Antisemitism: A History

Antisemitism: term coined in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr

Think about -- “Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; they are given evil qualities so they can be hated.”

From the Orthodox point of view, anti-Semitism goes back to Sinai

Anti-Semitism has waxed and waned through time and place

Pagan times: reasons• Economic: Jews competed with

non-Jews, particularly in Alexandria

• Political: Maccabean conquests• Cultural: pagans resented

monotheism and its demands and separatism• Messianism: Greeks and

Romans had a problem here

Christian timesJews refuted:

• Jesus as the Messiah• The Trinity• God became human• Original sin• Nullification of the law

• Faith in Jesus as only way to salvation• Sacraments of the

Church• New Testament as

Divine

Christian times

The Jews were accused of deicide (murder of God/Jesus)

• Matthew 27:25 (New International Version) 25All the people answered, "Let his blood be on

us and on our children!"

Christian times4th Century CE: Christianity

became legal in Rome, then the official religion– St. Augustine, 4th C: “the

witness people”• Jews should live, in a

degraded condition to a) show what happens to those who reject Christ, and b) witnessing through their Hebrew prophecies about the coming of Christ

Christian Times

St. John Chrysotum, 4th C: sermons in Antioch (“God hates the Jews…”)

Pope Gregory, 6th C: conversion of the Jews preferred; they must be tolerated

High Middle Ages (1000-1300)

1096: 1st Crusade to Holy Land begins

1144: first ritual murder accusation (Norwich, England)

1179: Third Lateran Council of church leaders from across Europe reaffirms Jewish second-class citizenship

High Middle Ages (1000-1300)

1215: Fourth Lateran Council called by Pope Innocent III

• Jews must wear a patch (badge), because God marked Cain as a vagabond

1239: Pope Gregory IX issued a bull condemning the Talmud

Later Middle Ages (1300-1500)

1347-52: Black Death killed 25-33% of population of Europe

1391: Riots began in Seville and spread throughout Spain after sermons by a fanatical priest

1411: Eventually, Christians turned against the conversos

Later Middle Ages (1300-1500)

1480: Spanish Inquisition began• went not after the Jews,

but the conversos• limpieza de sangra = purity

of the blood–beginnings of racial

antisemitism

1500 – Turning Point1492: Jews, Muslims expelled after conquest of Grenada– Jews had been expelled from England (1290), France (1304),

and German lands

1497: expulsion from Portugal

1500 – Turning Point

By 1500 there was no one living as a practicing Jew in any country bordering the Atlantic• Jewish focus shifted to the East• Turks, some Poles welcomed the Jews• Jews had been forced out of land-

holding, guilds; money-lending (usury) became main economic activity• Jews were seen as “royal sponges”,

because they worked as tax collectors

Martin Luther’s Reformation1517: Luther launches Protestant Reformation

• at first befriended Jews, hoping to convert them• 1543: Luther issued a violent pamphlet against Jews

1555: spread of ghetto system in Europe• part of Counter-Reformation

By the end of the Middle Ages, the Jew had been reduced to less than human

Christian Antisemitism and the Holocaust

Causation for the Holocaust is all here: Antisemitism exists where there are no Jews, in definitions, stereotypes, etc.

Counter-arguments –• There is a difference between antisemitism and anti-

Judaism• There are pro-Jewish passages in the New Testament• The Jews could escape from pre-Holocaust persecution

by baptism

The Enlightenment

Enlightenment ideas:• Reason• Progress• Science• Natural rights – (life, liberty, property)

• Tolerance• Universalism• Cosmopolitan spirit

The Philosophes

Voltaire: antisemitism not religiously based (secular)• Anti-Jewish diatribes• Wanted to crush Catholic Church Enlightenment thinkers saw organized religion as their

main enemy• Revelation is unreasonable, irrational• Judaism the root of Christianity• Believed in deism• Writers looked back to pagan works for inspiration

French Revolution and Beyond

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity• USA was first modern nation to grant Jews equal rights

under a constitution• Fraternity = nationalism

By end of 1700’s, Jews in Europe had gained citizenship• “to the Jew as an individual, everything; to the Jew as a

nation, nothing.”

• Industrial Revolution gave Jews new opportunities

End of 19th C: Antisemitism again in Europe

Religious: antisemitism had never disappeared

Political: Prussia united Germany through war and became the strongest nation in Europe

Socioeconomic: early socialists were antisemites

Sociopsychological: Jews were associated with modernity (cities, capitalism, Industrial Revolution)

Social DarwinismSocial Darwinism: humans of different races are in a

struggle for natural resources– Racist characteristics of Jews:

– Soulless – materialistic, carnal– Ruthless, cosmopolitan– Unchangeable– Present everywhere– Diabolical, powerful– Alien, other– Germ, microbe to be purged– Over-intellectual– Unproductive, parasitical, associated with money

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion