HatredStopsToday
Understanding History
To understand antisemitism today, we must look at history to understand antisemitism as a whole. Jews have been used as scapegoats and interpreted as devils and inferior for thousands of years. Antisemitism has shifted from a religious hate, to a racial hate, to lastly a political/nationality hate. It is time we unpack history.
Early Christian Roots
During the 2nd century, when Christianity was at its early stages, a theological concept known as "Jewish deicide" emerged. Christians believed Jews killed Jesus, creating a massive wave of antisemitism throughout the Christian population. Jews were blamed for kidnapping and murdering Christian children, as well as spreading disease, essentially using Jews as a scapegoat.
The false claim of "Jews as Christ killers" gets compared to the current struggles of Palestinians, blaming the Israeli government and military. People will connect claims far back in history to current events today, showing a long strand of interconnected antisemitism.
Christians believed Jews got in the way of redemption because the Jews refused to believe in Jesus. The belief was that if everyone believed in Jesus we would all be in heaven, but since Jews refused to believe in Jesus, they were classified as "evil". Since Jews were the "non-believers" that also meant they were the root of all of the Christians worst problems, because it was believed the Jews were economically progressive and aligned directly with governments. Today that means genocide, colonialism, apartheid, racism, etc.
Throughout the medieval era, Christians slaughtered thousands of Jews. Jews were denied citizenship, exempt from government/military standings, and excluded from occupations.
Artwork from this time period, depicted Jews with horns and cloven feet. It showed Jews using the blood of Christian children in sacrifices. This was known as the blood libel. The blood libel specifically was the act of Jews murdering children and using there blood for religious sacrifices. People believed Jews would mix it into matzah, drink it, or use it to mock the crucifixion of Jesus.
Jews In Europe
During the 13th century, Jews moved throughout Europe as part of the Roman Empire. Many Jewish villages were located on the Silk Road. Along the route of the Crusades, Jews were slaughtered if they refused to convert. The location of Jewish villages made them vulnerable as the Crusades navigated along the same trade route that the villages were settled on. In Northern Europe and Italy, Jews were forced to wear yellow badges to identify themselves as Jews. Jews were also forced to live in ghettos that were locked at night so they couldn't leave. Starting in the 14th century, Spain and Portugal drove out their Jewish population through large massacres and pogroms. This forced many Jews to convert to Catholicism to save their lives. Shortly after, the Spanish Inquisition was designed to target Jewish communities by executing anyone that was thought to be practicing Judaism in secret after they converted to Catholicism.
During Europes Bubonic Plague, also known as, The Black Death, the Jewish survival rate was high, causing a conspiracy theory to emerge that said, Jews had poisoned the wells of Europe. The truth was, due to religious law, Jews were required to clean their homes and take baths regularly. Since Jews lived in ghettos it was easy to keep their space clean because no outside religion was coming in and living alongside them with different routines. The Black Death was caused by fleas, so therefore it was important to keep the space you live in clean at the time, which was exactly what Jews had always done due to religious law.
The Progrom of Strasbourg, By Emile Schweitzer (1894), portrays the Strasbourg massacre of Jews accused of causing the Black Death.
Boukhari, Arabia.com. April 7, 2002.
"DO NOT KILL HIM TWICE" is a recycled deicide charge.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Holocaust
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a Russian made document, published in 1903, that claimed there was a secret conclave of Jewish leaders, plotting to take over the world by controlling media, rigging the economy, and stirring religious discord. This document spread across Europe, the U.S., South America, Japan, and the Middle East.
Protocols became a playbook for Hitler during the Holocaust as he referenced it in speeches and propaganda.
Throughout the Holocaust, antisemitism shifted to a more racially based hate. Jews were referred to as an inferior race or biological threats. A belief based on Social Darwinism said, that if Jewish people mixed or married into European society, they would ruin "pure Aryan blood", weaken nations, and take over the world. Hitler depicted Jews as a biological threat to Europe, leading to the murder of 6 million Jews.
