anti-Semitism

Prejudice or discrimination against, and persecution of, the Jews as an ethnic group. Historically, this has been practised for many different reasons, by the ancient Egyptians before the Exodus, under the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BC, and for almost 2,000 years by European Christians. Anti-Semitism was a tenet of Nazi Germany, and in the Holocaust (Hebrew Shoah) 1933–45 about 6 million Jews died in concentration camps and in local extermination pogroms, such as the siege of the Warsaw ghetto. In Eastern Europe, as well as in Islamic nations, anti-Semitism exists and is promoted by neo-fascist groups. It is a form of racism.

The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 led to the diaspora or dispersal of the Jews, many settling in Europe and throughout the Roman Empire. In AD 135, the remaining Jews were expelled, and Judaea amalgamated with Palestine. However, Jewish communities had already established ways of maintaining their practices in a foreign land since the Babylonian exile. In the 4th century, Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Empire, which reinforced existing prejudice (dating back to pre-Christian times and referred to in the works of Seneca and Tacitus) against Jews who refused to convert. Anti-Semitism increased in the Middle Ages because of the Crusades and the Inquisition. Legislation in the Middle Ages forbade Jews to own land or be members of a craft guild; to earn a living they had to become moneylenders and traders (and were then resented when they prospered). Christians were taught that the Jews killed Jesus. Following the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 they were ordered to wear distinctive clothing, while the Synod of Narbonne in 1227 demanded that Jews wear badges; in Paris the Talmud was burned in 1242. Britain expelled many Jews in 1290, but they were formally readmitted in 1655 by Cromwell. In Spain, where Jews and Muslims had thrived since the Persian conquest in AD 614, both groups were expelled in 1492. During the Reformation, Martin Luther was one of the first major writers of anti-Semitic literature, claiming that Jewishness contaminated the soul of the German people.

From the 16th century Jews were forced by law in many cities to live in a separate area, or ghetto. The Jews of Venice were confined to ghettos in 1516. Ghettos continued into the 20th century, and were often seen as a prison, but they have also been regarded by some as a safeguard to maintaining religious identity. Violence towards Jews was a continual danger. In 1648, a Ukrainian Cossack overthrew the Polish army and then massacred 100,000 Jews.

Late 18th- and early 19th-century liberal thought improved the position of Jews in European society. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for example, they were allowed to own land, and following the French Revolution (1789–99) the ‘rights of man’ were extended to French Jews. The Enlightenment in 18th-century France encouraged the assimilation of Jews but expected them to give up the practice of their religion. Acceptance by a country led some Jews to throw off their religion and assimilate themselves, endangering the continuity of the Jewish community; the Jewish Haskalah (enlightenment) led to Reform Judaism and the belief that Judaism could evolve and change. The rise of 19th-century nationalism and unscientific theories of race instigated new resentments, and the term ‘anti-Semitism’ was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr. Literally it means prejudice against Semitic people (Semites), but in practice it has been directed only against Jews. Anti-Semitism became strong in Austria, France (epitomized by the Dreyfus affair 1894–1906), and Germany, and from 1881 pogroms in Poland and Russia caused refugees to flee to the USA (where freedom of religion was enshrined in the Constitution), to the UK, and to other European countries as well as Palestine, which was promoted as the Jewish homeland by Zionism after the movement was founded in 1897.

In the 20th century, fascism and the Nazi Party's application of racial theories led to organized persecution and the genocide of the Holocaust. Less dramatic forms of anti-Semitism were also common, such as the routine exclusion of Jews from academic posts in many US universities prior to 1945. In the Soviet Union, Jews had their religion stamped on their passports and were not allowed to leave; synagogues were shut down, and the use of Hebrew forbidden. After World War II, the creation of Israel in 1948 provoked Palestinian anti-Zionism, backed by the Arab world. Anti-Semitism is still fostered by extreme right-wing groups, such as the National Front in the UK and France, and the neo-Nazis in, particularly, the USA and Germany.

The Jewish festivals of Hanukkah and Purim commemorate incidences of anti-Semitism, and the history of Judaism has made the frequent experience of being outcast an indelible part of Jewish identity.

When the new state of Israel was founded in 1948, in which all Jews have a right to citizenship, Jews were given a homeland and place of refuge. Many were overjoyed at being able to live in their own country, free from tyranny and persecution. Orthodox Zionist Jews wanted all Jews to settle in Israel. Some Jews, however, thought that the return to the promised land of Israel could not be ‘engineered’, but would be given to the Jews by God at the appropriate time.

anti-Semitism - events