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:

Roman and Greek anti-Judaism

Prejudice against Jews can be traced back to the Graeco-Roman period and the rise of Hellenistic culture. Most Jews rejected efforts to assimilate them into the dominant Greek (and later Roman) culture, and their religious practices, which conflicted with established norms, were perceived as being backward and primitive. Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, for example, writes disparagingly of many real and imagined practices of the Jews, while there are numerous accounts of circumcision being described as barbarous.

Related Topics:
Greek - Roman - Gaius Cornelius Tacitus - Circumcision

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Throughout their diaspora, Jews tended to live in separate communities, in which they could practice their religion. This led to charges of elitism, as appear in the writings of Cicero. As a minority, Jews were also dependent on the goodwill of the authorities, though this was considered irksome to the indigenous population, which regarded any vestiges of autonomy among the local Jewish communities as reminders of their subject status to a foreign empire. Nevertheless, this did not always mean that opposition to Jewish involvement in local affairs was anti-Semitic. In 411 BCE, an Egyptian mob destroyed the Jewish temple at Elephantine in Egypt, but many historians argue that this was provoked by anti-Persian sentiment, rather than by anti-Semitism per se — the Jews, who were protected by the imperial power, were perceived as being its representatives.

Related Topics:
Diaspora - Elitism - Cicero - 411 BCE - Egypt - Persian

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The enormous and influential Jewish community in the ancient Egyptian port city of Alexandria saw manifestations of an unusual brand of anti-Semitism in which the local pagan populace rejected the biblical narrative of the Exodus as being anti-Egyptian. Accordingly, a number of works were produced to provide an "Egyptian version" of what "really happened": the Jews were a group of sickly lepers that was expelled from Egypt (see Manetho, Apion). This was also used to account for Jewish practices — they were so sickly that they could not even wander in the desert for more than six days at a time, requiring a seventh day to rest, hence the origin of the Sabbath. It was these charges that led to Philo's apologetic account of Judaism and Jewish history, which was so influential in the development of early church doctrine. Ancient anti-semitic tales were also picked apart in Josephus Flavius' pamphlet Against Apion.

Related Topics:
Alexandria - Exodus - Manetho - Apion - Philo - Josephus Flavius

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