The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
s as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Ant ...
being called "the longest hatred". Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:
# Pre-Christian
anti-Judaism
Anti-Judaism is the "total or partial opposition to Judaism as a religion—and the total or partial opposition to Jews as adherents of it—by persons who accept a competing system of beliefs and practices and consider certain genuine Ju ...
in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
and
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
which was primarily ethnic in nature
#
Christian antisemitism
Antisemitism in Christianity, a form of religious antisemitism, is the feeling of hostility which some Christian Churches, Christian groups, and ordinary Christians have towards the Jewish religion and the Jewish people.
Antisemitic Christian ...
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
which was religious in nature and has extended into modern times
# Muslim antisemitism which was—at least in its classical form—nuanced, in that Jews were a protected class
# Political, social and
economic antisemitism
Economic antisemitism is antisemitism that uses stereotypes and canards that are based on negative perceptions or assertions of the economic status, occupations or economic behaviour of Jews, at times leading to various governmental policies and ...
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
# Contemporary antisemitism which has been labeled by some as the new antisemitism
Chanes suggests that these six stages could be merged into three categories: "ancient antisemitism, which was primarily ethnic in nature; Christian antisemitism, which was
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
; and the racial antisemitism of the 19th and 20th centuries". In practice, it is difficult to differentiate antisemitism from the general ill-treatment of nations by other nations before the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
period, but since the adoption of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism, monotheistic religion based on the Life of Jesus in the New Testament, life and Teachings of Jesus, teachings of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. It is the Major religious groups, world's ...
in Europe, antisemitism has undoubtedly been present. The
Islamic world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
has also historically seen the Jews as outsiders. The coming of the
Scientific
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence f ...
and
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
s in 19th-century Europe bred a new manifestation of antisemitism, based as much upon race as upon
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, which culminated in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and #Collaboration, its collaborators systematically murdered some Holoc ...
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
.
Classical period
Early animosity towards Jews
Louis H. Feldman argues that "we must take issue with the ''communis sensus'' that the
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judais ...
writers are predominantly anti-Semitic". He asserts that "one of the great puzzles that has confronted the students of anti-semitism is the alleged shift from pro-Jewish statements found in the first pagan writers who mention the Jews ... to the vicious anti-Jewish statements thereafter, beginning with
Manetho
Manetho (; grc-koi, Μανέθων ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος) is believed to have been an Egyptian priest from Sebennytos ( cop, Ϫⲉⲙⲛⲟⲩϯ, translit=Čemnouti) who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the early third ...
about 270 BCE". In view of Manetho's anti-Jewish writings, antisemitism may have originated in Egypt and been spread by "the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
retelling of Ancient Egyptian prejudices".Schäfer, Peter. ''Judeophobia'', Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 208. Peter Schäfer As examples of pagan writers who spoke positively of Jews, Feldman cites
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
,
Theophrastus
Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledg ...
,
Clearchus of Soli Clearchus of Soli ( el, Kλέαρχoς ὁ Σολεύς, ''Klearkhos ho Soleus'') was a Greek philosopher of the 4th–3rd century BCE, belonging to Aristotle's Peripatetic school. He was born in Soli in Cyprus.
He wrote extensively on eastern cul ...
and
Megasthenes
Megasthenes ( ; grc, Μεγασθένης, c. 350 BCE– c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but h ...
. Feldman concedes that after Manetho "the picture usually painted is one of universal and virulent
anti-Judaism
Anti-Judaism is the "total or partial opposition to Judaism as a religion—and the total or partial opposition to Jews as adherents of it—by persons who accept a competing system of beliefs and practices and consider certain genuine Ju ...
".
The first clear examples of anti-Jewish sentiment can be traced back to
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
in the 3rd century BCE.Flannery, Edward H. ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism''. Paulist Press, first published in 1985; this edition 2004, pp. 11–12. . Edward FlanneryAlexandrian Jewry were the largest Jewish community in the world and the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...
, a Greek translation of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' Manetho
Manetho (; grc-koi, Μανέθων ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος) is believed to have been an Egyptian priest from Sebennytos ( cop, Ϫⲉⲙⲛⲟⲩϯ, translit=Čemnouti) who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the early third ...
, an Egyptian priest and historian of that time, wrote scathingly of the Jews and his themes are repeated in the works of Chaeremon,
Lysimachus
Lysimachus (; Greek: Λυσίμαχος, ''Lysimachos''; c. 360 BC – 281 BC) was a Thessalian officer and successor of Alexander the Great, who in 306 BC, became King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.
Early life and career
Lysimachus ...
,
Poseidonius
Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher na ...
Apion
Apion Pleistoneices ( el, Ἀπίων Πλειστονίκου ''Apíōn Pleistoníkēs''; 30–20 BC – c. AD 45–48), also called Apion Mochthos, was a Hellenized Egyptian grammarian, sophist, and commentator on Homer. He was born at the Si ...
and
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
Flavius Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...
as having written about the time of
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to t ...
that the Jews "have often been treated injuriously by the kings and governors of Persia, yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think best; but that when they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet them after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers". One of the earliest anti-Jewish
edict
An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement".
''Edict'' derives from the Latin edictum.
Notable edicts
* Telepinu Pr ...
s, promulgated by
Antiochus Epiphanes
Antiochus is a Greek male first name, which was a dynastic name for rulers of the Seleucid Empire and the Kingdom of Commagene.
In Jewish historical memory, connected with the Maccabean Revolt and the holiday of Hanukkah, "Antiochus" refers spec ...
in about 170–167 BCE, sparked a revolt of the
Maccabees
The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees ( he, מַכַּבִּים, or , ; la, Machabaei or ; grc, Μακκαβαῖοι, ), were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire ...
in
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sout ...
.
The ancient Jewish philosopher
Philo of Alexandria
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's depl ...
describes an attack on Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE in which thousands of Jews died.Barclay, John M G, 1999. ''Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE – 117 CE)'', University of California. John M. G. Barclay of the
University of Durham
Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...
The violence in Alexandria may have been caused by the Jews' being portrayed as
misanthropic
Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike, distrust or contempt of the human species, human behavior or human nature. A misanthrope or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. The word's origin is from the Greek words μῖσ ...
.Van Der Horst, Pieter Willem, 2003. ''Philo's Flaccus: the First Pogrom'', Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series, Brill. Pieter Willem van der Horst Tcherikover argues that the reason for the hatred of Jews in the Hellenistic period was their separateness in the Greek cities, the ''
poleis
''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means " city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it als ...
''.Tcherikover, Victor, ''Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews'', New York: Atheneum, 1975 However, Bohak has argued that early animosity against the Jews cannot be regarded as being anti-Judaic or antisemitic unless it arose from attitudes that were held against the Jews alone, because many Greeks showed animosity towards any group which they considered barbaric.Bohak, Gideon. "The Ibis and the Jewish Question: Ancient 'Antisemitism' in Historical Context" in Menachem Mor et al., ''Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land in the Days of the Second Temple, the Mishna and the Talmud'', Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2003, pp. 27–43.
Statements which exhibit prejudice against Jews and their religion can be found in the works of many
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judais ...
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
writers. Edward Flannery writes that it was the Jews' refusal to accept Greek religious and social standards that marked them out.
Hecataeus of Abdera :''See Hecataeus of Miletus for the earlier historian.''
Hecataeus of Abdera or of Teos ( el, Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης), was a Greek historian and Pyrrhonist philosopher who flourished in the 4th century BC.
Life
Diogenes La ...
, a Greek historian of the early third century BCE, wrote that
Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...
"in remembrance of the exile of his people, instituted for them a misanthropic and inhospitable way of life". Manetho wrote that the Jews were expelled Egyptian lepers who had been taught "not to adore the
gods
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
" by
Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...
. The same themes appear in the works of Chaeremon,
Lysimachus
Lysimachus (; Greek: Λυσίμαχος, ''Lysimachos''; c. 360 BC – 281 BC) was a Thessalian officer and successor of Alexander the Great, who in 306 BC, became King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.
Early life and career
Lysimachus ...
,
Poseidonius
Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher na ...
Apion
Apion Pleistoneices ( el, Ἀπίων Πλειστονίκου ''Apíōn Pleistoníkēs''; 30–20 BC – c. AD 45–48), also called Apion Mochthos, was a Hellenized Egyptian grammarian, sophist, and commentator on Homer. He was born at the Si ...
and
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
.
Agatharchides of Cnidus
Agatharchides or Agatharchus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθαρχίδης or , ''Agatharchos'') of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer (flourished 2nd century BC).
Life
Agatharchides is believed to have been born at Cnidus, hence his appellation. A ...
wrote about the "ridiculous practices" of the Jews and he also wrote about the "absurdity of their
Law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
", and he also wrote about how
Ptolemy Lagus
Ptolemy I Soter (; gr, Πτολεμαῖος Σωτήρ, ''Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr'' "Ptolemy the Savior"; c. 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian and companion of Alexander the Great from the Kingdom of Macedon ...
was able to invade
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in 320 BC because its inhabitants were observing the
Sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
. Edward Flannery describes the form of antisemitism which existed in
ancient times
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...
as being essentially "cultural, taking the shape of a national
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
which was played out in political settings".
There is a recorded instance in which an Ancient Greek ruler,
Antiochus Epiphanes
Antiochus is a Greek male first name, which was a dynastic name for rulers of the Seleucid Empire and the Kingdom of Commagene.
In Jewish historical memory, connected with the Maccabean Revolt and the holiday of Hanukkah, "Antiochus" refers spec ...
, desecrated the
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jeru ...
and banned Jewish religious practices, such as
circumcision
Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Topi ...
, ''
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stor ...
'' observance and the study of Jewish religious books, during the period when Ancient Greece dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Statements exhibiting prejudice towards Jews and their religion can also be found in the works of a few pagan Greek and Roman writers, but the earliest occurrence of antisemitism has been the subject of debate among scholars, largely because different writers use different definitions of antisemitism. The terms "
religious antisemitism
Religious antisemitism is aversion to or discrimination against Jews as a whole, based on religious doctrines of supersession that expect or demand the disappearance of Judaism and the conversion of Jews, and which figure their political enem ...
" and "anti-Judaism" are sometimes used in reference to animosity towards Judaism as a religion rather than antisemitism, which is used in reference to animosity towards Jews as members of an
ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
Relations between the Jews in Judea and the occupying
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medit ...
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
expelled the Jews from Rome. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Tiberius tried to suppress all foreign religions. In the case of the Jews, he sent young Jewish men, under the pretence of military service, to provinces which were noted for their unhealthy climate. He expelled all other Jews from the city, under threat of lifelong slavery for non-compliance.
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...
, in his ''Jewish Antiquities'', confirms that Tiberius ordered all Jews to be banished from Rome. Four thousand Jews were sent to
but more Jews, who were unwilling to become soldiers, were punished.
Cassius Dio
Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...
reports that Tiberius banished most of the Jews, who had been attempting to convert the Romans to their religion. Philo of Alexandria reported that
Sejanus
Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guar ...
, one of Tiberius's lieutenants, may have been a prime mover in the persecution of the Jews.
The Romans refused to permit the Jews to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem after its
destruction
Destruction may refer to:
Concepts
* Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
* Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism
* Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain k ...
Fiscus Judaicus
The or (Latin for "Jewish tax") was a tax imposed on Jews in the Roman Empire after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in AD 70. Revenues were directed to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome.
The tax measure improved Rom ...
) at the same time, ostensibly to finance the construction of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, and renamed
Judaea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...
Syria Palestina
Syria Palaestina (literally, "Palestinian Syria";Trevor Bryce, 2009, ''The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia''Roland de Vaux, 1978, ''The Early History of Israel'', Page 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135 ...
. The
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
relates that, following the
Bar Kokhba revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba, ag ...
(132–136 CE), the Romans killed many Jews, "killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils". However, some historians argue that Rome brutally suppressed revolts in all of its conquered territories and they also point out that Tiberius expelled all adherents of foreign religions from Rome, not just the Jews.
Some accommodations, in fact, were later made with Judaism, and the Jews of the
Diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews afte ...
had privileges that others did not have. Unlike other subjects of the Roman Empire, the Jews had the right to maintain their religion and they were not expected to accommodate themselves to local customs. Even after the
First Jewish–Roman War
The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt ( he, המרד הגדול '), or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled ...
, the Roman authorities refused to rescind Jewish privileges in some cities. And although
Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania ...
outlawed circumcision as a form of mutilation which was normally inflicted upon people who were unable to consent to it, he later exempted the Jews from the ban on circumcision. According to the 18th-century historian
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is k ...
, there was greater tolerance of the Jews from about 160 CE. Between 355 and 363 CE,
Julian the Apostate
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplaton ...
permitted the Jews to rebuild the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
Rise of Christianity and Islam
The New Testament and early Christianity
Although most of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
was written, ostensibly, by Jews who became followers of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
, there are a number of passages in the New Testament that some consider antisemitic, and they have been used for antisemitic purposes, including:
* Jesus speaking to a group of
Pharisees
The Pharisees (; he, פְּרוּשִׁים, Pərūšīm) were a Jewish social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs b ...
: "I know that you are descendants of
Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jew ...
; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you ... 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." (
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
Pilate
Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of J ...
washes his hands and declares himself innocent of Jesus' blood, the Jewish crowd answers him, "His blood be on us and on our children!" (
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the C ...
27:25, RSV). In an essay regarding antisemitism, biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine argues that this passage has caused more Jewish suffering throughout history than any other passage in the New Testament.
*
Saint Stephen
Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...
speaking before a synagogue council just before his execution: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts ...
. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not 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
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
7:51–53, RSV)
Muhammad, the Quran, and early Islam
The
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
, the
holy book
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual prac ...
of
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
, contains some verses that can be interpreted as expressing very negative views of some Jews. After the
Islamic prophet
Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets ar ...
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...
moved to
Medina
Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...
in 622 CE, he made peace treaties with the
Jewish tribes of Arabia
The Jewish tribes of Arabia were ethnic groups professing the Jewish faith that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before and during the advent of Islam. In Islamic tradition, the Jewish tribes of the Hejaz were seen as the offspring of the ancie ...
and other tribes. However, the relationship between the followers of the new religion and the Jews of Medina later became bitter. At this point the Quran instructs Muhammad to change the direction of prayer from
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
to
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow val ...
, and from this point on, the tone of the verses of the Quran become increasingly hostile towards Jewry.
In 627 CE, Jewish tribe
Banu Qurayza
The Banu Qurayza ( ar, بنو قريظة, he, בני קוריט'ה; alternate spellings include Quraiza, Qurayzah, Quraytha, and the archaic Koreiza) were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib (now known as M ...
of Medina violated a treaty with Muhammad by allying with the attacking tribes.Watt, ''Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman'', pp. 170–176. Subsequently, the tribe was charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by Muhammad himself.Peterson, ''Muhammad: the prophet of God'', pp. 125–127.Ramadan, ''In the Footsteps of the Prophet'', pp. 140ff. The Banu Qurayza were forced to surrender and the men were beheaded, while all the women and children were taken captive and enslaved.Hodgson, ''The Venture of Islam'', vol. 1, p. 191.Brown, ''A New Introduction to Islam'', p. 81.Lings, ''Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources'', pp. 229–233. Several scholars have challenged the veracity of this incident, arguing that it was exaggerated or invented.Meri, ''Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia'', p. 754.Arafat, "New Light on the Story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina", pp. 100–107. Arafat relates the testimony of Ibn Hajar, who denounced this and other accounts as "odd tales" and quoted
Malik ibn Anas
Malik ibn Anas ( ar, مَالِك بن أَنَس, 711–795 CE / 93–179 AH), whose full name is Mālik bin Anas bin Mālik bin Abī ʿĀmir bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith bin Ghaymān bin Khuthayn bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith al-Aṣbaḥī ...
, a contemporary of Ibn Ishaq, whom he rejected as a "liar", an "impostor" and for seeking out the Jewish descendants for gathering information about Muhammad's campaign with their forefathers.Nemoy, ''Barakat Ahmad's "Muhammad and the Jews"'', p. 325. Nemoy is sourcing Ahmad's ''Muhammad and the Jews''. Later, several conflicts arose between Jews of Arabia and Muhammad and his followers, the most notable of which was in
Khaybar
KhaybarOther standardized Arabic transliterations: / . Anglicized pronunciation: , . ( ar, خَيْبَر, ) is an oasis situated some north of the city of Medina in the Medina Province of Saudi Arabia. Prior to the rise of Islam in the 7th ...
, in which many Jews were killed and their properties seized and distributed amongst the Muslims.
Late Roman Empire
When Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, Jews became the victims of
religious intolerance
Religious intolerance is intolerance of another's religious beliefs or practices or lack thereof.
Mere statements which are contrary to one's beliefs do not constitute intolerance. Religious intolerance, rather, occurs when a group (e.g., a s ...
and political oppression. Christian literature began to display extreme hostility towards Jews, which occasionally resulted in attacks against them and the burning of their synagogues. The hostility against Jews was reflected in the edicts which were imposed upon them by church councils and state laws. In the early 4th century, intermarriage between unconverted Jews and Christians was prohibited by the provisions of the
Synod of Elvira
The Synod of Elvira ( la, Concilium Eliberritanum, es, Concilio de Elvira) was an ecclesiastical synod held at Elvira in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, now Granada in southern Spain.. Its date has not been exactly determined but is belie ...
. The
Council of Antioch
Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times. Most of these dealt with phases of the Arian and of the Christological controversies. For ...
(341) prohibited Christians from celebrating
Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...
with the Jews while the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians from keeping the Jewish Sabbath. The Roman Emperor
Constantine I
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterrane ...
instituted several laws concerning the Jews: they were forbidden to own Christian slaves and they were also forbidden to circumcise their slaves. The conversion of Christians to Judaism was also outlawed. Religious services were regulated, congregations were restricted, but Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem on
Tisha B'Av
Tisha B'Av ( he, תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב ''Tīšʿā Bəʾāv''; , ) is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian E ...
, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple.
Discrimination against Jews became worse in the 5th century. The edicts of the
Codex Theodosianus
The ''Codex Theodosianus'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 ...
(438) barred Jews from the civil service, the army and the legal profession. The Jewish Patriarchate was abolished and the scope of Jewish courts was restricted. Synagogues were confiscated and old synagogues could only be repaired if they were in danger of collapsing. Synagogues fell into ruin or they were converted to churches. Synagogues were destroyed in
Tortona
Tortona (; pms, Torton-a , ; lat, Dhertona) is a ''comune'' of Piemonte, in the Province of Alessandria, Italy. Tortona is sited on the right bank of the Scrivia between the plain of Marengo and the foothills of the Ligurian Apennines.
Histor ...
(350), Rome (388 and 500),
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) ( Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, R ...
(388),
Menorca
Menorca or Minorca (from la, Insula Minor, , smaller island, later ''Minorica'') is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca. Its capi ...
(418), Daphne (near
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...
, 489 and 507),
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of G ...
(500),
Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the c ...
(495),
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metrop ...
(585) and in
Orléans
Orléans (;"Orleans" (US) and Urfa
Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ext ...
in 411, several in Judea between 419 and 422,
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
in 442 and 569,
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...
in 423,
Vannes
Vannes (; br, Gwened) is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago.
History Celtic Era
The name ''Vannes'' comes from the Veneti, a seafaring Celtic people who liv ...
Terracina
Terracina is an Italian city and ''comune'' of the province of Latina, located on the coast southeast of Rome on the Via Appia ( by rail). The site has been continuously occupied since antiquity.
History Ancient times
Terracina appears in anci ...
in 590,
Cagliari
Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...
in 590 and
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...
in 590.
Accusations that the Jews killed Jesus
Deicide
Deicide is the killing (or the killer) of a god. The concept may be used for any act of killing a god, including a life-death-rebirth deity who is killed and then resurrected.
Etymology
The term deicide was coined in the 17th century from ...
is the killing of a god. In the context of Christianity, deicide refers to the responsibility for the death of Jesus. The accusation that the Jews committed deicide has been the most powerful warrant for antisemitism by Christians. The earliest recorded instance of an accusation of deicide against the Jewish people as a whole – that they were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus – occurs in a sermon of 167 CE attributed to
Melito of Sardis
Melito of Sardis ( el, Μελίτων Σάρδεων ''Melítōn Sárdeōn''; died ) was the bishop of Sardis near Smyrna in western Anatolia, and a great authority in early Christianity. Melito held a foremost place in terms of bishops in Asia d ...
entitled ''Peri Pascha'', ''On the Passover''. This text blames the Jews for allowing King Herod and
Caiaphas
Joseph ben Caiaphas (; c. 14 BC – c. 46 AD), known simply as Caiaphas (; grc-x-koine, Καϊάφας, Kaïáphas ) in the New Testament, was the Jewish high priest who, according to the gospels, organized a plot to kill Jesus. He famously pr ...
to execute Jesus. Melito does not attribute particular blame to
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of J ...
, he only mentions that Pilate washed his hands of guilt. The sermon is written in Greek, but it may have been an appeal to Rome to spare Christians at a time when Christians were widely being persecuted. The Latin word ''deicida'' (slayer of god), from which the word ''deicide'' is derived, was used in the 4th century by Peter Chrystologus in his sermon number 172. Though not part of Roman Catholic
dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam o ...
, many Christians, including members of the clergy, once held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. According to this interpretation, both the Jews who were present at Jesus' death and the Jewish people collectively and for all time had committed the sin of deicide, or God-killing.Paley, Susan and Koesters, Adrian Gibbons, eds "A Viewer's Guide to Contemporary Passion Plays" , accessed March 12, 2006.
Middle Ages
There was continuing hostility to Judaism from the late Roman period into medieval times. During the Middle Ages in Europe there was a full-scale persecution of Jews in many places, with
blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mu ...
s, expulsions,
forced conversion
Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or the adoption of irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which ...
s and killings. In the 12th century, there were Christians who believed that some, or possibly all, of the Jews possessed magical powers and had gained these powers from making a pact with the
devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...
.
Judensau
A ''Judensau'' (German for "Jews' sow") is a folk art image of Jews in obscene contact with a large sow (female pig), which in Judaism is an unclean animal, that appeared during the 13th century in Germany and some other European countries; it ...
images began to appear in Germany.
Although the Catholicised
Visigothic kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...
in Spain issued a series of anti-Jewish edicts already in the 7th century, persecution of Jews in Europe reached a climax during the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
. Anti-Jewish rhetoric such as the ''Goad of Love'' began to appear and affect public consciousness. At the time of the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
, in 1096, a German Crusade destroyed flourishing Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube. In the
Second Crusade
The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Cru ...
in 1147, the Jews in France were the victims of frequent killings and atrocities. Following the coronation of
Richard the Lionheart
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...
in 1189, Jews were attacked in London. When king Richard left to join the
Third Crusade
The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt by three European monarchs of Western Christianity (Philip II of France, Richard I of England and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor) to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by t ...
1320
Year 1320 ( MCCCXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–December
* January 20 – Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes king of Poland.
* April 6 – Th ...
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper ...
and subsequently by John Zimberlin during 1338–9 in
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it ha ...
who attacked more than one hundred Jewish communities. Following these crusades, Jews were subject to expulsions, including, in 1290, the banishing of all English Jews. In 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France and in 1421, thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of those expelled fled to Poland.
As the
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, cau ...
plague swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating more than half of the population, Jews often became the scapegoats. Rumors spread that they had caused this epidemic by deliberately poisoning wells, an accusation that appeared before in the
1321 leper scare
The 1321 lepers' plot was an alleged conspiracy of French lepers to spread their disease by contaminating water supplies, including well water, with their powders and poisons. According to the American historian Solomon Grayzel, lepers were the ...
Pope Clement VI
Pope Clement VI ( la, Clemens VI; 1291 – 6 December 1352), born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Bla ...
tried to protect Jews by a papal bull dated July 6, 1348, and by an additional bull soon afterwards, but several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg, where the plague had not yet affected the city. The Jews of
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a tempera ...
dhimmi
' ( ar, ذمي ', , collectively ''/'' "the people of the covenant") or () is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligati ...
'' status on Christian and Jewish minorities. Nevertheless, Jews were granted more freedom to practise their religion in the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
than they were in Christian Europe. Jewish communities in Spain thrived under tolerant Muslim rule during the
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age ( es, Siglo de Oro, links=no , "Golden Century") is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish Empire under the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Ha ...
and Cordova became a centre of Jewish culture.Dan Cohn-Sherbok (2006) The Paradox of Anti-Semitism. Continuum: 4
However, the entrance of the Almoravides from
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...
in the 11th century saw harsh measures taken against both Christians and Jews. As part of this repression there were
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
s against Jews in Cordova in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.Schweitzer, Perry (2002) pp. 267–68. The
Almohad
The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the unity of God) was a North African Berber Muslim empire fou ...
s, who by 1147 had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories,Islamic world. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 2, 2007, fro Encyclopædia Britannica Online took a less tolerant view still and treated the ''dhimmis'' harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians took a third option if they could, and fled.Frank and Leaman, 2003, pp. 137–38. Some, such as the family of
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah s ...
, went east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms. At certain times in the Middle Ages, in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted. Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in parts of Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad. 6,000 Jews were killed by a Muslim mob during the 1033 Fez massacre. There were further massacres in Fez in 1276 and 1465,Antisemitism Explained University Press of America, Steven K. Baum, page 27 and in
Marrakesh
Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrake ...
in 1146 and 1232.
Occupational and other restrictions
Restrictions upon Jewish occupations were imposed by Christian authorities. Local rulers and church officials closed many professions to Jews, pushing them into marginal roles which were considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and
moneylending
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...
, occupations which were only tolerated as a "necessary evil". At that time, Catholic doctrine taught the view that lending money for interest was a sin, and an occupation which Christians were forbidden to engage in. Not being subject to this restriction, insofar as loans to non-Jews were concerned, Jews made this business their own, despite possible criticism of
usury
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...
in the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
and later sections of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' disabilities
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, s ...
and restrictions throughout the Middle Ages, some of which lasted until the end of the 19th century. Even moneylending and peddling were at times forbidden to them. The number of Jews permitted to reside in different places was limited; they were concentrated in
ghettos
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
and were not allowed to own land; they were subject to discriminatory taxes on entering cities or districts other than their own and were forced to swear special
Jewish Oaths
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and they suffered a variety of other measures. The
Fourth Lateran Council
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the Council's convocation and meeting, many b ...
in 1215 decreed that Jews and Muslims must wear distinguishing clothing. The most common such clothing was the
Jewish hat
The Jewish hat, also known as the Jewish cap, ''Judenhut'' ( German) or Latin ''pileus cornutus'' ("horned skullcap"), was a cone-shaped pointed hat, often white or yellow, worn by Jews in Medieval Europe. Initially worn by choice, its wearing w ...
, which was already worn by many Jews as a self-identifying mark, but was now often made compulsory.
The Jewish badge was introduced in some places; it could be a coloured piece of cloth in the shape of a circle, strip, or the tablets of the law (in England), and was sewn onto the clothes. Elsewhere special colours of robe were specified. Implementation was in the hands of local rulers but by the following century laws had been enacted covering most of Europe. In many localities, members of Medieval society wore badges to distinguish their social status. Some badges (such as those worn by
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
members) were prestigious, while others were worn by ostracised outcasts such as lepers, reformed
heretics
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
and prostitutes. As with all sumptuary laws, the degree to which these laws were followed and enforced varied greatly. Sometimes, 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. By the end of the Middle Ages, the hat seems to have become rare, but the badge lasted longer and remained in some places until the 18th century.
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the
Papacy
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
in Rome, which took place from the end of the 11th century until the 13th century. They began as endeavors to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars.
The
People's Crusade
The People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic rule. After in 1095 the head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Urban II started to urge faith ...
that accompanied the First Crusade attacked Jewish communities in Germany, France, and England, and killed many Jews. Entire communities, like those of
Treves
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the w ...
,
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
,
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany, a city
** Worms (electoral district)
* Worms, Nebraska, U.S.
*Worms im Veltlintal, the German name for Bormio
Bormio ( lmo, Bormi, rm ...
,
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with M ...
, and
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million ...
, were murdered by armed mobs. About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Rhineland cities alone between May and July 1096. Before the Crusades, Jews had practically a monopoly on the trade in Eastern products, but the closer connection between Europe and the East brought about by the Crusades raised up a class of Christian merchant traders, and from this time onwards, restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent. The religious zeal fomented by the Crusades at times burned as fiercely against Jews as against Muslims, although attempts were made by bishops during the first Crusade and by the papacy during the Second Crusade to stop Jews from being attacked. Both economically and socially, the Crusades were disastrous for European Jews. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 ...
.
The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem retreated to their synagogue to "prepare for death" once the Crusaders had breached the outer walls of the city during the siege of 1099.CROSS PURPOSES: The Crusades ( Hoover Institute television show). The entire episode can be viewed with RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. The chronicle of
Ibn al-Qalanisi
Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamzah ibn al-Asad ibn al-Qalānisī ( ar, ابو يعلى حمزة ابن الاسد ابن القلانسي; c. 1071 – 18 March 1160) was an Arab politician and chronicler in 12th-century Damascus.
Biography
Abu Ya‘la ('father ...
states that the building was set on fire whilst the Jews were still inside.Gibb, H. A. R. ''The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades: Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi''. Dover Publications, 2003 (), p. 48. The Crusaders were supposedly reported as hoisting up their shields and singing "Christ We Adore Thee!" while they encircled the burning building." Following the siege, Jews captured from the Dome of the Rock, along with native Christians, were made to clean the city of the slain.Goitein, S.D. "Contemporary Letters on the Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders." Journal of Jewish Studies 3 (1952), pp. 162–77, 63/ref> Numerous Jews and their holy books (including the
Aleppo Codex
The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the r ...
Ashkelon
Ashkelon or Ashqelon (; Hebrew: , , ; Philistine: ), also known as Ascalon (; Ancient Greek: , ; Arabic: , ), is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with ...
(Ascalon) reached out to their coreligionists in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
to first pay for the holy books and then rescued pockets of Jews over several months. All that could be ransomed were liberated by the summer of 1100. The few who could not be rescued were either converted to Christianity or murdered.
In the
County of Toulouse
The County of Toulouse ( oc, Comtat de Tolosa) was a territory in southern France consisting of the city of Toulouse and its environs, ruled by the Count of Toulouse from the late 9th century until the late 13th century.
The territory is th ...
, in southern France, toleration and favour shown to Jews was one of the main complaints of the Roman Church against the Counts of Toulouse at the beginning of the 13th century. Organised and official persecution of the Jews became a normal feature of life in southern France only after the
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
, because it was only then that the Church became powerful enough to insist that measures of discrimination be applied. In 1209, stripped to the waist and barefoot, Raymond VI of Toulouse was obliged to swear that he would no longer allow Jews to hold public office. In 1229 his son Raymond VII underwent a similar ceremony. In 1236, Crusaders attacked the Jewish communities of Anjou and
Poitou
Poitou (, , ; ; Poitevin: ''Poetou'') was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers. Both Poitou and Poitiers are named after the Pictones Gallic tribe.
Geography
The main historical cities are Poitiers (historical ...
, killing 3,000 and baptizing 500. Two years after the 1240 disputation of Paris, twenty-four wagons piled with hand-written
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the center ...
ic manuscripts were burned in the streets. Other
disputation
In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: ''disputationes'', singular: ''disputatio'') offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed ru ...
s occurred in Spain, followed by accusations against the Talmud.
Blood libels and host desecrations
On many occasions, Jews were accused of drinking the blood of Christian children in mockery of the Christian
Eucharist
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was institu ...
. According to the authors of these so-called blood libels, the 'procedure' for the alleged sacrifice was something like this: a child who had not yet reached
puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy ...
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 and then drunk. 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
Black magic, also known as dark magic, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 145 ...
would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the alleged Christian descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.
The story of
William of Norwich
William of Norwich (2 February 1132 – 22 March 1144) was an English boy whose disappearance and killing was, at the time, attributed to the Jewish community of Norwich. It is the first known medieval accusation against Jews of ritual mur ...
(d. 1144) is often cited as the first known accusation of
ritual murder
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...
against Jews. The Jews of
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, wit ...
, England were accused of murder after a Christian boy, William, was found dead. It was claimed that the Jews had tortured and crucified him. The legend of William of Norwich became a
cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...
, and the child acquired the status of a holy martyr. Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255), in the 13th century, reputedly had his belly cut open and his entrails removed for some
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism ...
purpose, such as a divination ritual, after being taken from a cross.
Simon of Trent
Simon of Trent (german: Simon von Trient, also known as Simon Unverdorben (meaning Simon Immaculate in German); it, Simonino di Trento), also known as Simeon (1472–1475), was a boy from the city of Trent (now Trento in northern Italy), in th ...
(d. 1475), in the fifteenth century, was held over a large bowl so that all of his blood could be collected, it was alleged.
During the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, such blood libels were directed against Jews in many parts of Europe. The believers in these false accusations reasoned that the Jews, having crucified Jesus, continued to thirst for pure and innocent blood, at the expense of innocent Christian children. Jews were also sometimes falsely accused of desecrating consecrated hosts in a reenactment of the
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...
; this crime was known as
host desecration
Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christian denominations that follow the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It involves the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated Sacramental bread, host—the bread used in ...
and it carried the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
.
Expulsions from France and England
The practice of expelling Jews, the confiscation of their property and further
ransom
Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or the sum of money involved in such a practice.
When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''re ...
for their return was utilized to enrich the French crown during the 13th and 14th centuries. The most notable such expulsions were from Paris by
Philip Augustus
Philip II (21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), byname Philip Augustus (french: Philippe Auguste), was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French ...
in 1182, from the whole of France by
Louis IX
Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the House of Capet, Direct Capetians. He was Coronation of the French monarch, c ...
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers ...
in 1236,
Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which is based in the neighbouring large new town ...
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...
in 1231. During the
Second Barons' War
The Second Barons' War (1264–1267) was a civil war in England between the forces of a number of barons led by Simon de Montfort against the royalist forces of King Henry III, led initially by the king himself and later by his son, the f ...
in the 1260s, Simon de Montfort's followers ravaged the Jewries of London,
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of the ...
,
Northampton
Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England ...
,
Winchester
Winchester is a cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, at the western end of the South Downs National Park, on the River Itchen. It is south-west of Lon ...
,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...
,
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engl ...
and Lincoln in an effort to destroy the records of their debts to moneylenders.England article in the
Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
Edward I of England
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal ...
taxed Jewish moneylenders. When the moneylenders could no longer pay the tax, they were accused of disloyalty. Already restricted to a limited number of occupations, Edward abolished their "privilege" to lend money, restricted their movements and activities and forced Jews to wear a yellow patch. The heads of Jewish households were then arrested with over 300 being taken to the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...
and executed. Others were killed in their homes. All Jews were banished from the country in 1290, where it was possible that hundreds were killed or drowned while trying to leave the country. All the money and property of these dispossessed Jews was confiscated. No Jews were known to be in England thereafter until 1655, when
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three ...
reversed the policy.
Expulsions from the Holy Roman Empire
In Germany, part of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...
, persecutions and formal expulsions of the Jews were liable to occur at intervals, although it should be said that this was also the case for other minority communities, whether religious or ethnic. There were particular outbursts of riotous persecution in the
Rhineland massacres
The Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or ''Gzerot Tatnó'' ( he, גזרות תתנ"ו, "Edicts of 4856"), were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of French and German Christians of the People's C ...
of 1096 accompanying the lead-up to the First Crusade, many involving the crusaders as they travelled to the East. There were many local expulsions from cities by local rulers and city councils. The
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperato ...
generally tried to restrain persecution, if only for economic reasons, but he was often unable to exert much influence. As late as 1519, the Imperial city of
Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is t ...
took advantage of the recent death of Emperor Maximilian I to expel its 500 Jews. At this period the rulers of the eastern edges of Europe, in Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, were often receptive to Jewish settlement, and many Jews moved to these regions.
The Black Death
Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence during the ravages of the Black Death, particularly in the Iberian peninsula and in the Germanic Empire. In
Provence
Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...
, 40 Jews were burnt in
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...
as quickly after the outbreak as April 1348.See Stéphane Barry and Norbert Gualde, ''La plus grande épidémie de l'histoire'' ("The greatest epidemic in history"), in ''
L'Histoire
''L'Histoire'' is a monthly mainstream French magazine dedicated to historical studies, recognized by peers as the most important historical popular magazine (as opposed to specific university journals or less scientific popular historical maga ...
'' magazine, n°310, June 2006, p. 47 "Never mind that Jews were not immune from the ravages of the plague; they were tortured until they 'confessed' to crimes that they could not possibly have committed. In one such case, a man named Agimet was ... coerced to say that Rabbi Peyret of
Chambéry
Chambéry (, , ; Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the prefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. The population of the commune of Chambéry was 58,917 as of 2019, while the population of the Chambé ...
(near
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
) had ordered him to poison the wells in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isl ...
,
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pari ...
, and elsewhere. In the aftermath of Agimet's 'confession', the Jews of
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...
were burned alive on February 14, 1349."Hertzberg, Arthur and Hirt-Manheimer, Aron. ''Jews: The Essence and Character of a People'', HarperSanFrancisco, 1998, p. 84.
Early modern period
Spain and Portugal
In the Catholic kingdoms of late medieval and early modern Spain, oppressive policies and attitudes led many Jews to embrace Christianity.Dan Cohn-Sherbok (2006) ''The Paradox of Anti-Semitism'': p. 166 Such Jews were known as
conversos
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian ...
or
Marranos
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy.
The term specifically refers to the charg ...
. Suspicions that they might still secretly be adherents of Judaism led
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand II ( an, Ferrando; ca, Ferran; eu, Errando; it, Ferdinando; la, Ferdinandus; es, Fernando; 10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), also called Ferdinand the Catholic (Spanish: ''el Católico''), was King of Aragon and Sardinia from ...
and
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I ( es, Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504), also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: ''la Católica''), was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, as well as Queen consort of Aragon from 1479 until 1504 by ...
to institute the
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition ( es, Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition ( es, Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand ...
. The Inquisition used torture to elicit confessions and delivered judgment at public ceremonials known as '' autos de fe'' before they gave their victims over to the secular authorities for punishment. Under this dispensation, some 30,000 were condemned to death and executed by being burnt alive. In 1492, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile issued an
edict of expulsion
The Edict of Expulsion was a royal decree issued by King Edward I of England on 18 July 1290 expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England. Edward advised the sheriffs of all counties he wanted all Jews expelled by no later than All Saints' D ...
of Jews from Spain, giving Jews four months to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. Some 165,000 emigrated and some 50,000 converted to Christianity. The same year the order of expulsion arrived in
Sicily
Sicily ( it, Sicilia , ) is the list of islands in the Mediterranean, largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. The Strait of Messina divides it from the region of Calabria in Southern Italy. I ...
, belonging to Spain.
Portugal followed suit in December 1496. However, those expelled could only leave the country in ships specified by the King. When those who chose to leave the country arrived at the port in Lisbon, they were met by clerics and soldiers who used force, coercion and promises to baptize them and prevent them from leaving the country. This episode technically ended the presence of Jews in Portugal. Afterwards, all converted Jews and their descendants would be referred to as
New Christians
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
or
Converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian ...
s, and those were rumoured to practice
crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Sp ...
were pejoratively labelled as '' Marranos''. They were given a grace period of thirty years during which no inquiry into their faith would be allowed. This period was later extended until 1534. However, a popular riot in 1506 resulted in the deaths of up to four or five thousand Jews, and the execution of the leaders of the riot by King Manuel. Those labeled as New Christians were under the surveillance of the
Portuguese Inquisition
The Portuguese Inquisition ( Portuguese: ''Inquisição Portuguesa''), officially known as the General Council of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal, was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of its king, John III. ...
from 1536 until 1821.
Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, known as
Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
from the Hebrew word for Spain, fled to North Africa, Turkey and Palestine within the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, and to Holland, France and Italy. Within the Ottoman Empire, Jews could openly practise their religion.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
in Holland also became a focus for settlement by the persecuted Jews from many lands in succeeding centuries. In the
Papal states
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from ...
, Jews were forced to live in ghettos and subjected to several restrictions as part of the Cum nimis absurdum of 1555.
Anti-Judaism and the Reformation
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
by the
Papacy
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
for heresy, and an
ecclesiastical
{{Short pages monitor
In Germany, following World War I,
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
arose as a political movement incorporating racially antisemitic ideas, expressed by Adolf Hitler in his book ''
Mein Kampf
(; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Ger ...
'' (german: My Struggle). After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime sought the systematic exclusion of Jews from national life. Jews were demonized as the driving force of both international
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialec ...
and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...
. The
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of ...
of 1935 outlawed marriage or sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews. Antisemitic propaganda by or on behalf of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
began to pervade society. Especially virulent in this regard was
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the ''Gauleiter'' (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the '' Reichstag'', the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virul ...
's publication ''
Der Stürmer
''Der Stürmer'' (, literally "The Stormer / Attacker / Striker") was a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published from 1923 to the end of the Second World War by Julius Streicher, the ''Gauleiter'' of Franconia, with brief suspensions ...
'', which published the alleged sexual misdemeanors of Jews for popular consumption. Mass violence against the Jews was encouraged by the Nazi regime, and on the night of 9–10 November 1938, dubbed
Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
, the regime sanctioned the killing of Jews, the destruction of property and the torching of synagogues. Already prior to the new European war, German authorities started rounding up thousands of Jews for their first concentration camps while many other German Jews fled the country or were forced to emigrate.
As Nazi control extended in the course of World War II, antisemitic laws, agitation and propaganda were brought to occupied Europe, often building on local antisemitic traditions. In the
German-occupied Poland
German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration.
The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...
, where over three million Jews had lived before the war in the largest Jewish population in Europe,
Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lo ...
were forced into newly established prison ghettos in 1940, including the
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the ...
for almost half million Jews. Following the
invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
in 1941, a systematic campaign of mass murder in that country was conducted against
Soviet Jews
The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. "For ...
Einsatzgruppen
(, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...
'', murdering over one million Jews and marking a turn from persecution to extermination. In all, some six million Jews, about half of them from Poland, were murdered outright or indirectly through starvation, disease and
overwork
Overwork is the expression used to define the cause of working too hard, too much, or too long. It can be also related to the act of working beyond one's strength or capacity, causing physical and/or mental distress in the process.
Compulsory, m ...
in German and
collaborationist
Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory".
The term ''collaborator'' dates to ...
captivity between 1941 and 1945 in the genocide known as the Holocaust.Saul Friedlander (2008) The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews. London, Phoenix
On 20 January 1942,
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
, deputed to find a " final solution to the Jewish question", chaired the Wannsee Conference at which all the ethnic Jews and many of part-Jews resident in Europe and North Africa were marked to be exterminated. To implement this plan, the Jews from Poland, Germany, and various other countries would be transported to purpose-built
extermination camps
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The ...
set up by Nazis in the occupied Poland and in Germany-annexed territories, where they were mostly murdered in
gas chambers
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
...
immediately upon their arrival. These camps, located at
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It c ...
,
Chełmno
Chełmno (; older en, Culm; formerly ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.
Due to its regional importa ...
Majdanek
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, ...
Treblinka
Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...
, accounted for about half of the total number of Jewish victims of Nazism.
United States
Between 1900 and 1924, approximately 1.75 million Jews migrated to America's shores, the bulk of them were from Eastern Europe. Where before 1900, American Jews never amounted to even 1 percent of America's total population, by 1930 Jews formed about 3½ percent of America's total population. This dramatic increase in the size of America's Jewish community and the upward mobility of some Jews was accompanied by a resurgence of antisemitism.
In the first half of the 20th century, Jews in the United States faced discrimination in employment, in access to residential and resort areas, in membership in clubs and organizations and in tightened quotas on Jewish enrollment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. Some sources state that the conviction (and later the
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
) of
Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national at ...
, which turned a spotlight on
antisemitism in the United States
Antisemitism in the United States has existed for centuries. In the United States, most Jewish community relations agencies draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status ...
, also led to the formation of the
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
in October 1913. However, Abraham H. Foxman, the organization's National Director, disputes this claim, stating that American Jews simply needed to found an institution that would combat antisemitism. The social tensions which existed during this period also led to renewed support for the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and C ...
, which had been inactive since 1870.
Antisemitism in the United States
Antisemitism in the United States has existed for centuries. In the United States, most Jewish community relations agencies draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status ...
reached its peak during the 1920s and 1930s. The pioneering automobile manufacturer
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that m ...
propagated antisemitic ideas in his newspaper ''
The Dearborn Independent
''The Dearborn Independent'', also known as ''The Ford International Weekly'', was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. The paper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, second only to the ...
''. The pioneering aviator
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance ...
and many other prominent Americans led the
America First Committee
The America First Committee (AFC) was the foremost United States isolationist pressure group against American entry into World War II. Launched in September 1940, it surpassed 800,000 members in 450 chapters at its peak. The AFC principally supp ...
in opposing any American involvement in the new war in Europe. However, America First's leaders avoided saying or doing anything that would make them and their organization appear to be antisemitic and for this reason, they voted to drop Henry Ford as an America First member. Lindbergh gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa in which he expressed the decidedly Ford-like view that: "The three most important groups which have been pressing this country towards war are the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt Administration."Albert Lee. "Henry Ford and the Jews". Stein and Day. 1980. p. 126. In his diary Lindbergh wrote: "We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence... Whenever the Jewish percentage of the total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country."
In the late 1930s, The
German American Bund
The German American Bund, or the German American Federation (german: Amerikadeutscher Bund; Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, AV), was a German-American Nazi organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the Friends of New Germany (FoN ...
held parades which featured Nazi uniforms and flags with
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. ...
s alongside American flags. At
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...
in 1939, some 20,000 people listened to the Bund leader Fritz Julius Kuhn as he criticized President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
by repeatedly referring to him as "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and calling his
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
the "Jew Deal". Because he espoused a belief in the existence of a
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
–Jewish conspiracy in America, Kuhn and his activities were scrutinized by the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and when the United States entered World War II most of the Bund's members were placed in
internment camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
s, and some of them were deported at the end of the war. Meanwhile, the United States government did not allow the MS ''St. Louis'' to enter the United States in 1939 because it was full of Jewish refugees. During race riot in Detroit in 1943, Jewish businesses were targeted for looting and burning.
Eastern Europe after World War II
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union reached a peak in 1948–1953 and culminated in the so-called
Doctors' Plot
The "Doctors' plot" affair, group=rus was an alleged conspiracy of prominent Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. It was also known as the case of saboteur doctors or killer doctors. In 1951–1953, a gr ...
that could have been a precursor to a general
purge
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan () was a pejorative Soviet epithet which referred mostly to Jewish intellectuals as an accusation of their lack of allegiance to the Soviet Union, especially during the antisemitic campaign of 1948–1953. This campaig ...
s. The excesses largely ended with the death of Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
and the
de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence toward the Jewish community centre's gathering of refugees in the city of Kielce, Poland on 4 July 1946 by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civiliansKraków pogrom in communist Poland were examples further incidents of antisemitic attitudes and violence in the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. A common theme behind the anti-Jewish violence in the immediate post-war period in Poland were blood libel rumours. Poland's later " March events" of 1967–1968 was a state anti-Jewish (officially anti-Zionist) political campaign involving the suppression of the dissident movement and a power struggle within the Polish communist party against the background of the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
and the Soviet Union's and the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
's new radically anti-Israeli policy in support of socialist Arab countries. Both of these waves of antisemitism in Poland resulted in the emigration of most of the country's Holocaust survivors during the late 1940s and in 1968, mostly to either Israel or the United States.
United States after World War II
During the early 1980s, isolationists on the far right made overtures to anti-war activists on the left in the United States to join forces against government policies in areas where they shared concerns.Berlet, Chip "ZOG Ate My Brains" , ''New Internationalist'', October 2004. This was mainly in the area of civil liberties, opposition to United States military intervention overseas and opposition to U.S. support for Israel.Berlet, Chip "Right woos Left" ''Publiceye.org'', December 20, 1990; revised February 22, 1994, revised again 1999. As they interacted, some of the classic right-wing antisemitic scapegoating conspiracy theories began to seep into progressive circles, including stories about how a " New World Order", also called the "Shadow Government" or "The Octopus", was manipulating world governments. Antisemitic conspiracism was "peddled aggressively" by right-wing groups. Some on the left adopted the rhetoric, which it has been argued, was made possible by their lack of knowledge of the history of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
and its use of "scapegoating,
reductionist
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical po ...
and simplistic solutions,
demagoguery
A demagogue (from Greek , a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from , people, populace, the commons + leading, leader) or rabble-rouser is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites ...
, and a conspiracy theory of history." The Crown Heights riots of 1991 were a violent expression of tensions within a very poor urban community, pitting African American residents against followers of Hassidic Judaism.
Towards the end of 1990, as the movement against the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
began to build, a number of
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
and antisemitic groups sought out alliances with left-wing anti-war coalitions, who began to speak openly about a " Jewish lobby" that was encouraging the United States to invade the Middle East. This idea evolved into conspiracy theories about a " Zionist-occupied government" (ZOG), which has been seen as equivalent to ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''.
The Muslim world
While Islamic antisemitism has increased in the wake of the
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by th ...
, there were riots against Jews in Middle Eastern countries prior to the foundation of Israel, including unrest in
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
,
Shiraz
Shiraz (; fa, شیراز, Širâz ) is the fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars Province, which has been historically known as Pars () and Persis. As of the 2016 national census, the population of the city was 1,565,572 pe ...
and
Fez
Fez most often refers to:
* Fez (hat), a type of felt hat commonly worn in the Ottoman Empire
* Fez, Morocco (or Fes), the second largest city of Morocco
Fez or FEZ may also refer to:
Media
* ''Fez'' (Frank Stella), a 1964 painting by the moder ...
in the 1910s, massacres in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elev ...
and
Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East Je ...
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
and
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...
in the 1930s, as well as attacks on the Jews of Iraq and
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
in the 1940s. As Palestinian Arab leader
Amin al-Husseini
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini ( ar, محمد أمين الحسيني 1897
– 4 July 1974) was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine.
Al-Husseini was the scion of the al-Husayni family of Jerusalemite Arab notab ...
decided to make an alliance with Hitler's Germany during World War II, 180 Jews were killed and 700 Jews were injured in the Nazi-inspired riots of 1941 which are known as the
Farhud
''Farhud'' ( ar, الفرهود) was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a ...
. Jews in the Middle East were also affected by the Holocaust. Most of North Africa came under Nazi control and many Jews were discriminated against and used as slaves until the Axis defeat. In 1945, hundreds of Jews were injured during violent demonstrations in Egypt and Jewish property was vandalized and looted. In November 1945, 130 Jews were killed during a pogrom in Tripoli. In December 1947, shortly after the UN Partition Plan, Arab rioting resulted in hundreds of Jewish casualties in Aleppo, including 75 dead. In
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people ...
, 87 Jews were killed and 120 injured. A mob of Muslim sailors looted Jewish homes and shops in
Manama
Manama ( ar, المنامة ', Bahrani pronunciation: ) is the capital and largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 200,000 people as of 2020. Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is home to a very d ...
. During 1948 there were further riots against Jews in
Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to:
Cities and other geographic units Greece
*Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece
*Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in t ...
,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
led to further persecution against Jews in the Arab world, prompting an increase in the Jewish exodus that began after Israel was established. Over the following years, Jewish population in Arab countries decreased from 856,000 in 1948 to 25,870 in 2009 as a result of emigration, mostly to Israel.
Twenty-first century
The first years of the 21st century have seen an upsurge of antisemitism. Several authors such as Robert S. Wistrich, Phyllis Chesler, and
Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks ( he, יונתן הנרי זקס, translit=Yona'tan Henry Zaks; 8 March 19487 November 2020) was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the Unite ...
argue that this is antisemitism of a new type stemming from
Islamists
Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is ...
Blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mu ...
stories have appeared numerous times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, on Arab television shows, and on websites.
In 2004, the United Kingdom set up an all-Parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, which published its findings in 2006. The inquiry stated that: "Until recently, the prevailing opinion both within the Jewish community and beyond ad beenthat antisemitism had receded to the point that it existed only on the margins of society." However, it found a reversal of this progress since 2000 and aimed to investigate the problem, identify the sources of contemporary antisemitism and make recommendations to improve the situation. A 2008 report by the
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...
found that there was an increase in antisemitism across the world, and that both old and new expressions of antisemitism persist. A 2012 report by the U.S.
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs (DRL) is a bureau within the United States Department of State. The bureau is under the purview of the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
DRL's res ...
also noted a continued global increase in antisemitism, and found that
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements:
* ...
and opposition to Israeli policy at times was used to promote or justify antisemitism.
Antisemitism in the English-speaking world
William D. Rubenstein, a respected author and historian, outlines the presence of antisemitism in the English-speaking world in one of his essays with the same title. In the essay, he explains that there are relatively low levels of antisemitism in the English-speaking world, particularly in Britain and the United States, because of the values associated with
Protestantism
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, the rise of capitalism, and the establishment of constitutional governments that protect civil liberties. Rubenstein does not argue that the treatment of Jews was ideal in these countries, rather he argues that there has been less overt antisemitism in the English-speaking world due to political, ideological, and social structures. Essentially, English-speaking nations experienced lower levels of antisemitism because their liberal and constitutional frameworks limited the organized, violent expression of antisemitism. In his essay, Rubinstein tries to contextualize the reduction of the Jewish population that led to a period of reduced antisemitism: "All Jews were expelled from England in 1290, the first time Jews had been expelled en masse from a European country".
Protestantism
As mentioned above,
Protestantism
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
was a major factor that curbed antisemitism in England beginning in the sixteenth century. This assertion is supported by the fact that the number of reported instances in which Jews were killed in England was significantly higher prior to the birth of Protestantism albeit this was also affected by the number of resident Jews. Protestants were comparatively more understanding of Jews relative to
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and other religious groups. One possible reason as to why Protestant groups were more accepting of Jews was the fact that they preferred the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. T ...
rather than the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
, so their doctrines shared both content and narrative with Jewish teachings. Rubenstein attests that another reason as to why "most of these rotestantswere predisposed to be sympathetic to the Jews" was because they often "view dthemselves, like the biblical Hebrews, as a chosen group that had entered into a direct
covenant
Covenant may refer to:
Religion
* Covenant (religion), a formal alliance or agreement made by God with a religious community or with humanity in general
** Covenant (biblical), in the Hebrew Bible
** Covenant in Mormonism, a sacred agreement ...
with
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
." Lastly, Protestantism's anti-Catholic bend contributed to lower levels of antisemitism: "All of these groups were profoundly hostile to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
, at both the elite and mass levels, became a key theme in Britain, tending to push antisemitism aside." Overall, the emergence of
Protestantism
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
lessened the severity of antisemitism through its use of the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. T ...
and its anti-Catholic sentiment.
Capitalism
In post-Napoleonic England, when there was a notable absence of Jews, Britain removed bans on "
usury
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...
and
moneylending
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...
," and Rubenstein attests that London and Liverpool became economic trading hubs which bolstered England's status as an economic powerhouse. Jews were often associated with being the moneymakers and financial bodies in continental Europe, so it is significant that the English were able to claim responsibility for the country's financial growth and not attribute it to Jews. It is also significant that because Jews were not in the spotlight financially, it took a lot of the anger away from them, and as such, antisemitism was somewhat muted in England. It is said that Jews did not rank among the "economic elite of many British cities" in the 19th century. Again, the significance in this is that British Protestants and non-Jews felt less threatened by Jews because they were not imposing on their prosperity and were not responsible for the economic achievements of their nation. Albert Lindemann also proposes in the introduction to his book ''Antisemitism: A History'' that Jews "assumed social positions, such as moneylending, that were inherently precarious and tension creating." Lindemann believes that moneylending is inevitably riddled with tension, so as long as Jews were moneylenders, they would always be at the center of the problem and synonymous with fraught financial affairs.
Constitutional government
The third major factor which contributed to the lessening of antisemitism in Britain was the establishment of a constitutional government, something that was later adopted and bolstered in the United States. A constitutional government is one which has a written document that outlines the powers of government in an attempt to balance and protect civil rights. After the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of reli ...
, the
Protectorate
A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over most of its int ...
(1640–60) and the
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
(1688), parliament was established in order to make laws that protected the rights of British citizens. The
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...
specifically outlined laws to protect British civil liberties as well. Thus, it is not surprising that having a constitutional government with liberal principles minimized, to some extent, antisemitism in Britain.
In further attempts to minimize antisemitism within government, the United States'
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...
embraced the liberal principles that were previously put forth in England and inspired the formation of a republic that had executive, judicial, and legislative powers and even a law that served to "forbid the establishment of any religion or any official religious test for office holding." Having a government that respected and protected civil liberties, especially those pertaining to religious liberties, reduced blatant antisemitism by constitutionally protecting the right to practice different faiths. These sentiments go back to the first President of the United States,
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of t ...
, who asserted his belief in religious inclusion. Rubinstein believes that though instances of antisemitism definitely existed in Britain and America, the moderation of antisemitism was limited in English-Speaking countries largely because of political and social ideologies that come with a constitutional government.
Other English-speaking countries
In addition to being low in the United States and Britain, antisemitism was also low in other English-speaking countries such as
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world ...
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
, and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...
. Australia has had a historically positive attitude towards Jews and as a result, it had "remarkably little overt antisemitism at any point." Similarly,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
and New Zealand also experienced a lower presence of antisemitism. This is not to say that English-speaking countries have less antisemitic sentiment because their populations speak English, instead, the ideologies that often exist in English-speaking countries affect their acceptance of Jews.
While antisemitism tended to be low in English-speaking regions of Canada, it was higher in
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...
where the native language is French. Quebec has a "long history of blaring antisemitism, enunciated by French-speaking nationalists steeped in the most extreme forms of Catholic hostility towards Jews." This is important because other English-speaking parts of Canada were more tolerant of Jews than its non-English speaking parts were, which suggests a correlation between lingual diversity and the level of Jewish hate. Additionally, it seems that Quebec's firm Catholic hostility towards Jews contributed to local antisemitic behavior.
See also
References
Further reading
* Abella, Irving M and Troper, Harold M. ''None is too many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933–1948''.
* Ansky, S, translated by Joachim Neugroschel. ''The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I''. . S. Ansky
* ''Anti-Semitism'', Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1974.
* Berger, David (ed.). ''History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism''.
* Chesler, Phyllis. ''The New Anti-Semitism''.
* Foxman, Abraham. ''Never Again?: The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism''.
* Hilberg, Raul. ''The Destruction of European Jews'', Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1985.
* Johnson, Paul. ''A History of the Jews''.
* Julius, Anthony, 2010. '' Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England'' Oxford University Press; 811 pages; Examines four distinct versions of English antisemitism, from the medieval era (including the expulsion of Jews in 1290) to what is argued is antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism today.
* Lewis, Bernard. ''Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice''.
* Nafziger, George and Walton, Mark, 2003. ''Islam at War'', Greenwood Publishers Group. .
George Nafziger
George F. Nafziger (born 1949) is an American writer and editor of books and articles in military history.
Biography
He was born in 1949,"George F(rancis) Nafziger." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. ...
* Rosenberg, Elliot ''But Were They Good for the Jews? Over 150 Historical Figures Viewed From a Jewish Perspective''.
* Rubenstein, Joshua. ''Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee''.
* Tevis, Britt P. "Trends in the Study of Antisemitism in United States History." ''American Jewish History'' 105.1 (2021): 255–284 online * Veidlinger, Jeffrey. ''The Moscow State Yiddish Theater''.
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...