Modern Anti Semitism : Anti Racism

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.

Consistent with Rossel, Germany has had a past of anti-Semitism, starting in 1542 when the great German Protestant leader Martin Luther wrote a booklet called Against the Jews and Their Lies. Even earlier the Catholic Churches had taught that the Jewish people killed Crist and should therefore be hated (10). Early teachings of anti-Semitism lead to a hating of the Jewish community, but with the German’s calling themselves the “Aryan Race” and the Jewish people calling themselves the “chosen one’s” there was bound to be competition on who was superior.

Europe’s Growing Anti-Semitism is written by Mike Ross, and was published on October 20, 2014. In this article, Ross explains the disturbing anti-Semitic acts that are taking place in Europe and the effects it is having on Jewish communities. For example, in France three Jewish children and a rabbi were murdered in a Jewish school, four people were shot in a Jewish museum in Brussels, and violent riots have emerged outside numerous synagogues in Europe. Due to these

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.

Racial antisemitism was born in the Nineteenth Century when laws were passed in many European countries posing the Jewish people as second-class citizens, not receiving the same rights as others in society. While they had reached a level of religious emancipation in some countries, Judaism had become recognized as an ethnicity as well, and this ethnic difference from the Aryans therefore made them “inferior.” Pogroms began across Eastern Europe in the late 1800’s which resulted in

Antisemitism is the hostility or prejudices against Jews. Those with the intentions and actions to discriminate Jews are known as anti semitic. This began shortly after Hitler and Nazi Germany assumed power in 1933. At an annual party put on by the Nazis, they created a brand new set of rules called the “Nuremberg Laws”. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis started to “make good” on their pledge to oppress German Jews (ushmm.org). Eventually, Nazi party members announced their purpose. They wanted to segregate Jews from their society. With these intentions, the actions of the Nazi party that came after were cruel and inhumane. It was at this annual party that the start of the creation of these cruel laws intending to separate Jews.

Anti-Semitism as a term to describe hatred of Jews was not used until the second half of the nineteenth century, but a bias against Jews had existed for thousands of years. This resentment of the Jews as a people can be traced back to theological roots as well as practical concerns in early Europe. The most significant and accepted origin of anti-Judaism is the death of Jesus. Jews were branded as the murderers of Christ and Jesus’ followers developed a deep hatred of them. This undertone to Christianity endured over time and became an inherent facet of the religion. Later, when Jews attempted to assimilate into European societies, they faced strong discrimination and resistance. Other citizens viewed them as economic competition. In addition, negative stereotypes evolved about the Jews in relation to their

Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.

Anti-Semitism is the discrimination against Jewish people as individuals and as a group. (A Brief History of Anti-Semitism) People may think that anti-Semitism began with Adolf Hitler but they are mistaken. There is so much evidence of anti-Semitism as far back as the ancient world. (History.com, n.d.) There are three examples of anti-Semitism in Europe prior to World War One that I will discuss.

Anti-Semitism seemed to be very popular in the European countries. Anti-Semitism is the “prejudice against or hatred of Jews (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). A man named Wilhelm Marr originated the term in 1879. Violent riots against Jews were often and encouraged by the government officials and pogroms were violent attacks against the Jews by non-Jewish people (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

The growth of Anti Semitism was the main factor that contributed to Nazi beliefs. Anti semitism is racial prejudice against Jews. It started to grow in 1881. The largest growth was in 1903, after the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This caused the formation of many anti semitic gangs, which then proceeded to kill Jews. Antisemitism was soon a popular political party and gained the support of Adolf Hitler.

I have learned that after World War I, Europe experienced severe economic and political problems that intensified anti-Semitism almost everywhere. This added to the old charges that Jews were unpatriotic and greedy and there was the accusation that they were behind the spread of Communism. In Germany, Adolf Hitler, who had become a racial anti-Semite as a youth in his birth country of Austria, made attacks on the Jews from the beginning of his career in the Nazi party in postwar Munich. Such attacks became the mainstay of Nazi propaganda throughout his rise to power, but he did not always use them. Hitler and his followers used these attacks when it played for their position and not when it served against them.

Anti-semitism did not start with Adolf Hitler. Even though the use of the term goes back to the 1870's, there is evidence of cruelty towards Jews in ancient times. The ancient Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave. The Enlightenment, during the 17th-18th centuries emphasized religious toleration. In the 19th century European rulers enacted legislation that ended restrictions on Jews.

Though anti-Semitism has been featured throughout history, the term was not coined until 1879 by the radical German writer and politician, Wilhelm Marr (Chanes, xvii). This term was originally used to replace “Jew-hatred,” which was associated with the Christian hostility toward the Jews; the term had become outdated and did not fit the “modern, pseudoscientific, nationalist,

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