Antisemitism

Antisemitism
Name	Antisemitism
Location	Worldwide
Date	Ancient–present
Deaths	Millions

Antisemitism is hostility, prejudice, or discrimination directed against Jews manifested across social, political, religious, and cultural contexts. It has appeared in ancient societies, medieval polities, modern nation-states, and transnational movements, shaping episodes such as pogroms, expulsions, and genocides while intersecting with figures, institutions, and events across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

Definition and terminology

Scholars debate definitions offered by authorities like William Nichols, Leon Poliakov, Hannah Arendt, Salo Baron, Gershom Scholem, Saul Friedländer, Deborah Lipstadt, Bernard Lewis, John Locke and John Rawls; legal frameworks appear in instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Treaty of Versailles, and national statutes in United Kingdom, France, Germany, United States, Canada, Australia and Israel. Terminology has evolved from labels in Ancient Rome and Classical Greece to modern lexicons used by institutions like the United Nations, European Union, NATO, Council of Europe, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and human rights NGOs including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Antony Beevor and other chroniclers. Historians such as Heinrich Graetz, Jacob Katz, Eliyahu Ashtor, Robert Wistrich, James Carroll and Paul Johnson analyze etymology, while jurists cite cases from Nuremberg Trials, ECHR cases, and domestic courts in Poland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden.

History

Ancient episodes involve contacts among Ancient Egypt, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Achaemenid Empire, Hellenistic kingdoms, Seleucid Empire, Hasmonean dynasty, and communities in Alexandria described by Philo of Alexandria, with later developments in Byzantine Empire, Visigothic Kingdom, Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate and Ottoman Empire; medieval records cite events in Carolingian Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Portugal, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Kievan Rus', Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Kingdom of Hungary. Early modern expulsions link to decrees by the Spanish Inquisition, the Alhambra Decree, the Portuguese Inquisition, and edicts under monarchs such as Isabella I of Castile, Ferdinand II of Aragon, João II of Portugal and rulers of Navarre. Modern eras include antisemitic currents in the milieu of the French Revolution, the Dreyfus Affair, the Russian Empire with episodes like the Pogroms and policies from figures such as Alexander III of Russia, the rise of movements including Zionism under Theodor Herzl and the antisemitic ideologies culminating in the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, the Third Reich, the Final Solution and the Holocaust. Postwar developments involve trials like the Nuremberg Trials, the creation of State of Israel, displacement after World War II, Cold War alignments with Soviet Union, episodes in Argentina, South Africa, United States civil rights movements, and contemporary tensions in regions including Gaza Strip, West Bank, Iran, Turkey and diasporas in Australia and Canada.

Forms and manifestations

Manifestations range from vandalism, hate speech, discriminatory laws, and exclusionary policies to violence such as massacres, pogroms, deportations and genocide exemplified by the Kristallnacht and the Wannsee Conference outcomes. Cultural antisemitism appears in caricatures, literature and plays linked to figures like Martin Luther, Voltaire, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry Ford, Charles Maurras and newspapers such as Der Stürmer; political antisemitism arises in parties and movements including National Socialist German Workers' Party, Golden Dawn (Greece), Jobbik, Ku Klux Klan, National Front (France), National Alliance (Italy), Muslim Brotherhood, and factions in Ba'ath Party. Economic tropes recur in myths about financiers and bankers tied to names like Rothschild family, Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild, J. P. Morgan, Levi Strauss and institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Bank of England and Federal Reserve System. Religious manifestations appear in sermons, liturgy and polemics involving authorities like Pope Urban II, Pope Gregory IX, Pope Pius XII, Patriarch Jeremias II, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon references, and controversies surrounding texts like the Gospel of John and medieval forgeries such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Online and digital forms involve platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, 4chan, 8kun and networks exploited by extremist groups like Atomwaffen Division and Islamic State.

Causes and motivations

Explanations draw on social, economic, political, religious and psychological theories advanced by scholars like Max Weber, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Theodor Adorno, Franz Neumann, Hannah Arendt, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Browning, Timothy Snyder and Ian Kershaw. Motivations include scapegoating during crises such as wars like Thirty Years' War, Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II; demographic shifts in cities like Warsaw, Vilnius, Kraków, Salonika, Prague, Budapest and Moscow; nationalist projects in 19th-century Europe; colonial encounters involving British Empire, French Empire, Spanish Empire; ideological drives from fascism, communism, religious fundamentalism, and populist movements linked to leaders like Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Conspiracy theories circulate via texts and actors including Henry Ford, Nicolas Sarkozy, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping in rhetoric, and movements such as QAnon; antisemitism can be instrumentalized by parties, militias and states during campaigns like those in Weimar Republic, Imperial Russia, Interwar period and contemporary electoral politics in United States, Brazil, India and France.

Impact and consequences

Consequences include mass murder in the Holocaust, forced migrations to places like Palestine Mandate, United States, Argentina, Canada and Australia, legal reforms after trials in Nuremberg Trials and policy shifts in international law via the Genocide Convention. Cultural loss affected communities in Shtetls across Pale of Settlement, artistic networks in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and scholarly lineages at institutions like Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Chicago, Jewish Theological Seminary and Yad Vashem. Economic ramifications touched banking houses, guilds and trades in cities such as Florence, Venice, Antwerp and London; political consequences reshaped constitutions and parties in Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary. Individual impacts include trauma studied by clinicians and authors like Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl, Judith Herman and Bracha Ettinger; communal rebuilding involved organizations like American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress, Jewish Agency for Israel, Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center and relief efforts from United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Responses and countermeasures

Responses include legal reforms such as hate-crime statutes in United States, Germany's Basic Law provisions, France's laws against incitement, and European directives promoted by the European Commission. Educational initiatives involve curricula at institutions like Yad Vashem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Imperial War Museum, Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History and programs by UNESCO and OSCE. Activism arises from groups like Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center, B'nai B'rith International, Jewish Federations of North America, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund collaborations, and interfaith dialogues involving Vatican II, Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, World Council of Churches, Organization of Islamic Cooperation and civic coalitions in Berlin, Paris, New York City, London and Jerusalem. Counter-extremism measures engage law enforcement and intelligence agencies such as FBI, MI5, BKA, GIGN, Mossad and judicial remedies through courts in International Criminal Court, European Court of Human Rights and domestic judiciaries. Memory practices include memorials and days of remembrance like International Holocaust Remembrance Day, academic scholarship in departments at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Oxford University, Harvard University and public history projects supported by foundations including Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.

Category:Ethnic hatred