Lesson 1: Introduction
History of Anti-Semitism
For centuries Christian teaching falsely accused the Jews for the murder of Jesus Christ. It was this teaching that was the underlying cause of Christian hatred of Jews for nearly 2,000 years.
Jesus, his parents Mary and Joseph, and all of his twelve disciples were born Jews, lived their lives as Jews, and died as Jews. Jesus spoke the ancient Jewish language of Aramaic and he preached to the Jewish people. The early Christians were considered a sect of Judaism, known as “The Way.”
Anti-Semitism—“The Longest Hatred”—developed during the following centuries as Christian Europe blamed the minority of Jews living among them for more and more of society’s problems. As a result of this “scapegoating,” Jews have often been the victims of massacres and other forms of persecution.
Anti-Semitism was not exclusively a German phenomenon and its roots lie deep in European culture. This is one reason why Nazi Anti-Semitism found so many willing adherents and why so many people in occupied lands collaborated with the Nazis in the persecution and murder of the Jews. Take time to read through the timeline (you will have noticed that Holocaust Chronicle has a continuous timeline as well), and then consider and write about the statements that follow in your journal.
Ancient Times
- 922 B.C. The Jewish kingdom is established
70 A.D. The Romans conquer the Jewish kingdom – the Temple of Solomon is destroyed. Some Christians, then still a small Jewish sect, take this as a sign that God has rejected the other Jews. For centuries afterwards, many Christians hold Jews in contempt and justify all of the suffering that they inflict upon the Jewish people as the will of God.
1096 The First Crusade begins. Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land murder a third of the Jewish population of Germany and Northern France.
- 1144 Norwich. The first known “blood libel”: Jews are falsely accused of killing a Christian boy for ritual purposes. This superstition spreads throughout Europe, and will still be believed in the 20th century. Part of the lie that is spread is that Jewish leaders gather each year to select a victim and this starts the idea of a sinister Jewish conspiracy.
- 1215 The Fourth Lateran Council, under Pope Innocent III introduced a “sign” for Jews in Europe. They are forced to dress in a certain way or carry the Jewish mark, usually a yellow badge.
1290 The Jews are expelled from England.
- 1348 The Black Death. Not understanding that the plague was a disease spread by the fleas on black rats, Christians accuse Jews of causing it by poisoning wells. As a result tens of thousands of Jews are massacred across Europe.
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14th Cent. The Jews are expelled from France.
Early-Modern World
1492 The largest community of Jews in the world is expelled from Spain, unless they are willing to be baptized. Those who leave settle mainly in the Mediterranean world, but many also in Germany. It is believed that Christopher Columbus’ family may have been part of this group that left Spain.
- c.1500 The Jewish community of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania becomes the largest in the world; Jews are drawn there by liberal laws and economic freedom at a time of great persecution in other parts of Europe.
- 1516 A district called “The Ghetto” is established in Venice. Jews have been confined to walled areas of some towns for several centuries, but soon most German and Italian towns will force their Jews to live in them. (It should be noted that the Venetians forced other “foreigners” to live in segregated areas of the city as well.)
- 1543 Martin Luther—the founder of Protestantism—publishes About the Jews and their Lies. Luther had believed that Jews had refused to become Christians because of faults in the Catholic Church. He turned strongly against the Jews when he failed to convert them to his new form of Christianity.
1648 War and unrest lead to massacres on Jews in Poland and the Ukraine. Western Europe becomes more tolerant towards Jews and countries that have previously forced Jews to leave begin to allow them to return.
Modern World
- 1791 French Jews gain equal rights in France after the Revolution.
- 1772-1795 Poland-Lithuania is divided up between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Most Jews now find themselves living in the Russian Empire, which has previously excluded Jews.
- 1819 Pogrom against the Jews of Copenhagen.
- 1858 Lionel Rothschild takes his seat as Member of the British Parliament, previously closed to practicing Jews.
- 1871 The unification of German states. Jews gain equal rights throughout the new country.
- 1879The German journalist Wilhelm Marr coins the new term “Anti-Semitism” and forms the Anti-Semitic League. This marks the beginning of Anti-Semitism as a political movement, based on the idea of Jewish “race.”
- 1881 Pogroms in Russia following the murder of the Tsar by a group of terrorists, one of them a Jew. Thousands of Russian Jews emigrate to the United States and Western Europe to escape the violence. Ordinary Jews will often be unfairly blamed for acts of terrorism and for plotting revolutions.
- 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the first Jew on the French Army’s General Staff, is convicted of spying and sent to prison on Devil’s Island. When it is proved that Dreyfus is innocent and that senior officers have forged the evidence against him, a ten-year scandal—“The Dreyfus Affair”—breaks out, bitterly dividing French society. The “anti-Dreyfusards” use Anti-Semitic propaganda and sometimes violence.
1918-1921 Pogroms in Eastern Europe--60,000 Jews are killed in the Ukraine by Ukrainian nationalists.
- Christian Anti-Semitism made the Holocaust inevitable.
- Christian Anti-Semitism was not a significant factor in causing the Holocaust.
- Christian Anti-Semitism prepared the ground for the Holocaust, but did not make it inevitable.
