Anti-Semitism

History

• Anti-Semitism has persisted for over 2000 years. It had been around since the beginnings of the Christian Church

• Nazi Germany took it to a genocidal extreme• Leaders of the early European Christian church

solidified the doctrine ideas that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ, the destruction of the Temple by the Romans

• The scattering of Jewish people was punishment for failing to abandon their faith and accept Christianity

• Myths:– 1) Jews did not work hard or produce goods with their

hands– 2) Jews chose to work with money and to trade in goods

they did not produce because of their skills, their greed, and their desire to manipulate and cheat Christians

– 3) Jews were cowards in a fair fight and avoided military service

– 4) Jews preferred meaningless study and frivolous entertainment to hard, creative work

– 5) Jews were insincere and potentially disloyal in that they converted to Christianity to obtain material benefits.

– Where did these ideas come from?

• Blood libel– Myth that stated that Jews used the blood of

Christian children for ritual purposes– 1894 last trial

Painting of blood libel in Sandomierz Cathedral

• Scattered until 12-15th century – invited in certain areas

• Poland: manage commerce and handle money-lending (banned in Catholic & Orthodox Churches as immoral)

• They were allowed to expand into free professions: music, art, theater, literature, film

• Restrictions placed: could not own land or moveable property, enter military service, serve in Royal bureaucracy or civil service

• This all led to Jewish stereotypes:– 1) Jews did not work hard or produce goods with their

hands– 2) Jews chose to work with money and to trade in goods

they did not produce because of their skills, their greed, and their desire to manipulate and cheat Christians

– 3) Jews were cowards in a fair fight and avoided military service

– 4) Jews preferred meaningless study and frivolous entertainment to hard, creative work

– 5) Jews were insincere and potentially disloyal in that they converted to Christianity to obtain material benefits.

World War I

• 1914-1918• Lost by Germany and Austria• Forced to pay HUGE reparations (last pmt

1988) by Versailles Treaty• Europe’s first experience with mass killing• Bolshevik Revolution in Russia – fear of

communism

Racial Anti-Semitism

• Joseph Arthur de Gobineau – 1853 - Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races – Racial superiority of whites/Aryans, diluted when

mixed with other races– Excerpt

• Social Darwinism – late 1800s/turn of the century– Humans not one species but divided into several

different races – Only those with superior qualities could win eternal

struggle

• Sixteenth century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther writes:– “First, to set fire to the synagogues and schools,

and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.”

• New anti-Semites armed with new info drew upon older stereotypes to maintain that Jews behaved the way they did because of innate racial qualities inherited from the dawn of time

• Believed Jews spread like a germ through Europe and weakened nations by political, economic, media methods as well as “polluting” the so-called pure Aryan blood by intermarriage

• Jewish immigration to the United States increased from 50,000 in 1881 to 3.4 million in 1919– Trying to escape anti-Semitism, poverty and

despair• Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic teachings

were dismissed as “a Jewish Science”• Albert Einstein a German Jew was awarded

the Nobel Peace Prize

• When Nazis came to power in 1933 there were more than 9 million Jews living in the 21 European nations later occupied by Germans in WWII

• 560,000 Jews lived in Germany. That’s less than one percent of the entire population

• By 1945 two out of three of the 9 million were dead

• First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Socialist.

• Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

• Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.

• Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

• Pastor Martin Niemoller

Enter Adolf Hitler on the scene in Germany

Private in German army during WWI