Roots of anti-Semitism

The causes of anti-Semitism are hotly debated.

Anti-Semitism is hatred of people because of their Jewish ancestry. The reasons for anti-Semitism may vary from person to person, so that different people are anti-Semitic for different reasons. Some of the suggested causes of anti-Semitism include:

• Religious reasons
• Economic reasons
• Ethnic reasons
• Political reasons (including anti-Zionism)

Table of contents

1 Religious Reasons 1.1 Judaism as an Ethnic Religion 1.2 Opposition from Christianity 1.2.1 Demonic Possession 2 Economic Reasons 3 Ethnic Reasons 3.3 Nazism 4 Political Reasons 4.4 Anti-Zionism 4.4.2 Zionist conspiracy theories 4.5 Other Conspiracy Theories

Religious Reasons

Disagreement with the religion of Judaism, as such, does not constitute anti-Semitism. Christians, Hindus, atheists, and others are not considered anti-Semitic for believing that Judaism's tenets are not true. However, theological anti-Semitism is not merely a rejection of Judaism: it is a set of theological teachings which condemn the Jews as a people or tradition and which uses hatespeech to attack Jewish beliefs. Theological anti-Semitism is referred to by some historians and scholars as anti-Judaism to emphasize its relationship to the Jewish religion, and to distinguish it from anti-Semitism based on other reasons.

Judaism as an Ethnic Religion

Judaism is distinct in a more fundamental way; historically it has been an ethnic religion, or as some prefer to describe it, Judaism is an evolving religious civilization. Unlike Christianity, and only accidentally similar to Islam, Judaism has a strong ethnic component.

Although they offer teachings and wisdom for other people to imitate, and allow people from any heritage or background to convert to Judaism, Jews usually do not aggressively seek followers except among ethnically Jewish people. Judaism is usually considered to be passed down from the mother to the child. Conversion to Judaism differs from conversion to Christianity, in that conversion to Christianity primarily concerns identification with a particular tradition of beliefs, while conversion to Judaism legally is treated as a quasi-adoption, in which one choose to adopt not only Jewish beliefs, but Jewish ethnicity.

Opposition from Christianity

Main article: Christianity and anti-Semitism

Judaic traditions extend at least a thousand years BCE, and is the founding basis for Christianity. Christianity holds some Judaic traditions and texts as sacred, but differs in other aspects.

Except in its modernized forms, Christian theology has been committed to the view found in the New Testament, that from the beginning of the world God has revealed one way by which humanity may enter into God's rest, and has found fault with all other ways. This one way of salvation was revealed with greater and greater clarity, especially through the Jewish prophets, until finally all of God's saving purposes were revealed in Jesus Christ. Therefore, Christianity had been understood to teach that, all people must be directed toward Jesus Christ in order to be reconciled with God, "the Jew first, and also the Gentiles", because Christ came in fulfillment of promises made to the Jews, for the sake also of the Gentiles. Thus, the New Testament in its present form clearly declares that the Jews are in no better position than the Gentiles, if they have not believed in the Son of God. This teaching is sometimes called supersessionism, or replacement theology, because it says that with the coming of Jesus a new covenant has rendered obsolete and has superseded the religion of Judaism, which is described as a "shadow" of Jesus Christ, who is the "substance".

In modern times, especially since the Holocaust, supersessionism has been allegedly, directly linked with anti-semitism of both, racial and theological kinds. The linking of anti-semitism with the doctrine that Jesus is the only way of salvation has become widespread, especially in Protestantism, but recently also among the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II. Consequently, to seek the conversion of any people, especially of the Jews, is frequently decried as "religious hatred", "genocide" and "imperialism".

The charge of "theological anti-Semitism" has been levelled against traditional Christianity, as such. Until 1965, for instance, the Catholic Church had as part of the Good Friday prayers, that "the wicked Jews", as a people, were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Some Christian preachers, particularly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, additionally taught that religious Jews choose to follow a faith that they actually know is false out of bitterness, jealousy and the desire to offend God. This way of describing the Jews was repudiated as part of Vatican II. Some Protestant sects also have taught, and some still do teach, that the Jews are condemned for Christ's death in a way that other people are not. Traditionalists labor to condemn attitudes which are contrary to the Law of God, and to differentiate these from the Gospel itself, which they wish to defend, as against blasphemy, from the accusation of sinfulness; while, more liberal factions are more sensitive to accusations that the Christian message itself is offensive.

Therefore, almost all Christians and Christian churches condemn anti-Semitism, but there are radical differences among them concerning what constitutes an anti-semitic attitude or doctrine. The pluralist movements in these churches urge an end to all exclusivist claims of Christianity, and speak against all efforts to convert others, especially the Jews, to the Christian religion. But, the traditionalists continue to believe that this would only happen if the Christian faith were to be replaced in the churches, with another religion unknown to the Scriptures or to their Christian forebears. They urge that if salvation in Christ is no longer preached to the Jews, then the Christian message to all men is abandoned, without which all men are lost. While traditionalists defend their supersessionist doctrine as necessary, they are rapidly losing ground in the official representation of what the Christian religion teaches. Many hail this repudiation of evangelisation of the Jews as a trend of Christian-Jewish reconciliation, while their opponents use terms such as "anti-semitism", "genocide", and "apostasy" to explain what it means not to seek the conversion of the Jews; and in this way, this is growing into a deeply divisive issue among modern Christians.

Demonic Possession

In the medieval era many Christians believed that some (or all) Jews possessed magical powers; depending on the culture, people believed that the Jews gained these magical powers from making a deal with the devil. These beliefs extended to other non-Christian religions, such as various pagan religions. The Inquisition was one horrific consequence of these beliefs.

This was also often accompanied by beliefs that non-Christian religious practice entailed devil worship, or "Satanic" actions such as drinking the blood of Christian children, in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. This latter belief is known as the blood libel. Superstitious fear of the Jews still persists, here and there.

• The Satanizing of the Jews: Origin and Development of Mystical Anti-Semitism Joel Carmichael, 1992

Economic Reasons

In the medieval era, many people believed that Jewish people unfairly took away jobs and money from Christians. One historical theory for the growth of this sentiment points to the medieval Christian prohibition of usury, then defined as the practice of loaning money at interest. Because there remained a demand for the receipt of loans, non-Christians were much more likely to practice moneylending. Furthermore, Roman-Catholic restrictions on what positions could be held by Jews closed off many alternatives, leaving banking as one of the few areas open to them.

This connection became established as a social stereotype in many medieval minds, leading to unjustified resentment of "usurious" Jews. These feelings may well have been fanned by the cynical efforts of debtors to escape their debts. The play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare contains a character that is an example of such a stereotype, and attitudes toward that character reflected by the play suggest the prevalence of this economic anti-Semitism in medieval and Renaissance Europe. His name, Shylock, became a slang term for an extortionate moneylender.

During the industrialization era (19th and early 20th century), especially in the Eastern Europe, many of the early industrial entrepreneurs were of Jewish origin. They helped improve the local economies enter European trade routes, but the local population were not happy to have to work for what they considered "foreigners enriched using national resources".

More commonly, there is prejudice against Jews on account of the fact that Jews are often, in spite of what ethnic and religious differences they have with the population at large, in positions of power and prestige.

Ethnic Reasons

Racial anti-Semitism, the most modern form of anti-Semitism, is a type of racism mixed with religious persecution. Racial anti-Semites believe erroneously that the Jewish people are a distinct race. They also believe that Jews are inherently inferior to people of other races.

In fact the Jews are an evolving religious civilization that started out as a nationality in exile. Most historians, as well as most Jewish people, consider Jews to be an ethnic group with the religion of Judaism at its core.

Nazism

When of the philosophies of Nazism was the superiority of the Aryan race, and the inferiority of the so-called "semitic races", principally the Jews. The consequence of these philosophies was the Holocaust. It also caused continuing anti-Semitism long after the fall of the Third Reich.

Political Reasons

Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism has been a tool for communists in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the former Soviet Union. It was used instead of anti-Semitism, that was politically not corect and officially forbidden. It is a common phenomenon in the Arab Middle East, where in most sources there is no distinction whatsoever between the terms "Zionist", "Zionist enemy" and "Jew"; this confluence of terms is held by some to be anti-Semitic.

Zionist conspiracy theories

Many people in fringe groups, such as Neo-Nazi parties and Hamas claim that the true aim of Zionism is global domination; they call this the Zionist conspiracy and use this to support anti-Semitism. This position has historically been associated with Fascism and Nazism.

In addition, believers in Holocaust revisionism often claim that this "Zionist conspiracy" is responsible for the exaggeration or wholesale fabrication of the events of the Holocaust. Most academics also agree that there is no reliable evidence for any such conspiracy, and an overwhelming amount of historical evidence that supports the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust.

One of the most damaging anti-Semitic tractates published is the infamous Russian literary hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a key part of many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This subject has its own entry.

Other Conspiracy Theories

Because Karl Marx was of ethnic Jewish origin, this has led some to postulate that communism is a Jewish conspiracy. This is despite the fact that Karl Marx was born into a Lutheran family and was raised a Lutheran until becoming an atheist as a young man. Marx himself harbored anti-Semitic views, having published On the Jewish Question, in which he writes "What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.", and claims "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." [1]