Anti-Semitic views. Anti-Semitism. Why don't they like Jews? Judaism as a worldview
In the era of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was not anti-Semitism that flourished mainly, but Judeophobia - one of the forms of inter-religious hatred, directed in this case at representatives of the Jewish faith and ending with a change of faith.
Theological doctrines allowed the existence of Judaism in Christian lands (unlike all other faiths and heresies, which were subject to eradication). However, of course, equality was impossible here - on the contrary, the position of the eternally persecuted Jews symbolized their rejection of Jesus and the truth of Christianity.
In the late Middle Ages, professional hatred was added to religious hatred: in many European countries, Jews who were constantly expelled, who were also forbidden to engage in most types of arts and crafts, found themselves connected with financial transactions - from the smallest to the largest. Hostility towards moneylenders, coming both from the poor who suffered from debts and from the bourgeoisie who competed with the Jews, gave rise to another form of hatred.
However, already in the late Middle Ages, a special kind of xenophobia arose - racial anti-Semitism, “by blood,” in which no change of faith or profession could save a Jew or deliver him from the nature cursed by God.
It all began in Spain, a country that was once the most complex society in Europe, where Judaism, Islam and Christianity coexisted. The most important center of medieval Jewish culture became the place where the first racial laws in history were adopted, purifying the “true Spanish nobility” from the penetration of “non-purebred” elements into it.
Similar decrees came into force in 1449 after the uprising of “hereditary Christians” in Toledo: many craft corporations were then prohibited from accepting converted Jews and their descendants into their ranks, and other cities from settling on their territory.
Restrictions on former Jews received the force of a universal law in 1536, several decades after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.
Support for these regulations was so great that the Dominican Ignacio Baltanas, who wrote a book in defense of the converts and their descendants and pointed out the equality of all Christians, as well as the vital role played by many former Jews in Spanish history, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1563 . Only the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius Loyola, and his associates for several decades (until 1592) allowed themselves to defiantly ignore the racial laws of the Spanish monarchy.
By the middle of the 16th century, the descendants of baptized Jews made up 4–5% of the country's population; they were a wealthy and educated group, closely associated with the highest aristocracy, but due to their origin, all social elevators for such people were completely closed.
The practice of obtaining “certificates of blood purity” and, conversely, producing forged documents proving the presence of ancestors of a despised race in the family in order to discredit opponents has become widespread. Representatives of the special profession linajudo collected information about genealogies in order to then use it for various purposes.
This quote, illustrating the current situation, is given by one of the most prominent historians of anti-Semitism, Leon Polyakov:
Among the titles of anti-Semitic treatises of that time one can find such as “The burning poison of dragons and the mad bile of snakes” or “Jewish baths, where the practical tricks and meanness of the Jews are publicly demonstrated, how they drink Christian blood, as well as their bitter sweat...”.
The word “Jew” in the most unexpected figurative meanings has also become part of the German dialects.
Thus, in East Friesland, a meal without a meat dish began to be called a “Jew,” and in the Rhineland, a part of the spine of a pig.
The phraseological collection of German dialects of the modern era was replenished with expressions in the spirit of “this food tastes like a dead Jew.”
The Age of Enlightenment, although it contributed to the achievement of class and religious equality, did not at all eradicate anti-Semitism - even in secular and educated strata.
Previously, Jews were despised for not accepting Christ, but now, among other things, the Jews were to blame for the fact that they gave birth to Him (or rather, Christianity). One of the most ardent supporters of this point of view was the greatest thinker of the Enlightenment, Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire.
In numerous texts and letters, he not only reproduced well-worn templates about usury and the desire to get rich (in the conditions of constant bans on professions and expulsions, financial transactions were one of the few available forms of income for Jews), but also brought forward new “arguments” that formed the basis of anti-Semitic myths of the New Age.
He argued that Jews, being not Europeans but Asians, would never become equal to the “white people.”
“You are counting animals, try to be thinking” - with this “recommendation” Voltaire concludes the article “Jews” in his “Philosophical Dictionary”, where he mentions numerous human sacrifices performed by the Old Testament Jews.
And the French classic advises contemporary representatives of this people to become invisible, like the Parsee-Zoroastrians of the then India and Iran.
In other texts he denounces the Jews as "inveterate plagiarists", claiming that there is not a single page in their books that has not been stolen, for example, from Homer. Voltaire equates the intellectual activity of Jews with the work of a ragpicker (another profession permitted to European Jews), who sells ideas that have long been known and patched up as new.
Voltaire's anti-Jewish rhetoric formally boils down mainly to criticism of the Old Testament, but time after time it takes on a clearly racist character and has a much deeper meaning than the standard prejudices of the era.
Of course, the French Enlightenment has many faces, and if Voltaire was the main anti-Semite of the movement, then Denis Diderot and - in particular - Jean-Jacques Rousseau spoke rather on the side of the small oppressed minority that made up the European Jews of those times.
Rousseau, in particular, argued that it was necessary to listen to Jewish arguments against Christianity, and it was impossible to fully become familiar with them until Jews received equal social status with Christians and felt safe in defending their religion.
The German educator Gotthold Lessing, author of the plays “The Jews” (1749) and “Nathan the Wise” (1779), was the first major figure in Europe to take a philo-Semitic position. The Berlin Jewish philosopher and friend of Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn, who became the prototype of Nathan, was one of the most popular German-speaking thinkers of his time.
The German classical thinker and founder of local philosophical nationalism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, experienced a radical hostility towards Jewry.
“To protect myself from them, I see only one way: to conquer their promised land for them and send them all there,” - he wrote in one from his first major works, published in 1793.
Fichte states that granting Jews civil rights (while he recognized their human rights and the right to practice Judaism) could cause enormous harm, since they, in his words, would form a “state within a state”, destroying the unity of the nation. Moreover, the philosopher argued that “it is possible to provide them with civil rights only on one condition: in one night, cut off all of their heads and attach another one, in which there will not be a single Jewish idea.”
We find radical criticism of Judaism and a consistent refusal to sympathize with discriminated Jews in many of his other works. This belief system, combined with romantic nationalism and the belief that only his fellow countrymen were the bearers and collectors of true Christianity, subsequently made Fichte one of the most important characters in the Nazi pantheon of “great Germans.”
Despite this, in 1812, Fichte resigned as rector and professor of philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin in protest against the indifference of his colleagues who refused to protect a Jewish student from humiliation. And Johann Fichte considered his senior contemporary, the German-Jewish philosopher Solomon Maimon, to be one of the most important predecessor thinkers.
The emancipation and assimilation of Jews, which became more and more noticeable in the cultural, economic and social life of Western Europe, also gave rise to new forms of hatred.
Figures of the French left movement of the first half of the 19th century: the socialist Charles Fourier, the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - hated the “Jews,” identifying Jewry with the spirit of capitalism.
At the same time, Proudhon in his texts even went so far as to repeat Nazi calls for the expulsion or complete destruction of the people. Fighting the “foreign occupation of France,” he convinced his compatriots to return to their original, natural state.
The first major representative of collectivist anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, was also close in his views to Proudhon and Fourier. Only the subsequent widespread participation of Jews in the leftist movement (associated, among other things, with the mass emigration of the dispossessed Jewish proletariat from Eastern Europe) made it possible to overcome the initial anti-Semitic bias characteristic of this political movement.
One of the right-wingers whose hatred of Jews became textbook was the German composer and ideologist of romantic nationalism Richard Wagner. In his article “Jewishness in Music,” published in 1850 and republished in 1869, he wrote:
“...the entire European civilization and its art remained alien to the Jews: they did not take any part in their education and development, but deprived of their fatherland, they only looked at them from afar. In our language and in our art, a Jew can only repeat, imitate, but he is not able to create elegant works, to create.
How alien the Jews are to us can be judged from the fact that the very language of the Jews is disgusting to us. The peculiarities of Semitic speech, the special stubbornness of its nature, were not erased even under the influence of two thousand years of cultural communication between Jews and European peoples.
The very expression of sound, alien to us, sharply strikes our ears; The unfamiliar construction of phrases also has an unpleasant effect on us, thanks to which Jewish speech takes on the character of inexpressibly confused chatter...<…>
Do not hesitate, we will tell the Jews, to take the right path, since self-destruction will save you!
Then we will agree and, in a certain sense, be indistinguishable! But remember that only this alone can be your salvation from the curse that lies on you, since the salvation of Agasfer is in his destruction.”
Wagner's petty and restless Jew was the exact opposite of the epic German hero. He is a representative of a “degenerate” cosmopolitan urban civilization, where the spirit of the nation, embodied for the author of “The Ring of the Nibelung” in romanticized images of the Middle Ages, is being erased. He calls the poet Heinrich Heine and the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy “mediocre Jewish opponents.”
The greatest anti-Semite of Russian classical literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky, also wrote at the same time as Wagner.
Most of his predecessors considered the Jewish theme to be marginal, but Gogol’s “Taras Bulba” reflected the historical realities of interreligious hostility in Ukrainian society of the 17th century.
Dostoevsky made anti-Semitism one of the most important elements of his religious-conservative ideology. He argued that discrimination against “Jews” is only a way to protect Russian peasants from the “dominance of the Jews.” Dostoevsky describes the participation of the latter in the revolutionary movement as follows:
A decade and a half later, in 1894, the intellectual circles of France were agitated by the “Dreyfus case” - a Jewish officer accused of high treason and sentenced to life in hard labor on the basis of forged documents.
Until the complete rehabilitation of Alfred Dreyfus and his return to military service in 1906, the most important element of French public life was the confrontation between pro- and anti-Dreyfus intellectuals and public figures - Dreyfussards and anti-Dreyfussards. The latter often associated the alleged “betrayal” of the convicted person with his Jewish origin and used this situation for mass propaganda of anti-Semitism.
Dreyfussards were Emile Zola, Anatole France, Marcel Proust, Claude Monet. In the camp of their opponents were Jules Verne, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne...
In Russia, which was rocked by Jewish pogroms throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Anton Chekhov was a passionate Dreyfussard.
Leo Tolstoy, on the other hand, considered this matter of little importance and, first of all, criticized Judaism for its nationalistic character, and secondly, he condemned the violence of the pogromists.
The “iconic” anti-Semitic intellectuals of the mid-20th century were the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and the poet Ezra Pound, who closely and not very closely collaborated with the German Nazis and Italian fascists.
One of the most influential thinkers of the last century, Martin Heidegger, considered “world Jewry” to be a force that dehumanizes and alienates humans from natural life in favor of technological civilization. For a brief period in 1933–1934, he was rector of the University of Freiburg, “coming to power” in the wake of Nazi policies in the country. He also claimed to be the “philosopher of the party,” however, being too deep and abstract an intellectual, he lost the fight to the racial theorist Alfred Rosenberg. In all likelihood, this led to his resignation from the post of rector.
Over the next decade, Heidegger avoided direct support or criticism of the regime in his public appearances and remained a member of the NSDAP until 1945. Having lived until 1976, the philosopher never discussed or condemned either Nazism or the Holocaust, declaring only once that the decision to take the rector’s post was the greatest stupidity of his life.
The debate about Heidegger's attitude towards Jews continued for decades: some intellectuals justified the thinker, others considered anti-Semitism and connections with Nazism to be a natural consequence of his philosophy.
It broke out in 2014 - then the Black Notebooks were published - the diaries that Heidegger kept in the 1930s and 1940s. It turned out that anti-Semitic sentiments possessed him throughout the 1930s (as, indeed, before that, when he complained in private correspondence about “Jewish dominance”). Moreover, they put forward the thesis that the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was an act of self-destruction of the Jews: the technology that, according to the philosopher, they personified, destroyed them.
The French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine, whose radically anti-Semitic books of the 1930s still cannot be published in France (but were recently published in Russia - they were published by the Devastator project), is one of the key figures in the history of the world avant-garde: his works influenced Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jean Genet...
It is still unclear what was the reason for Selina’s anti-Semitism. There are a lot of hypotheses on this score, including very extravagant ones: perhaps it was a “proto-punk” joke, a way to oppose oneself to liberalism; according to another version, the reason is the desire to avoid a new world war; There is also an opinion that the writer dreamed of the unification of Europe under German rule and the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne.
Celine's characteristic speech style is perhaps best characterized by a joke he made in February 1944 at a reception at the German embassy in Paris.
The defeat of Germany in World War II seemed inevitable, so the writer suggested that Hitler had been replaced by a Jewish puppet double, consciously leading the Aryan race to destruction.
The great American modernist poet Ezra Pound, who lived in Italy, never tired of blaming the usurious spirit of Jewry both in pro-fascist radio broadcasts during World War II and on the pages of his main work - the large-scale poem Cantos, covering many eras, spaces, times and containing inserts in different languages of the world - from Latin to Chinese.
After Italy's defeat in World War II, Pound was accused of treason, but he was declared insane and spent many years in a mental hospital (where he wrote much of the poem). Only in 1958 was he able to return to the Apennines. His first gesture on Italian soil was his hand raised in the “Roman salute.”
After the Holocaust and the defeat of Nazism in World War II in Western Europe and the United States, anti-Semitism became one of the undisputed symbols of evil, an unconditionally “socially condemned” phenomenon.
The situation in the USSR turned out to be different: the extermination of Jewish writers and the virtual ban on national culture in 1948–1949, the anti-Semitic campaign around the “Doctors' Plot” in 1953 and the radical anti-Israel policy of the Soviet government after 1967 made anti-Semitism, if not legal, then legitimate - both in the dissident environment and in the (semi-)official one.
Intellectuals associated with Orthodoxy and pochvenism, from the imperial author of historical novels Valentin Pikul to the philosopher A.F. Losev and the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, critically assessed the role of the “Jews” they generalized in Russian history and did not hesitate to openly express their attitude towards them.
Solzhenitsyn's two-volume bestseller, published in the early 2000s » is devoted mainly to proving the historical guilt of the Jews before the Russian people.
Despite the formal differences in xenophobic ideas, from which, as it turns out, no one is free, including the most profound intellectuals, they all have common features at their core.
In relation to anti-Semitism, this work was carried out by the German philosopher Theodor Adorno and identified in his Dialectic of Enlightenment "seven of its main characteristics (set out here in the interpretation of Christian Fuchs).
- Jews are considered a race.
- Jews are presented as greedy people whose main goals are power and money; they turn out to be representatives of financial capital.
- Jews are blamed in a fetishistic manner for all the general problems of capitalism.
- Hatred towards Judaism is manifested.
- Natural characteristics attributed to Jews are imitated, which psychologically express human dominance over nature or the imitation of magic.
- Personal characteristics such as "power over society" are attributed to Jews as a race. Thus, they are “endowed” with special power.
- Anti-Semitism is based on irrational stereotypes, meaningless generalizations and judgments. It asserts that individuals, as members of a certain group, must disappear, and is based on hatred of the Other.
Perhaps this short list will help the reader identify anti-Semitic ideas, one of the many forms of cognitive distortions caused by emotional hostility towards others.
On December 13, 1742, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna issued a decree on the expulsion of the Jews. This was one of the first anti-Semitic campaigns in Russia, but far from the first and not the last in world history. Our article is devoted to the reasons for this phenomenon
Eternal outcasts
Anti-Semitism has found supporters in different societies and at different times, starting with Ancient Egypt. The first known non-Jewish source mentioning the people of Israel is the stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, dating from 1220 BC. e. It says: “Israel is destroyed.” The Assyrians, the Persians, and the ancient Romans were also Judephobes.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, Jews were sooner or later expelled from almost every country where they lived: from England in 1290, from France in 1306 and 1394, from Hungary between 1349 and 1360, from Austria in 1421, from the German principalities throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, from Spain in 1497, from Bohemia and Moravia in 1745. From the 15th century to 1772, Jews were not allowed into Russia, and when they were finally accepted, they were allowed to live only outside the Pale of Settlement. There were even attempts to completely exterminate the Jewish population in one territory or another (for example, in Nazi Germany or in Ukraine during the time of Bogdan Khmelnitsky). From 1948 to 1967, almost all the Jews of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, although not officially expelled, fled these countries out of fear for their lives. What is the reason for such an ancient and exceptional rejection of the Jewish ethnic group?
Judaism as a worldview
According to the American historian Denis Prager, “Anti-Semites oppose Jews not so much because Jews are rich - at all times, poor Jews were hated no less; not because they are strong - weak Jews have always been the prey of anti-Semitic bandits; not because they are characterized by repulsive behavior - anti-Semites never spared even kind Jews; and not because the ruling classes under capitalism directed the discontent of the working people towards the Jews - pre-capitalist and modern non-capitalist societies were significantly more anti-Semitic than capitalist ones.
The fundamental cause of anti-Semitism is what made Jews Jews, namely Judaism." Judaism is not just a religion, it is a holistic picture of the world, often alien to the picture of the world of those peoples among whom Jewish communities existed and exist. Judaism does not lend itself to assimilation and openly separates itself from the traditions of surrounding ethnic groups, turning Jews into eternal outsiders who, at best, should be treated with suspicion.
Those who did not honor the emperor
In the ancient world, the Jews were the only people professing monotheism. But that's not so bad. While pagan peoples (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc.) were tolerant and even “exchanged” deities, the Jews considered their God the only one in the universe, and the gods of their neighbors were considered dead idols. This attitude especially irritated those peoples who had a tradition of deifying rulers. First of all, this concerns Ancient Rome. This was no longer a religious, but a state problem: Jews were turning into a “fifth column,” a potentially unreliable element that raised doubts about political loyalty. And if you consider that the Jews several times raised bloody uprisings against the Romans, then you can understand why they were not favored in the empire.
Crucified Christ
Because of their adherence to monotheism, the Jews spoiled relations with the followers of Christ, refusing to recognize God in Jesus, which was perceived by the latter as a betrayal. In the wake of this confrontation, the sons of Israel entered the Middle Ages, turning into outcasts of the Christian world (there was talk that the Jews crucified the Lord, that they drink the blood of Christian babies at Easter, spread the plague and poison wells).
But even under these conditions, the Jews continued to emphasize their identity. The fact is that the Torah forbids Jews to hide their faith; on the contrary, according to its instructions, a faithful son of Israel must publicly emphasize that he is a Jew. Therefore, Jews had to openly behave differently from their non-ethnic surroundings: observe the Sabbath, eat differently and dress differently. In addition, unlike the New Testament, Jewish law did not prohibit usury, a low and despicable craft in the eyes of Christians. All this could not but bring hostile feelings on the Jews from their neighbors (it is significant that if a Jew accepted Christianity, hostility towards him faded away).
Desiring world domination
An additional irritating factor was the Jews' belief in their chosenness by God. And although Jews interpret their chosenness exclusively as preaching the Old Testament faith and morals throughout the world, anti-Semites have always tried to present the matter as if Jews lay claim to innate national superiority and on this basis strive to occupy a dominant position in society. These ideas especially spread in modern times. They do not lose popularity in modern society. Indeed, among successful entrepreneurs and politicians, Jews make up a significant percentage (about 30%). And in general, the level of well-being of Jewish families is often higher than that of their non-Jewish neighbors.
The reason here again lies in Jewish traditions. Judaism has always considered study a religious obligation for all its followers. “It is the duty of every Jew,” wrote the medieval lawyer Moses Maimonides, “to study the Torah, whether he is poor or rich, in good or weak health, full of youthful strength or old and weak.” Not only men, but also women had to understand literacy. This tradition, dating back to ancient times, has made itself felt in modern society, where knowledge has become the main value. “The Jewish passion for learning,” writes Denis Praeger, “helps explain why Jews have the highest average income of all ethnic groups, 72% higher than the national (American) average and 40% higher than the Japanese in second place.” " Of course, anti-Semites interpret this as confirmation of their fears about Jewish claims to world domination.
Fee for uniqueness
As sociological surveys show, even in such a tolerant country as the United States, 60% of respondents attributed their adherence to the idea of God's chosenness to the “latently negative” qualities of Jews. “This is 5 times more,” writes Denis Prager, “than those who believe that “the Jews have seized too much power,” and 3 times more than those who believe that “the Jews are trying to get into places where they are not wanted.” , and 2 times more than those who are convinced that “Jews don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
In Russia, these figures are many times higher, as well as in Central Europe in general. In many ways, these are echoes of the totalitarian regimes that the 20th century was rich in. Such regimes inevitably turn out to be anti-Semitic. The dictator's goal is complete control over the lives of his citizens, and therefore the regime cannot tolerate uncontrolled expressions of religiosity or the national individuality inherent in Judaism. Jews are accused of cunning, deceit, love of money and unscrupulousness - all this supposedly helps them make capital for themselves. “Probably a Jew,” is often said behind the backs of those who have achieved great success in life, no matter whether they are actually Jews or not.
Nevertheless, in our time, anti-Semitism is gradually declining: the progress of globalization with its ethnic tolerance is having an impact. But this decline is unlikely to be rapid. Anti-Semitism in one form or another will be alive as long as Jewish culture exists. This is the retribution of the Jews for their uniqueness: after all, the Jews are the only ethnic group that still remembers the Egyptian pharaohs, who lived to this day, preserving all their traditions and familiar picture of the world (the Chinese, however, also trace their history back to ancient times, but they are a special subject ). In this sense, the Jews are truly a chosen people, patiently suffering for loyalty to their culture, which often challenges the cultures of neighboring ethnic groups, giving rise to a feeling of misunderstanding and hidden threat in the latter towards the Jews.
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It is very difficult to logically explain the reason why one people decides that it is better than another. The term "anti-Semitism" refers to intolerance and hostility towards the Jewish people. This hostility can manifest itself in everyday life, in culture, in religious fanaticism, in political views. Anti-Semitism takes a variety of forms: from insults, restrictions and prohibitions to attempts at complete extermination (genocide). Why is this happening? Let's try, if not understand, then at least find out where the roots of this phenomenon come from.
Persecution comes from paganism
Now we can say with confidence that the first shoots of hatred towards Judaism were already cultivated in the pagan world. And even though there was no such term as anti-Semitism then, Jews were oppressed no less because of it. The pagan world with its diversity of gods was very hostile to monotheistic Judaism. There are literary sources dating back to the third century BC that describe the confrontation between Judaism and paganism.
An example of this opposition is the writing of the Egyptian priest Manetho. It describes the first conflicts and oppression of the Jewish people, in fact, the initial anti-Semitism. What is It is faith in one (or single) God. As you understand, it was simply impossible for the pagan world to understand and accept such a religious view.
Evidence of persecution and violence comes to us from both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Jews, with varying degrees of success, fought for their identity, observed their rituals and rejected the views imposed on them. This often led to increased hostility, especially from peoples who submitted to Roman authority.
Christianity and Judaism
The rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire significantly increased the persecution of the Jewish people. Now the Jews experienced the full force of religious intolerance. The causes of anti-Semitism could be found by reading the New Testament. The Jews were directly blamed for the crucifixion of Jesus, and religious fanatics of all stripes began to consider it their right to oppress and destroy this people. Christian preachers and priests constantly cultivate hatred in order to unite their flock.
Under the influence of the Church, Jews were prohibited from performing public service, owning land, buying slaves (Christians), building synagogues, and marrying Christians. Later they were forced to be baptized, and those who did not agree with this began to be exterminated.
Islam and Judaism
The followers of Islam also did not favor the Jews. that at the beginning of the 7th century AD there were clashes between the founder of Islam and the Jewish tribes, this conflict developed less aggressively in that period. The Muslim world did not show such open hostility towards the Jews as the Christian world.
Antisemitism and education
In the 18th century, the influence of religion on public life became weaker. It could be expected that anti-Semitism would also weaken. What actually happened? Has life become easier for the Jewish people? The replacement of the priest's cassock with professorial frock coats led to the fact that scientific theories began to be subsumed under religious hostility. Scientists began to diligently prove to the world that European culture is based only on Christian morality, and Judaism is inferior to it in everything. Now thinkers tried to base claims that Jews were morally inferior, as was their religion. Bloody rituals began to be attributed to them, they were accused of mixing matzah with Christian blood, and an opinion arose that Jews were striving for complete world domination.
Racism and anti-Semitism
In the 18th and 19th centuries, religious intolerance gave way to racial intolerance. In fact, the focus has changed, but the essence remains the same. Jews were now hated because they lived in closed communities. Despite the fact that a large number of famous scientists, influential bankers and successful traders came from this environment, they continued to be considered morally inferior and defective.
Nominally, Jews had equal rights in society, which allowed them to receive a good education and develop their own business, but often insults were thrown at them only because minds poisoned by hatred were now openly jealous of commercial success. The emancipation of the Jewish people, instead of the expected reconciliation, brought an unprecedented surge of aggression.
It became more and more clear how dangerous anti-Semitism is. What could happen in society for people to lose their human face and allow themselves to take part in Jewish pogroms? Can a person in a normal state beat a woman and a child to death just because they are Jews? Brutal pogroms took place in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. But Germany has gone the furthest in this matter. Entire anti-Semitic parties began to appear here, and then anti-Semitism was adopted at the legislative level.
Antisemitism in Germany
How did German ideologists manage to combine racism and anti-Semitism in their minds? What did they mean by racism in general? It was about a political theory, the main idea of which is the division of people into various biological groups. The division was made according to external characteristics, that is, by the color of hair, eyes and skin, by the shape of the nose and body structure. Each race was assigned different mental and physical characteristics, as well as certain behavioral patterns.
Racists are confident that it is useless to educate and culturally enrich representatives of other racial groups; they are not able to perceive changes for the better. The Germans, as representatives of the Aryan race, elevated themselves to the very pinnacle of development, and the long-suffering Jews were ranked among the lower races.
The most terrible combination in the history of mankind has become such a combination as fascism and anti-Semitism. Fascism itself is a harsh authoritarian principle of government based on ideas of racial superiority. Hitler generally put forward the theory that the Aryan is the actual prototype of man in general. Everyone else is just waiting for her to come and assert her dominance over them.
Holocaust
Racist pseudo-scientists argued that physically and mentally disabled people, as well as representatives of other races, had no value and were subject to extermination.
Taking into account this theory, the Jews were subject to extermination, which means that the construction of closed areas (ghettos) and concentration camps began. In total, tens of thousands of such establishments were built during World War II. The “Jewish question”, at the instigation of Nazi Germany, was resolved as follows:
- all Jews were to be concentrated in closed ghettos;
- they must be separated from other nationalities;
- Jews were deprived of any opportunities to participate in society;
- they could not have property that was confiscated or simply plundered;
- the Jewish population was driven to the point of complete exhaustion and exhaustion, so that slave labor became the only way to maintain life.
The German people supported their Fuhrer in his quest to destroy an entire nation. Massive manifestations of anti-Semitism made possible the Holocaust, during which more than 60% of the entire Jewish population of Europe was exterminated. Officially, 6 million Jews are considered victims of the Holocaust; this figure was recognized at the Nuremberg trials. Of these, only 4 million were identified by name. This discrepancy in numbers is explained by the fact that Jews were exterminated in entire communities, leaving no opportunity to report the number of victims and their names.
Anti-Semitism in Russia
Many famous writers, for example Dostoevsky, made anti-Semitic statements. The revolutionary masses also had their opponents of Jewry, for example, Bakunin. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism in Russia took an aggressive form, because the easiest way is to blame all your problems on the Jews.
Antisemitism in the USSR
The Soviet government tried to combat anti-Semitic sentiments. But it was too difficult to convince the people, accustomed to hating Jews and blaming them for all their troubles. During the NEP period, these sentiments intensified significantly, as Jews conducted successful and active economic activities. The massive presence of Jews in the ranks of party functionaries added fuel to the fire. There was an opinion that only they benefited from the revolution.
After the conclusion of the agreement with Hitler, mention of the problems of anti-Semitism came to naught, and there was no coverage of the problems of Jews in Germany at all.
Today, despite all the suffering of the Jewish people, anti-Semitism has not been eradicated. For some reason, people believe that they have the right to dictate to an entire nation how to build their lives, how to conduct religious rituals, and what days to rest. Who gave them this right? There is no answer to this question, just as there are no objective reasons to try to eliminate and destroy people with a different outlook on life.
Antisemitism- a negative image of Jews, hostility and prejudice towards them, based on religious or ethnic prejudices, a type of xenophobia.
The term denotes hostility towards Jews and/or Jews, rather than towards all peoples of the Semitic language group. The word “anti-Semitism” was first used by the German publicist Wilhelm Marr in the 19th century. his pamphlet “The Victory of Germanism over Jewry.” The term is explained by racist ideas about the biological incompatibility of Europeans, who appeared among the first ideologists of racial anti-Semitism as the “Germanic” or “Aryan” race, and Jews as representatives of the “Semitic race.” Since then, it has denoted hostility towards Jews, despite attempts, based on etymology, to extend the term to Arabs, due to the fact that they also speak the language of the Semitic group (Edward Said and others).
Sometimes the term Judeophobia is used as a synonym.
Types of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism refers to several different phenomena associated with the manifestation of hostility towards Jews:
Ancient anti-Semitism. The most ancient type of anti-Semitism. Accuses Jews of hatred of all peoples, secret and overt crimes against national morals and customs, undermining the economy, spreading false teachings, disloyalty, etc.
Christian anti-Semitism, which emerged ca. II century. It assumes hatred of Jews as carriers of Judaism, because they do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and also based on the belief that they were involved in his crucifixion. This belief is determined by the content of the New Testament and Christian doctrine. Since Jesus is considered God in Christianity, the entire Jewish people were declared “Deicides.” This worldview is characterized by the division of people according to the criterion of religion, not nationality. Thus, ideally, the Jews, when they converted to Christianity, ceased to be the subject of hatred. In practice, this did not always happen, and often such people and their children, despite the change of religion, were not recognized as full members of society and were called “crosses” (for example, Marranos). Today, religious anti-Semitism is not limited to Christianity, since anti-Jewish sentiments, based, among other things, on religious grounds, are widespread among Muslims.
Racial anti-Semitism that emerged in the 19th century. It can be called “classical”: it is with it that the very concept of “anti-Semitism” is associated, and it was its result that became the largest manifestation of anti-Semitism - the Holocaust. He views Jews as natural-born carriers of certain biologically defective characteristics, and therefore not only does not recognize the right to exist for assimilated Jews, but also considers them the most dangerous, since they introduce “damage” to the healthy body of the nation and try to secretly seize power over it.
. “New anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. At the end of the 1990s, the concept of “new anti-Semitism” appeared in the Jewish community, extending the definition of anti-Semitism to hatred of the national aspirations of Jews, primarily Zionism and the State of Israel.
In polemical journalism, new forms of anti-Semitism also arise in various post-Christian subcultures (“rock anti-Semitism”), in left and right (not only neo-Nazi) political circles, and in new movements.
. The concept of “everyday anti-Semitism” is also popular, which, as is clear from the concept itself, is not an ideology, but represents an everyday rejection of Jews associated with widespread ideas about their way of life and attitude towards non-Jews.
The famous Russian historian and ethnologist Viktor Shnirelman believes that in addition to ethnic and religious anti-Semitism, there is also anti-Semitism as a reaction to social modernization, the bearers of which are considered to be Jews. Carriers of this form of anti-Semitism can be, in particular, communists or conservatives.
Opinions on the causes of anti-Semitism
Despite the large number of sources on the problem of anti-Semitism, its causes remain poorly characterized, and therefore the analysis of the phenomenon is difficult, and its discussion is often taboo.
There are several approaches to explaining the phenomenon:
According to the most common opinion, Judeophobia in the ancient world was caused by the isolation of Jews from other peoples. This is due to the fact that Judaism is a monotheistic religion, as well as Judaism's belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen people. Likewise, early Christianity was also hated by the pagan world, resulting in many early Christians being martyred and suffering.
Many researchers explain the phenomenon of anti-Semitism for various reasons, including religious ones.
“Christians have been anti-Semitic mainly for religious reasons. The Jews were recognized as a rejected and cursed race, not because they were an inferior race by blood, hostile to the rest of humanity, but because they rejected Christ. Religious anti-Semitism is, in essence, anti-Judaism and anti-Talmudism. The Christian religion is truly hostile to the Jewish religion, as it crystallized after Christ was not recognized as the Messiah expected by the Jews."
- ON THE. Berdyaev, “Christianity and anti-Semitism”
American Protestant writer of Jewish origin Andrew Klaven believes that anti-Semitism is “ such a good indicator of the presence of evil in a person" that, as he writes, "I am inclined to believe that when God made the Jews his chosen people, he chose them to serve as a kind of 'early detection system' for immorality for everyone else."
A number of famous philosophers believed that psychological complexes underlie anti-Semitism.
"An anti-Semite is a person who is afraid. No, not Jews, of course, - he is afraid of himself, afraid of his conscience and his instincts, afraid of freedom and responsibility, afraid of loneliness and afraid of change, afraid of society and afraid of the world - he is afraid of everything, and is not afraid only of Jews."
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Reflections on the Jewish Question.
What is Antisemitism
Antisemitism is a form of hatred and discrimination against members of the Jewish faith or people of Jewish descent.
What is ANTI-SEMITISM - meaning, definition in simple words.
In simple words, Antisemitism is form ( hatred) in relation to Jews. To fully understand the term “anti-Semitism,” one must understand who the Semites are.
Who are the Semites?
Semites is a scientific term that serves to designate a group of Middle Eastern peoples united by similar cultural and linguistic traits. This term was introduced into circulation in the 18th century by German scientists I. G. Eichhorn and A. L. Schlözer. They, in turn, drew it from biblical scripture. The fact is that according to biblical texts, the peoples inhabiting the Middle East are considered descendants of Abraham. Abraham, in turn, descends from Shem ( Noah's eldest son). So it turns out that in some way, these peoples are the “sons of Shem” or, in the modern sense, Semites. The most prominent representatives of this group of peoples are Jews and Arabs.
It should be understood that there are simply no specific and objective reasons for such manifestations of hatred towards an entire group of peoples. For the most part, all hatred of Semites is built on prejudices, false judgments and envy of specific individuals or political groups.
- An explanation for envious sentiments can be the fact that the Jewish people, despite their relative small numbers and territorial fragmentation, were able to preserve their cultural and religious identity.
- Another reason for hatred is such a characteristic feature of the Jewish people as the ability to achieve results through brain activity. In simple words, this means that representatives of a given people used their brains to achieve high places in the social hierarchy. History knows a huge number of great scientists, politicians and businessmen who have Jewish roots.
- Another part of anti-Semitic sentiment is a set of stereotypes about Jewish people. For example, one can cite a stereotype about the greed and cunning of representatives of a given nation. It should be understood that this definition cannot be objective and applies to the entire people in general. However, this rhetoric is very often used to humiliate Semites.
Antisemitism in history.
Historically, anti-Semitic behavior has manifested itself in a variety of ways. In some communities, Jewish people were isolated and forced to live in certain areas (
