Anti-Semitism Essay

Robert S. Wistrich defined antisemitism as hostility and/or prejudice against the Jewish people or their religion of Judaism. Many people in today’s world instinctively associate antisemitism with Nazi Germany because of the mass genocide that took place. Hostility towards the Jewish people dates back thousands of years ago when the Roman Empire forced them away from their homeland that is now known as Israel. With the Jewish population forced from their homes they began to spread out all over the world and so did the prejudice against them. The Judaism religion was looked down upon in many parts of the world and people felt like it was their duty to treat the Jewish people with inequality. Antisemitism took a different turn when statesmen begin to use it in their campaign to gain the citizens support.

     Throughout history the Jewish people have been scapegoats; whenever something was not going right they were the ones to blame. From Biblical times through to the Shakespearean Era, all the way to the Middle East Crisis and the creation of Israel, the Jews have been persecuted and blamed for the problems of the world. The most horrifying account of Jewish persecution is the holocaust, which took place in Europe from 1933 to 1945 when Adolf Hitler tried to eliminate all the people that he thought were inferior to the Germans, namely the Jews, because he wanted a pure Aryan State.

The peace the Jews experienced during this era after the exile continued for three hundred years. After this their problems were minimal up to the time of the Crusades. Because of the conflict between Christianity and Islam Jews suffered immeasurably, leading ultimately to two long centuries of persecution and expulsion. In the year 1095 a sermon was preached telling the Christians to regain control of the holy lands. Gangs would attack the Jewish communities, destroying their cities and torturing the people who lived in them. The Jews were such a threat because they did not believe in Jesus Christ a s the Son of God and were therefore non-Christian believers. A second wave of crusades emerged in 1146 and 1189. Riots against Jews even began to emerge through England. The crusades thus lead to Jews becoming the hated religious sect and they were cast out of almost every country throughout Europe. (2) Jews thus began to move and were forced into other countries, countries where they were also not wanted.

2000 years of anti- Jewish teachings in Christianity made the acceptance of racial anti- Semitism possible. In 1935, the Nazis established laws which stripped Jews of German citizenship and took away their livelihood. From 1939, the Germans began deporting Jews to overcrowded ghettos and concentration camps. Over 6 years during the war, 6million Jews, including 1.5million children were murdered by Nazis. Hitler’s deliberate annihilation of the Jews resulted in the extermination of one third of the total Jewish population or two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. The Nazi Party used terror and propaganda to persuade people to believe Hitler had all the answers to all their

And Why Does it Persist?” uses many facts backed up with logical evidence, making his views on anti-Semitism seem even stronger. The author’s view on anti-Semitism is, “Anti-Semitism is not a mysterious “disease” anti-Semitism is the natural and understandable attitude of people toward a minority.” Following this statement the author gives many examples of Jewish-Zionists who share similar viewpoints on anti-Semitism. An instance being in paragraph six, when the author uses a quote from Chaim Weizmann: “Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them, this reaction is a universal social and economic reaction to Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off.” The author also uses Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement’s, writings to back up his thoughts on anti-Semitism, “Herzl explained that anti-Semitism is not an aberration or a “disease,” but rather a natural response by non-Jews to alien Jewish behavior and attitudes.” Although the author continues to support his statements with evidence many of his opinions are very similar and repetitive. The author fails to provide new information to prove his views on

political force, yet that they were really organically and racially unmistakable and thusly should have been be annihilated. Albeit present day Anti-Semitism isn't as open out in the open, numerous still accept the generalizations and states of mind toward Judaism and Jews are regularly still negative and bigot. A percentage of the significant present day Jewish generalizations that are depicted in the media are:

At the end of WWI in 1918, Germany’s economy was in ruins. There were very few jobs, and bitterness began to take over the country. According to the text, “Hitler, a rising politician, offered Germany a scapegoat: Jewish people. Hitler said that Jewish people were to blame for Germany’s problems. He believed that Jews did not deserve to live.” (7) This was the birth of Antisemitism--prejudice against Jewish people. Europe’s Jewish people have always been persecuted due to their “different customs and beliefs that many viewed with suspicion.”(7) Hitler simply reignited the flames, and a violent hatred was born.

Relations between the Christians and Jews of medieval Europe were always influenced by their unequal social and economic statuses and the religious competition that existed between them. While the Jews served a purpose in the Christian religion, this purpose meant that the more populous Christians that had come to dominate Europe only tolerated the Jews. No premise of equality existed, and the Jews came to depend on relationships with lower-level rulers to secure their relative safety. Rumors persisted that Jews had poisoned wells, and the Jews were often the targets of violence that the Christians seemed exceedingly willing to deliver. Overall, life was better for the Christians and worse for the Jews, although this would be of no

According to the text of the Old Testament, Jewish authorities treated Jesus and his followers with hostility. Many Christians to this day, even though it has been proven not to be true, believe that Jesus’ crucifixion was a direct result of the Jewish people. Christian antisemitism was born from a misconception by Jesus’ followers that was then eternalized by being written in their bible. Christian antisemitism would continue onward through the Crusades in which the persecution of the Jewish people reached an all-time high in Europe, where communities were destroyed, Jewish people were killed, and others were expelled from their lands. Many stereotypes for Jewish people arose from this period because they were restricted to specific “inferior” occupations by the Christian authorities such as tax collectors and moneylenders. This early on compulsory requirement to wear a yellow star began in certain parts of Europe.

To begin, there were many political laws implemented against Jews. In the earlier years of World War II, the Nazis declared their goal to segregate Jews from the “Aryan” society.

Jews were constantly wondering “how could our lives get any worse?” Unfortunately, their lives got a lot worse. By the peak of the Plague (when the death toll reached the millions), everyone across Europe portrayed a Jew as a demon. They wore Satan’s face with long black horns, and had a curly, ominous beard. Jews made a large anti-christ image. To make matters worst, bad rumors about Jews spread around as quick as a snap. Angry priests said that Jews kidnapped and tortured Christian children in part of their efforts to kill off Christians. Though the gossip was not true, people ate up the rumors and spread it even farther around Europe. Eventually, Christians decided that the Plague occurred because they let Jews live in their midst. So - their response? The Christians decided to kill Jews in return, and thus: the massacres began. It was estimated that only twenty percent of Jews died from the Plague, while eight percent died from execution. The Jewish population almost disappeared by the year 1390. In Frankfurt, Germany the Jewish population started at 19,000 and then lowered to 10 people by the end of the Plague. In 1267, “the council of Vienna forbade purchases of meat from Jews on the ground that it was likely to be poisoned”. Now Jews were the ones losing money, and Christians were profiting from the massacres. In Vienna, Jews died so quickly, a new cemetery was built. Back at Strasbourg, two thousand Jews were murdered in hope to find gold on their backs (because they were perceived as rich men). In Mainz, the Jews rebelled against the Christians but failed terribly. The Jews killed 200 Christians, but the Christians retaliated by killing more than 12,000 Jews. The famous “Trial at Chillon”, in September 1346, said that Jews poisoned certain wells at Neustadt. Despite being innocent, the Jews were tortured. In Hansa, spring 1350: “Jews walled up alive in their houses and left to die of

Like the Holocaust in the 1930s-1940s, Jews during this time were treated with brutality. Manchester describes it as, “Jewry was luckier - slightly luckier - than blacks. If the pogroms of the time are less infamous than the Holocaust, it is only because anti-Semites then lacked twentieth-century technology” (35). In the year 1492, the Spanish had regained control of Spain. The rule of Spain was now under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. They were not fond of Jews in their nation. The Jews in Spain were given three months to convert to christianity or to leave. After seeing what the Spanish were doing in Spain, the king of Portugal ordered the expulsion of all Portuguese Jews. Any Jews who wouldn’t leave or were slow to leave were massacred. Around four thousand Lisbon Jews were killed during a single night in 1506. Only three years later persecution of Jews in Germany began. Jews throughout history have been treated badly but during the medieval period it was especially hard if you were a Jew.

The Lateran and Subsequent church segregated the dangerous jews to the vulnerable Christians, prohibiting Jews from appearing in public during the holy week. Unable to hide, the jews would be caught, confess and burnt alive. Considering the Christians still accused the Jews, it led to an outbreak of anti- Semitism, and a huge massacre in Worms, Triers, and Metz. Forthwith the Pagans disliking the Jewish religion, the accusation

At the same time, there was a post-crusade feeling against heretics, Jews ans Muslims. In 1391 the country had a wave of massacres that swept the Jewish communities. From Seville the violence against the Jews spread to other towns in Andalusia, the southern province of Castille, and then swept northward to Burgos. Within three months most of the flourishing Jewish communities in all the Christian States of Spain were attacked. Many Jews were faced with the choice of death or conversion to

Before the nineteenth century anti-Semitism was largely religious, based on the belief that the Jews were responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. It was expressed later in the Middle Ages by persecutions and expulsions, economic restrictions and personal restrictions. After Jewish emancipation during the enlightenment, or later, religious anti-Semitism was slowly replaced in the nineteenth century by racial prejudice, stemming from the idea of Jews as a distinct race. In Germany theories of Aryan racial superiority and charges of Jewish domination in the economy and politics in addition with other anti-Jewish propaganda led to the rise of anti-Semitism. This growth in anti-Semitic belief led to Adolf Hitler's rise to power and eventual