudice against Jews in Europe. The most obvious reason is religious persecution. However, this does not explain why violence increased greatly during the High Middle Ages, so other more complex reasons have been put forth by scholars.
In the Middle Ages a main source of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. The Catholic Church taught that the Jewish people were collectively and permanently responsible for killing Jesus (see Deicide). The power of Christianity was very strong in the Middle Ages, and Jews were a direct affront to Christian beliefs.
Among socio-economic factors were restrictions by the authorities, local rulers and frequently church officials who closed many professions to the Jews, pushing them into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as local tax and rent collecting or moneylending, a necessary evil due to the increasing population and urbanization during the High Middle Ages. This provided support for claims that Jews are insolent, greedy, engaged in usury, and in itself contributed to a negative image. Natural tensions between creditors (typically Jews) and debtors (typically Christians) were added to social, political, religious and economic strains. Peasants who were forced to pay their taxes to a Jews could personify them as the people taking their earnings while remaining loyal to the lords on whose behalf the Jews worked.
The demonizing of the Jews
From around the 12th century through the 19th there were Christians who believed that some (or all) Jews possessed magical powers; some believed that they had gained these magical powers from making a deal with the devil. See also Judensau, Judeophobia.
Blood libels
Main articles: blood libel, list of blood libels against Jews
On many occasions, Jews were accused of a blood libel, the supposed drinking of blood of Christian children in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. According to the authors of these blood libels, the 'procedure' for the alleged sacrifice was something like this: a child who had not yet reached puberty was kidnapped and taken to a hidden place. The child would be tortured by Jews, and a crowd would gather at the place of execution (in some accounts the synagogue itself) and engage in a mock tribunal to try the child. The child would be presented to the tribunal naked and tied and eventually be condemned to death. In the end, the child would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross. The cross would be raised, and the blood dripping from the child's wounds would be caught in bowls or glasses. Finally, the child would be killed with a thrust through the heart from a spear, sword, or dagger. Its dead body would be removed from the cross and concealed or disposed of, but in some instances rituals of black magic would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the alleged descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.
The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is the first known case of ritual murder being alleged by a Christian monk. It does not mention the collection of William's blood for any purpose. The story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) said that after the boy was dead, his body was removed from the cross and laid on a table. His belly was cut open and his entrails removed for some occult purpose, such as a divination ritual. The story of Simon of Trent (d. 1475) emphasized how the boy was held over a large bowl so all his blood could be collected. Simon was regarded as a saint, and was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. His status as a saint was removed in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, though a handful of extremists still promote the narrative as a fact. In the 20th century, blood libel stories have appeared a number of times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, in Arab television shows, and on websites.
Badges
Main article: yellow badge
The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 was the first to proclaim the requirement for Jews to wear something that distinguished them as Jews. It could be a colored piece of cloth in the shape of a star or circle or square, a hat, or a robe. This practice has its origins in the Islamic world where it was common for various religions to wear badges of faith. In many localities, members of the medieval society wore badges to distinguish their social status. Some badges (such as guild members) were prestigious, while others ostracized outcasts such as lepers, reformed heretics and prostitutes. 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.
Host desecration
Jews were falsely accused of torturing consecrated host wafers in a reenactment of the Crucifixion; this accusation was known as host desecration.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of several military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy that took place during the 11th through 13th centuries. They began as Catholic endeavours to capture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars. The initial conquest of Palestine by the forces of Islam in the 7th century did not interfere much with pilgrimage to Christian holy sites or the security of monasteries and Christian communities in the Holy Land. However, in the year 1009 the Fatimid caliph of Cairo, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre destroyed. His successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it, and pilgrimage was permitted again. The decisive loss of the Byzantine army to the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 brought the beginning of Byzantine pleas for troops and support from the West.
The mobs accompanying the first three Crusades attacked the Jewish communities in Germany, France, and England, and put many Jews to death; this left behind for centuries strong feelings of ill will on both sides. The social position of the Jews in western Europe was distinctly worsened by the Crusades, and legal restrictions became frequent during and after them. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III, and formed the turning-point in the medieval history of the Jews.
The expulsion from England, France, Germany, and Spain
(to be written)
Anti-Judaism and Reformation
(to be written) Main article: Christianity and anti-Semitism
The Bohdan Khmelnytsky massacres
For centuries after creation of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the people of Ruthenia had felt oppressed by the nobles and Jewish traders. Although Ruthenian nobility enjoyed full rights, they quickly polonised and therefore were alienated from common people; the advent of Counter-Reformation meant troubles in relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic faiths. Unwilling to attend to the details of administration themselves, Polish magnates made the Jewish citizens a go-between in the transactions with the peasants of Ukraine. They sold and leased certain privileges to Jews for a lump sum, and, left it to Jewish leaseholders and collectors to become the embodiment of hatred to the oppressed and long-suffering peasants.
Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the popular revolt against Poland in 1648 — 1654, which resulted in the Treaty of Pereyaslav and the annexation of Ukraine by the Russian Empire. The Ukrainian Cossacks joined by peasants massacred tens of thousands of Jews. Estimates range from 10,000 to well over 100,000 out of over 500,000 Jews who lived in Poland. "Wherever they found the szlachta, royal officials or Jews, they killed them all, sparing neither women nor children. They pillaged the estates of the Jews and nobles, burned churches and killed their priests, leaving nothing whole." (Eyewitness Chronicle) [2]
The Enlightenment and the rise of racial anti-Semitism
Racial anti-Semitism, the most modern form of anti-Semitism, is a type of racism mixed with religious persecution. Racial anti-Semites believe that Jews are a distinct race and inherently inferior to people of other races.
Modern European anti-Semitism has its origin in 19th century pseudo-scientific theories that the Jewish people are a sub-group of Semitic peoples; Semitic people were thought by many Europeans to be entirely different from the Aryan, or Indo-European, populations, and that they can never be amalgamated with them. In this view, Jews are not opposed on account of their religion, but on account of their supposed hereditary or genetic racial characteristics: greed, a special aptitude for money-making, aversion to hard work, clannishness and obtrusiveness, lack of social tact, low cunning, and especially lack of patriotism.
Ironically, while enlightened European intellectual society of that period viewed prejudice against people on account of their religion to be declasse and a sign of ignorance, because of this supposed 'scientific' connection to genetics they felt fully justified in prejudice based on nationality or 'race'. In order to differentiate between the two practices, the term antiSemitism was developed to refer to this 'acceptable' bias against Jews as a nationality, as distinct from the 'undesirable' prejudice against Judaism as a religion. Concurrently with this usage, some authors in Germany began to use the term 'Palestinians' when referring to Jews as a people, rather than as a religious group.
See also eugenics.
The Dreyfus affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal which divided France for many years during the late 19th century. It centered on the 1894 treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army. Dreyfus was, in fact, innocent: the conviction rested on false documents, and when high-ranking officers realised this they attempted to cover up the mistakes. The writer Emile Zola exposed the affair to the general public in the literary newspaper L'Aurore (The Dawn) in a famous open letter to the Président de la République Félix Faure, titled J'accuse! (I Accuse!) on January 13, 1898.
The Dreyfus Affair split France between the Dreyfusards (those supporting Alfred Dreyfus) and the Antidreyfusards (those against him). The quarrel was especially violent since it involved many issues then highly controversial in a heated political climate.
Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899, readmitted into the army, and made a knight in the Legion of Honour. An Austrian Jewish journalist named Theodor Herzl was assigned to report on the trial and its aftermath. The injustice of the trial and the anti-Semitic passions it aroused in France and elsewhere turned him into a determined Zionist; ultimately turning the movement into an international one.
Also see Alfred Dreyfus and Dreyfus affair.
Modern passion plays
Passion plays, dramatic stagings representing the trial and death of Jesus, have historically been used in Christian communities to arouse hatred of local Jews; the plays usually depict the entire Jewish people as condemning Jesus to crucifixion and being collectively guilty of deicide, murdering God.
In 2003 and 2004 some have compared Mel Gibson's recent film The Passion of the Christ to these kinds of passion plays, but this characterization is hotly disputed; an analysis of that topic is in the article on The Passion of the Christ.
Anti-Semitism in Poland
The reign of Casimir III, the Great (1333 - 1370) made Poland a safe asylum for Jews. The Jewish population of Poland played a very prominent role and their position was comparable with the status of nobles. After the partitions of Poland, and the final defeat of the January Uprising (1863-1864), Polish nationalists and Jews began to diverge on many issues.
See also History of the Jews in Poland, Jacob Frank and Massacre in Jedwabne, Kielce pogrom.
Anti-Semitism in the Imperial Russia and in the Soviet Union
Main article: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
The Pale of Settlement was the Western region of Imperial Russia to which Jews were restricted by the Tsarist Ukase. It consisted of the territories of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexed with the existing numerous Jewish population, and the Crimea (which was later cut out from the Pale). See also May Laws.
During 1881-1884, 1903-1906 and 1914-1921, waves of anti-Semitic pogroms swept Russian Jewish communities, propelling mass Jewish emigration. At least some pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Russian okhranka. Although no hard evidence was presented so far, such facts as the indifference of Russian police and army was duly noted, e.g., during the three-day First Kishinev pogrom of 1903, as well as the preceding inciting anti-Jewish articles in newspapers.
One of the most infamous anti-Semitic tractates is the Russian okhranka literary hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was intended against the revolutionary movement.
Even though many Old Bolsheviks were ethnically Jewish, they sought to uproot Judaism and Zionism and established the Yevsektsiya to achieve this goal. By the end of the 1940s the Communist leadership of the former USSR had liquidated almost all Jewish organizations including Yevsektsiya.
The anti-Semitic campaign of 1948-1953 against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the fabrication of the "Doctors' plot," the rise of "Zionology" and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were officially carried out under the banner of "anti-Zionism," but the use of this term could not obscure the anti-Semitic content of these campaigns, and by the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West and domestically. See also: Jackson-Vanik amendment, Refusenik, Pamyat.
Anti-Semitism and Islam
Anti-Semitism within Islam is discussed in the article on Islam and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in the Arab World is discussed in the article on Arabs and anti-Semitism.
The Qur'an, Islam's holy book, criticizes the Jews for corrupting and not following the Hebrew Bible. Muslims refer to Jews and Christians as a "People of the book"; Islamic law demands that they should be tolerated as dhimmis, second-class citizens who have limited rights. Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increased in the twentieth century, as anti-Semitic motives and blood libels were imported from Europe.
Anti-Semitism in the 20th century
In the USA, in the years leading up to America's entry into World War II, Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic radio preacher, as well as many other prominent public figures, condemned "the Jews" because they were leading America into war. While most Jews in America supported the interventionist camp, not all did. Jews were often condemned by populist politicians for their left-wing politics at the turn of the century.
Anti-Semitism in Germany
With the rise of the Nazis and their explicity anti-Semitic program, hate speech referring to Jewish citizens as "dirty Jews" became common in anti-semitic pamplets and newspapers, such as Völkischer Beobachter and Der Stürmer. Judging by information available to researchers of Jewish history, its origins can possibly be traced to the Middle Ages, where isolated Jewish communities observed a strict dress code. Since Jewish clothing seemed strange to the hostile surrounding Christian populations of Europe, and also due to religious bigotry of some Christians, the expression was very widely used.
Nazi cartoons depicting "dirty Jews" frequently portrayed a dirty, physically unattractive and badly dressed "talmudic" Jew in traditional religious garments similar to those worn by Hassidic Jews. Articles attacking Jewish Germans, while concentrating on commercial and political activities of prominent Jewish individuals, also frequently attacked them based on religious dogmas. Accusations of responsibility of "killing our savior Jesus Christ" and refusal by Jews to "accept the savior" and convert to Christianity that fueled the hatred in the Middle Ages were also repeated by Nazi propagandists.
Hatred against Jews manifested itself in such measures as the Nuremberg Code which banned "race-mixing" and in the Kristallnacht riots which targetted Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship.
The Holocaust
The most horrific manifestation of anti-Semitism this century, subsequent to the rise of far-right ideologies in Europe, led to the "Jewish holocaust" during World War II, in which millions of Jews in Europe were systematically murdered. See Holocaust, Warsaw Ghetto, and Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka.
Holocaust denial
Holocaust revisionists often claim that "the Jews" or a "Zionist conspiracy" is responsible for the exaggeration or wholesale fabrication of the events of the Holocaust. Critics of such revisionism point to an overwhelming amount of physical and historical evidence that supports the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust. It should be noted that most academics also agree that there is no creditable evidence for any such conspiracy.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is a term that has been used to describe several very different political and religious points of view (both historically and in current debates) all expressing some form of opposition to Zionism. A large variety of commentators - politicians, journalists, academics and others - believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and attribute this to anti-Semitism. In turn, critics of this view believe that associating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is intended to stifle debate, deflect attention from valid criticism, and taint anyone opposed to Israeli actions and policies. This subject is discussed in the main article on Anti-Zionism.
Modern anti-Semitism
In recent years some scholars of religion and many Jewish groups, have noted what they describe as the new anti-Semitism. This subject is discussed in a separate article, modern anti-Semitism, which deals with anti-Semitism after World War II up to the present.
See also
- History of anti-Semitism
- Anti-Zionism
- Jewish self-hatred
- Bohdan Chmielnicki
- Arab anti-Semitism
- Islam and anti-Semitism
- Edgardo Mortara
References
- The Destruction of the European Jews Raul Hilberg. Holmes & Meier, 1985. 3 volumes
- Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory Deborah Lipstadt, 1994, Penguin.
- Separation and Its Discontents : Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism, Kevin MacDonald, 1998, Praeger.
- Antisemitism in the New Testament, Lillian C. Freudmann, University Press of America, 1994.
- Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument, Yossef Bodansky, Freeman Center For Strategic Studies, 1999
External links
- Annotated bibliography of anti-Semitism hosted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA)]
- The Southern Poverty Law Center
- Christian-Jewish relations
- Web site with information and articles about anti-Semitism
- The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary anti-Semitism and Racism hosted by the Tel Aviv University - (includes an annual report)
- Response to anti-Semites' posting of Talmud "Quotes"
- meta:Solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Jews, the End of the Vertical Alliance, and Contemporary Antisemitism