Antisemitism

Antisemitism[a] or Jew-hatred[2] is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews.[3][4][5] This sentiment is a form of racism,[b][6][7] and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society.[8] In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions.[9][10] The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism,[11][12] which is distinct from antisemitism itself.[13]

There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution. On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide, which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although the term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death, between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine, between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair, between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies. Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe. However, since the early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world, largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories, which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories.[14][15]

In recent times, the idea that there is a variation of antisemitism known as "new antisemitism" has emerged on several occasions. According to this view, since Israel is a Jewish state, expressions of anti-Zionist positions could harbour antisemitic sentiments.[16][17] Natan Sharansky describes the "3D" test to determine the existence of such antisemitism: demonizing Israel, the double standard of criticizing Israel disproportionately to other countries, and delegitimizing Israel's right to exist.[18]

Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879[19] as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit.'Jew-hatred'),[20][21][22][23][24] and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.[20][25][26]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference IHRA2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Jew-hatred". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/2854443694. Retrieved 2 September 2024. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ^ "anti-Semitism". Oxford Dictionaries – English. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  4. ^ "anti-Semitism". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  5. ^ See, for example:
  6. ^ "Measures to combat contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance" (PDF). United Nations. 1 March 1999. p. 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 August 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2023.
  7. ^ Nathan, Julie (9 November 2014). "2014 Report on Antisemitism in Australia" (PDF). Executive Council of Australian Jewry. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 April 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  8. ^ "Antisemitism in History: Racial Antisemitism, 1875–1945". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 31 March 2020. Retrieved 20 September 2023. These new 'antisemites,' as they called themselves, drew upon older stereotypes to maintain that the Jews behaved the way they did—and would not change—because of innate racial qualities inherited from the dawn of time. Drawing as well upon the pseudoscience of racial eugenics, they argued that the Jews spread their so-called pernicious influence to weaken nations in Central Europe not only by political, economic, and media methods, but also literally by 'polluting' so-called pure Aryan blood by intermarriage and sexual relations with non-Jews. They argued that Jewish 'racial intermixing,' by 'contaminating' and weakening the host nations, served as part of a conscious Jewish plan for world domination.
  9. ^ Novak, David (February 2019). "Supersessionism hard and soft". firstthings.com. Archived from the original on 29 September 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  10. ^ Sandra Toenies Keating (2014). "Revisiting the Charge of Taḥrīf: The Question of Supersessionism in Early Islam and the Qurʾān". Nicholas of Cusa and Islam. Brill. pp. 202–217. doi:10.1163/9789004274761_014. ISBN 9789004274761. S2CID 170395646. Archived from the original on 29 November 2018. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  11. ^ "From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism". Facing History and Ourselves. 1 August 2017. Archived from the original on 22 September 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  12. ^ Zauzmer Weil, Julie (22 August 2019). "How anti-Semitic beliefs have taken hold among some evangelical Christians". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  13. ^ M. Freidenreich, David (18 November 2022). "How Christians Have Used Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim Rhetoric for Their Own Ends". University of California Press. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  14. ^ Herf, Jeffrey (December 2009). "Nazi Germany's Propaganda Aimed at Arabs and Muslims During World War II and the Holocaust: Old Themes, New Archival Findings". Central European History. 42 (4). Cambridge University Press: 709–736. doi:10.1017/S000893890999104X. ISSN 0008-9389. JSTOR 40600977. S2CID 145568807.
  15. ^ Spoerl, Joseph S. (January 2020). "Parallels between Nazi and Islamist Anti-Semitism". Jewish Political Studies Review. 31 (1/2). Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: 210–244. ISSN 0792-335X. JSTOR 26870795. Archived from the original on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  16. ^ "What's the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?". BBC News. 28 April 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  17. ^ Malik, Kenan (24 February 2019). "Antisemites use the language of anti-Zionism. The two are distinct". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  18. ^ "3D Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization". Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. 11 November 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
  19. ^ Bein (1990), p. 595.
  20. ^ a b Lipstadt (2019), pp. 22–25.
  21. ^ Chanes (2004), p. 150.
  22. ^ Rattansi (2007), pp. 4–5.
  23. ^ Johnston (1983), p. 27.
  24. ^ Laqueur (2006), p. 21.
  25. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 133.
  26. ^ Lewis, Bernard. "Semites and Anti-Semites". Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 27 October 2018.. Extract from Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East, The Library Press, 1973.


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