Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled antisemitism) is hostility towards or prejudice against Jews, which can range from individual hatred to institutionalized violent persecution, of which the highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism was the most extreme form. Anti-Semitism has historically taken different forms:

Anti-semitism and specific countries

United States

Jews were often condemned by populist politicians alternately for their left-wing politics, or their perceived wealth, at the turn of the century. Anti-semitism grew in the years leading up to America's entry into World War II, Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic radio preacher, as well as many other prominent public figures, condemned "the Jews," and Henry Ford reprinted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper.

Related Topics:
Charles Coughlin - Henry Ford - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Unofficial antisemitism was also widespread in the first half of the century. For example, to limit the growing number of Jewish students between 1919-1950s a number of private liberal arts universities and medical and dental schools employed Numerus clausus. These included Harvard University, Columbia University, Cornell University, and Boston University. In 1925 Yale University, which already had such admissions preferences as "character", "solidity", and "physical characteristics" added a program of legacy preference admission spots for children of Yale alumni, in an explicit attempt to put the brakes on the rising percentage of Jews in the student body. This was soon copied by other Ivy League and other schools, and admissions of Jews were kept down to 10% through the 1950s. Such policies were for the most part discarded during the early 1960s

Related Topics:
Numerus clausus - Harvard University - Columbia University - Cornell University - Boston University - 1925 - Yale University - Legacy preference - 1950s - 1960s

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Some people though such as Richard Nixon (who once stated "The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards." clung to their hate for as long as they lived.

Related Topics:
Richard Nixon - Jews

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American anti-Semitism underwent a modest revival in the late 20th century. The Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan claimed that Jews were responsible for slavery, economic exploitation of black labor, selling alcohol and drugs in their communities, and unfair domination of the economy.

Related Topics:
Nation of Islam - Louis Farrakhan

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According to ADL surveys begun in 1964, African-Americans are "significantly more likely" than white Americans to hold anti-Semitic beliefs, although there is a strong correlation between education level and the rejection of anti-Semitic stereotypes. http://www.adl.org/antisemitism_survey/survey_print.asp.

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Europe

According to 2005 survey results by the ADL http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4726_13.htm, anti-Semitic attitudes remain common in Europe. Over 30% of those surveyed indicated that Jews have too much power in business, with responses ranging from lows of 11% in Denmark and 14% in England to highs of 66% in Hungary, and over 40% in Poland and Spain. The results of religious anti-Semitism also linger, with over 20% of European respondents agreeing that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, with Poland having the highest number of those agreeing, at 39%.

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The Vienna-based European Union Monitoring Center (EUMC), for 2002 and 2003, identified France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and The Netherlands as EU member countries with notable increases in incidents. As these nations keep reliable and comprehensive statistics on anti-Semitic acts, and are engaged in combating anti-Semitism, their data was readily available to the EUMC. Governments and leading public figures condemned the violence, passed new legislation, and mounted positive law enforcement and educational efforts.

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In Western Europe, traditional far-right groups still account for a significant proportion of the attacks against Jews and Jewish properties; disadvantaged and disaffected Muslim youths increasingly were responsible for most of the other incidents. In Eastern Europe, with a much smaller Muslim population, skinheads and others members of the radical political fringe were responsible for most anti-Semitic incidents. Anti-Semitism remained a serious problem in Russia and Belarus, and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, with most incidents carried out by ultra-nationalist and other far-right elements. The stereotype of Jews as manipulators of the global economy continues to provide fertile ground for anti-Semitic aggression.

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France

Anti-semitism was particularly virulent in Vichy France during WWII (1939 - 1945). The Vichy government openly collaborated with the Nazi occupiers to identify Jews for deportation and transportation to the death camps.

Related Topics:
Vichy France - WWII

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Today, despite a steady trend of decreasing antisemitism among the populationhttp://www.tns-sofres.com/etudes/pol/080605_antisemitisme_r.htm, acts of antisemitism have become a serious cause for concern, with increasingly frequent vandalism and desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, as well as an increase in assaults against Jewshttp://www.lexpress.fr/info/societe/dossier/juifsfr/dossier.asp. According to the National Advisory Committee on human rights, antisemitic acts account for a majority (72% of all in 2003) of racist acts in France. (See also the official statement of the French ministry of interior about antisemitic actshttp://www.interieur.gouv.fr/rubriques/a/a5_communiques/2005_07_25_antisemite.)

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Poland

see History of the Jews in Poland

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In 1264, King Boleslaus V of Poland legislated a charter for Jewish residence and protection, hoping that Jewish settlement would contribute to the development of the Polish economy. This charter, which encouraged money-lending, was a slight variation of the 1244 charter granted by the King of Austria to the Jews. By the sixteenth century, Poland had become the center of European Jewry and the most tolerant of all European countries regarding the matters of faith, althought there were still occasionally violent anti-semitic incidents.

Related Topics:
Boleslaus V of Poland - Austria

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At the onset of the seventeenth century, however, the tolerance began to give way to increased anti-Semitism. Elected to the Polish throne King Sigismund III of the Swedish House of Vasa, a strong supporter of the counter-reformation, began to undermine the principles of the Warsaw Confederation and the religious tolerance in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, revoking and limiting priviliges of all non-Catholic faiths. In 1628 he banned publication of Hebrew books, including the Talmud http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/staff/Polcen16c.html. Acclaimed twentieth century historian Simon Dubnow, in his magnum-opus History of the Jews in Poland and Russia, detailed:

Related Topics:
Sigismund III - House of Vasa - Counter-reformation - Warsaw Confederation - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - 1628 - Hebrew - Talmud - Simon Dubnow

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:"At the end of the 16th century and thereafter, not one year passed without a blood libel trial against Jews in Poland, trials which always ended with the execution of Jewish victims in a heinous manner..." (ibid., volume 6, chapter 4).

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In the 1650s the Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth (The Deluge) and the Chmielnicki Uprising of the Cossacks resulted in vast depopulation of the Commonwealth, as over 30% of the ~10 million population has perished or emigrated. In the related 1648-55 pogroms led by the Ukrainian Haidamaks uprising against Polish nobility (szlachta), during which approximately 100,000 Jews were slaughtered, Polish and Ruthenian peasants often participated in killing Jews (The Jews in Poland, Ken Spiro, 2001). The besieged szlachta, who were also decimated in the territories where the uprising happened, typically abandoned the loyal peasantry, townsfolk, and the Jews renting their land, in violation of "rental" contracts.

Related Topics:
The Deluge - Chmielnicki Uprising - Cossack - Haidamak - Szlachta - Ruthenian

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In the aftermath of the Deluge and Chmielnicki Uprising, many Jews fled to the less turbulent Netherlands, which had granted the Jews a protective charter in 1619. From then until the Nazi deportations in 1942, the Netherlands remained a remarkably tolerant haven for Jews in Europe, excedeeing the tolerance extant in all other European countries at the time, and becoming one of the few Jewish havens until nineteenth century social and political reforms throughout much of Europe. Many Jews also fled to England, open to Jews since the mid-seventeenth century, in which Jews were fundamentally ignored and not typically persecuted.

Related Topics:
Netherlands - Nazi

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Historian Berel Wein notes:

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:"In a reversal of roles that is common in Jewish history, the victorious Poles now vented their wrath upon the hapless Jews of the area, accusing them of collaborating with the Cossack invader!... The Jews, reeling from almost five years of constant hell, abandoned their Polish communities and institutions..." (Triumph of Survival, 1990).

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Throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth century, many of the szlachta mistreated peasantry, townsfolk and Jews. Threat of mob violence was a specter over the Jewish communities in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time. On one occasion in 1696, a mob threatened to massacre the Jewish community of Posin, Vitebsk. The mob accused the Jews of murdering a Pole. At the last moment, a peasant woman emerged with the victim's clothes and confessed to the murder. One notable example of actualized riots against Polish Jews is the rioting of 1716, during which many Jews lost their lives. Later, in 1723, the Bishop of Gda?sk instigated the massacre of hundreds of Jews.

Related Topics:
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - 1696 - Vitebsk - 1716 - 1723 - Gda?sk

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The legendary Walentyn Potocki, a Polish nobleman who converted to Judaism, is said to have been burned by auto da fe on May 24, 1749. In 1757, at the instigation of Jacob Frank and his followers, the Bishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi forced the Jewish rabbis to participate in a religious dispute with the quasi-Christian Frankists. Among the other charges, the Frankists claimed that the Talmud was full of heresy against Catholicism. The Catholic judges determined that the Frankists had won the debate, whereupon the Bishop levied heavy fines against the Jewish community and confiscated and burned all Jewish Talmuds. Polish anti-Semitism during the seventeenth and eighteenth century was summed up by Issac de Pinto as follows: "Polish Jews... who are deprived of all the privilages of society... who are despised and reviled on all sides, who are often persecuted, always insulted.... That contempt which is heaped on them chokes up all the seeds of virtue and honour...." (Issac de Pinto, philosopher and economist, in a 1762 letter to Voltaire).

Related Topics:
Walentyn Potocki - Auto da fe - 1749 - 1757 - Jacob Frank - Kamianets-Podilskyi - Talmud - Catholic - Issac de Pinto - 1762 - Voltaire

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On the other hand, it should be noted that despite the mentioned incidents, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a relative haven for Jews when compared to the period of the partitions of Poland and the PLC's destruction in 1795 (see Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, below).

Related Topics:
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Partitions of Poland - 1795 - Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union

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Anti-Jewish sentiments continued to be present in Poland, even after the country regained its independence. One notable manifestation of these attitudes includes numerus clausus rules imposed, with government support, by almost all Polish universities in the 1930's. William W. Hagen in his Before the "Final Solution": Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland article in Journal of Modern History (July, 1996): 1-31, details:

Related Topics:
Numerus clausus - William W. Hagen

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:"In Poland, the semidictatorial government of Pilsudski and his successors, pressured by an increasingly vocal opposition on the radical and fascist right, implemented many anti-Semitic policies tending in a similar direction, while still others were on the official and semiofficial agenda when war descended in 1939.... In the 1930s the realm of official and semiofficial discrimination expanded to encompass limits on Jewish export firms... and, increasingly, on university admission itself. In 1921-22 some 25 percent of Polish university students were Jewish, but in 1938-39 their proportion had fallen to 8 percent."

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While there are many examples of Polish support and help for the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, there are also numerous examples of anti-semitic incidents, and the Jewish population was certain of the indifference towards their fate from the Christian Poles. The Polish Institute for National Memory identified twenty-four pogroms against Jews during World War II, the largest occurring at the village of Jedwabne in 1941 (see massacre in Jedwabne). Nazi-occupied Poland was also the only country in Europe where the death penalty was imposed for assisting a person of Jewish origin.

Related Topics:
Pogroms - Jedwabne - Massacre in Jedwabne

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After the end of World War II the remaining anti-Jewish sentiments were skillfully used at certain moments by communist party or individual politicians in order to achieve their assumed political goals, which pinnacled in the March 1968 events. These sentiments started to diminish only with the collapse of the communist rule in Poland in 1989, which has resulted in a re-examination of events between Jewish and Christian Poles, with a number of incidents, like the masscre at Jedwabne, being discussed openly for the first time. Violent anti-semitism in Poland in 21st century is marginalhttp://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2004/graph-7.jpg compared to elsewhere, but there are very few Jews remaining in Poland. Still, according to recent (June 7, 2005) results of research by B'nai Briths Anti-Defamation League, Poland remains among the European countries (with others being Italy, Spain and Germany) with the largest percentages of people holding anti-Semitic views.

Related Topics:
March 1968 events - Communist - 1989 - B'nai Brith - Anti-Defamation League

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Poland is actively trying to address concerns about anti-semitism. In 2004, the Polish government approved a National Action Program against racism, including anti-semitism. Additionally the Polish Catholic Church has widely distributed materials promoting the need for respect and cooperation with Judaism.

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Germany

See main articles: History of the Jews in Germany, Holocaust

Related Topics:
History of the Jews in Germany - Holocaust

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The Jews in Germany were subject to a many persecutions, as well as brief times of tolerance. By the early 20th century, the Jews of Germany were the most integrated in Europe, but the situation changed quickly with the rise of the Nazis and their explicity anti-Semitic program, hate speech referring to Jewish citizens as "dirty Jews" became common in anti-semitic pamplets and newspapers, such as Völkischer Beobachter and Der Stürmer.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Hate speech - Jew - Newspaper - Völkischer Beobachter - Der Stürmer

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Nazi cartoons depicting "dirty Jews" frequently portrayed a dirty, physically unattractive and badly dressed "talmudic" Jew in traditional religious garments similar to those worn by Hassidic Jews. Articles attacking Jewish Germans, while concentrating on commercial and political activities of prominent Jewish individuals, also frequently attacked them based on religious dogmas. Accusations of responsibility of "killing our savior Jesus Christ" and refusal by Jews to "accept the savior" and convert to Christianity that fueled the hatred in the Middle Ages were also repeated by Nazi propagandists.

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Hatred against Jews manifested itself in such measures as the Nuremberg Laws which banned "race-mixing" and in the Kristallnacht riots which targeted Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship.

Related Topics:
Nuremberg Laws - Kristallnacht

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Russia and the Soviet Union

Main articles: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union, Pogrom

Related Topics:
History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union - Pogrom

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The Pale of Settlement was the Western region of Imperial Russia to which Jews were restricted by the Tsarist Ukase of 1792. It consisted of the territories of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexed with the existing numerous Jewish population, and the Crimea (which was later cut out from the Pale).

Related Topics:
Pale of Settlement - Imperial Russia - Ukase - 1792 - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Crimea

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During 1881-1884, 1903-1906 and 1914-1921, waves of anti-Semitic pogroms swept Russian Jewish communities. At least some pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Russian okhranka; although there is no hard evidence for this, the Russian police and army generally displayed indifference to the pogroms (e.g. during the three-day First Kishinev pogrom of 1903), as well as to anti-Jewish articles in newspapers which often instigated the pogroms.

Related Topics:
1881 - 1884 - 1903 - 1906 - 1914 - 1921 - Pogrom - Okhranka - First Kishinev pogrom

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During this period the May Laws policy was also put into effect, banning Jews from rural areas and towns, and placing strict quotas on the number of Jews allowed into higher education and many professions. The combination of the repressive legislation and pogroms propelled mass Jewish emigration, and by 1920 more than two million Russian Jews had emigrated, most to the United States while some made aliya to the Land of Israel.

Related Topics:
May Laws - United States - Aliya - Land of Israel

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One of the most infamous anti-Semitic tractates was the Russian okhranka literary hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, created in order to blame the Jews for Russia's problems during the period of revolutionary activity.

Related Topics:
Hoax - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Even though many Old Bolsheviks were ethnically Jewish, they sought to uproot Judaism and Zionism and established the Yevsektsiya to achieve this goal. By the end of the 1940s the Communist leadership of the former USSR had liquidated almost all Jewish organizations, including Yevsektsiya.

Related Topics:
Old Bolsheviks - Yevsektsiya - 1940s

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The anti-Semitic campaign of 1948-1953 against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the fabrication of the "Doctors' plot," the rise of "Zionology" and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were officially carried out under the banner of "anti-Zionism," but the use of this term could not obscure the anti-Semitic content of these campaigns, and by the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West and domestically. See also: Jackson-Vanik amendment, Refusenik, Pamyat.

Related Topics:
1948 - 1953 - Rootless cosmopolitans - Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee - Doctors' plot - Zionology - Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public - 1950s - Jackson-Vanik amendment - Refusenik - Pamyat

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Today, anti-Semitic pronouncements, speeches and articles are common in Russia, and there are a large number of anti-Semitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, leading Pravda to declare in 2002 that "Anti-semitism is booming in Russia"http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/30/33489.html. Over the past few years there have also been bombs attached to anti-semitic signs, apparently aimed at Jews, and other violent incidents, including stabbings, have been recorded.

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Though the government of Vladimir Putin takes an official stand against anti-semitism, some political parties and groups are explicitly anti-semitic, in spite of a Russian law (Art. 282) against fomenting racial, ethnic or religious hatred. In 2005, a group of 15 Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia. In June, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism — the investigation was actually launched, but halted amid international outcry.

Related Topics:
Vladimir Putin - Duma

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