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Transcript of Antisemitism: A History Antisemitism: term coined in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr Think...
Antisemitism: A History
Antisemitism: term coined in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr
Think about -- “Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; they are given evil qualities so they can be hated.”
From the Orthodox point of view, anti-Semitism goes back to Sinai
Anti-Semitism has waxed and waned through time and place
Pagan times: reasons• Economic: Jews competed with
non-Jews, particularly in Alexandria
• Political: Maccabean conquests• Cultural: pagans resented
monotheism and its demands and separatism• Messianism: Greeks and
Romans had a problem here
Christian timesJews refuted:
• Jesus as the Messiah• The Trinity• God became human• Original sin• Nullification of the law
• Faith in Jesus as only way to salvation• Sacraments of the
Church• New Testament as
Divine
Christian times
The Jews were accused of deicide (murder of God/Jesus)
• Matthew 27:25 (New International Version) 25All the people answered, "Let his blood be on
us and on our children!"
Christian times4th Century CE: Christianity
became legal in Rome, then the official religion– St. Augustine, 4th C: “the
witness people”• Jews should live, in a
degraded condition to a) show what happens to those who reject Christ, and b) witnessing through their Hebrew prophecies about the coming of Christ
Christian Times
St. John Chrysotum, 4th C: sermons in Antioch (“God hates the Jews…”)
Pope Gregory, 6th C: conversion of the Jews preferred; they must be tolerated
High Middle Ages (1000-1300)
1096: 1st Crusade to Holy Land begins
1144: first ritual murder accusation (Norwich, England)
1179: Third Lateran Council of church leaders from across Europe reaffirms Jewish second-class citizenship
High Middle Ages (1000-1300)
1215: Fourth Lateran Council called by Pope Innocent III
• Jews must wear a patch (badge), because God marked Cain as a vagabond
1239: Pope Gregory IX issued a bull condemning the Talmud
Later Middle Ages (1300-1500)
1347-52: Black Death killed 25-33% of population of Europe
1391: Riots began in Seville and spread throughout Spain after sermons by a fanatical priest
1411: Eventually, Christians turned against the conversos
Later Middle Ages (1300-1500)
1480: Spanish Inquisition began• went not after the Jews,
but the conversos• limpieza de sangra = purity
of the blood–beginnings of racial
antisemitism
1500 – Turning Point1492: Jews, Muslims expelled after conquest of Grenada– Jews had been expelled from England (1290), France (1304),
and German lands
1497: expulsion from Portugal
1500 – Turning Point
By 1500 there was no one living as a practicing Jew in any country bordering the Atlantic• Jewish focus shifted to the East• Turks, some Poles welcomed the Jews• Jews had been forced out of land-
holding, guilds; money-lending (usury) became main economic activity• Jews were seen as “royal sponges”,
because they worked as tax collectors
Martin Luther’s Reformation1517: Luther launches Protestant Reformation
• at first befriended Jews, hoping to convert them• 1543: Luther issued a violent pamphlet against Jews
1555: spread of ghetto system in Europe• part of Counter-Reformation
By the end of the Middle Ages, the Jew had been reduced to less than human
Christian Antisemitism and the Holocaust
Causation for the Holocaust is all here: Antisemitism exists where there are no Jews, in definitions, stereotypes, etc.
Counter-arguments –• There is a difference between antisemitism and anti-
Judaism• There are pro-Jewish passages in the New Testament• The Jews could escape from pre-Holocaust persecution
by baptism
The Enlightenment
Enlightenment ideas:• Reason• Progress• Science• Natural rights – (life, liberty, property)
• Tolerance• Universalism• Cosmopolitan spirit
The Philosophes
Voltaire: antisemitism not religiously based (secular)• Anti-Jewish diatribes• Wanted to crush Catholic Church Enlightenment thinkers saw organized religion as their
main enemy• Revelation is unreasonable, irrational• Judaism the root of Christianity• Believed in deism• Writers looked back to pagan works for inspiration
French Revolution and Beyond
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity• USA was first modern nation to grant Jews equal rights
under a constitution• Fraternity = nationalism
By end of 1700’s, Jews in Europe had gained citizenship• “to the Jew as an individual, everything; to the Jew as a
nation, nothing.”
• Industrial Revolution gave Jews new opportunities
End of 19th C: Antisemitism again in Europe
Religious: antisemitism had never disappeared
Political: Prussia united Germany through war and became the strongest nation in Europe
Socioeconomic: early socialists were antisemites
Sociopsychological: Jews were associated with modernity (cities, capitalism, Industrial Revolution)
Social DarwinismSocial Darwinism: humans of different races are in a
struggle for natural resources– Racist characteristics of Jews:
– Soulless – materialistic, carnal– Ruthless, cosmopolitan– Unchangeable– Present everywhere– Diabolical, powerful– Alien, other– Germ, microbe to be purged– Over-intellectual– Unproductive, parasitical, associated with money