Antisemitism
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Antisemitism is the bias, prejudice or discrimination against Jews. A synonym of antisemitism is Judeophobia,[1] preferred by those considering "antisemitism" ambiguous.[1]
Overview
[change | change source]Human history has been full of antisemitism,[1] the worst instance of which is the Holocaust,[2] while the most common form of antisemitism is conspiracy theories.[3][4] The adjective of antisemitism is antisemitic. Those with antisemitic views are called antisemites.
Etymology
[change | change source]American historian Deborah Lipstadt and several antisemitism experts said that the word antisemitism was invented by anti-Jewish German nationalist Wilhelm Marr in his tract Path to Victory of Germanism Over Judaism to refer to the prejudice against Jews, which he deemed necessary for the German race to stop Jews (the leading group of Semites in Europe back then) from subverting the German culture.[5] Despite Semites including other Middle Eastern ethnic groups,[6] German nationalists like Wilhelm Marr referred to Jews as Semites specifically.[5][6]
Semantically, antisemitism cannot be assumed as the prejudice against all Semitic groups, or it would constitute the etymological fallacy (using a word's ancient meaning to make a point about its current meaning).[6] Moreover, the word covers Jews who practice Judaism, Jews who converted to Christianity and those with traceable Jewish ancestry,[5][6] all of whom can be victims of antisemitism.[5][6]
Spelling
[change | change source]The term is spelled by some as anti-Semitism, but such spelling is controversial. Historians have pointed out that anti-Semitism is misleading as there is no such an ideology as "Semitism" that can be opposed,[5][6] while the concept Semites derived from pseudoscientific 19th-century scientific racism.[5][6]
Europe
[change | change source]In a 2013 survey of 5,847 Jews in Europe, 76% thought that antisemitism had increased in the previous five years, while 29% had thought about moving countries as they felt unsafe.[7]
Latin America
[change | change source]
MENA
[change | change source]Background
[change | change source]
Jews started living in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century BC, when Babylonian Empire's conquest of the Kingdom of Judah forced Jews out of Judea. Successive waves of Jewish exiles – caused by alternating conquests of Judea – made Jews the leading ethnoreligious group[8] in the Arabian Peninsula, where Judaism stood in contrast to the multi-god religion of ancient Arabs,[9] many of whom had arrived later than the Jews due to their nomadic nature.[9]
Middle Ages
[change | change source]Jews thrived in the Arabian Peninsula until Muslims conquered the Peninsula, when they, along with other conquered indigenous peoples, were required to pay jizya in exchange for their existence to be tolerated.[9][10] The payment of jizya granted Jews the status of dhimmi under which they were prohibited – under the threat of execution – from criticizing any aspects of Islam, sharing Jewish ideas to Muslims or touching a Muslim woman.[11] Jews were also not allowed to[11]
21st century
[change | change source]2010s
[change | change source]Some polls indicate antisemitism may be common in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In 2011, the Pew Research Center polled a significant number of Middle Eastern countries' citizens, where Muslims are the majority. Most of the interviewees were hostile to Jews. Only 2% of Egyptians, 3% of Lebanese Muslims and 2% of Jordanians reported feeling good about Jews.[12]
United States
[change | change source]2010s
[change | change source]
A 2017 survey showed that 14% of Americans were hostile to Jews.[13]
2020s
[change | change source]The FBI released crime statistics illustrating that antisemitic incidents constituted 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in 2023, a 63% rise compared to 2022.[14]
Related pages
[change | change source]- Khazar myth
- Antiziganism
- Historical revisionism
- Anti-Judaism and antisemitism
- Antisemitism in the Soviet Union
- Antisemitic stereotypes
- Nazism
References
[change | change source]- 1 2 3
- Schäfer, Peter (October 1, 1998). Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674487789. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- Hayes, Christine (1999). "Judeophobia: Peter Schäfer on the Origins of Anti-Semitism". Jewish Studies Quarterly. 6 (3). Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG: 261–273. JSTOR stable/40753239. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- Wistrich, Robert S. (1999). Demonizing the other: Antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-51619-8. Retrieved December 7, 2024.
- Sadan, Tsvi (July 1, 2021). "It's Not Antisemitism, It's Judeophobia. What's the Difference and Why You Should Know". Israel Today. Retrieved December 3, 2024.
- ↑
- Shapiro, P.A. (2007). "Faith, murder, resurrection: The Iron Guard and the Romanian Orthodox Church". Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253116741. OCLC 191071016. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- Laqueur, Walter (July 30, 2009). "Towards the Holocaust". The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195341218. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "Deportation of Hungarian Jews". Timeline of Events. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 25 November 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
- Brosnan, Matt (12 June 2018). "What Was The Holocaust?". Imperial War Museum. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- "36 Questions About the Holocaust". Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles. Retrieved 2024-10-14.
- ↑
- Robertson, David George (November 25, 2014). "Metaphysical conspiracism: UFOs as discursive object between popular millennial and conspiracist fields". University of Edinburgh Research Archive. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Bronner, Stephen Eric (2020). "Conspiracy Fetishism, Community, and the Antisemitic Imaginary". Antisemitism Studies. 4 (2). Indiana University Press: 371–387. doi:10.2979/antistud.4.2.06. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Kofta, Mirosław; Soral, Wiktor; Bilewicz, Michał (2020). "What breeds conspiracy antisemitism? The role of political uncontrollability and uncertainty in the belief in Jewish conspiracy". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 118 (5): 900–918. doi:10.1037/pspa0000183. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Robertson, David G. (2021). "Chapter 7 They Knew Too Much: The Entangled History of Conspiracy Theories, UFOs and New Religions". Handbook of UFO Religions. pp. 178–196. doi:10.1163/9789004435537_009. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Robertson, David G. (2022). "Conspiracy Theories about Secret Religions: Imagining the Other". The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781003014751. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- ↑
- Knight, Peter (2008). "Outrageous Conspiracy Theories: Popular and Official Responses to 9/11 in Germany and the United States". New German Critique (103). Duke University Press: 165–193. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Byington, Bradley (December 19, 2020). "Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories and Violent Extremism on the Far Right: a Public Health Approach to Counter-Radicalization". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. doi:10.26613/jca/2.1.19. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Allington, Daniel; Buarque, Beatriz L; Flores, Daniel Barker (December 27, 2020). "Antisemitic conspiracy fantasy in the age of digital media: Three 'conspiracy theorists' and their YouTube audiences". Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics. 30 (1). doi:10.1177/0963947020971997. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Dye, Isobel (June 24, 2023). "Does Antisemitism Provide the Blueprint for Nearly All Conspiracy Theories?" (PDF). Polyphony. 5 (2). American Studies Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 29, 2024. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- Kressel, Neil J. (2024). "The Psychology of Contemporary Antisemitism". Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination (3 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781003399162. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bard, Mitchell. "Anti-Semitism or Antisemitism?". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
- "Semite | #TranslateHate | AJC". American Jewish Committee. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
Given the term's linguistic origins [...] some Arabic speakers say they cannot be antisemitic because they are "Semites" too [...] these claims are actually a manifestation of turn of the century European racism [. ...] the Black Hebrew Israelites, have said they cannot be antisemitic because they "are the Semitic people." Celebrity Kanye (Ye) West echoed this belief [. ...which] is an example of the antisemitic claim that today's Jews are not descended from the Jews of the Bible.
- Starr, Michael (February 4, 2022). "Encyclopedia Britannica: Arab, Semitic people can't be called antisemitic". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
Excluding Arabs and Semitic people from being labeled antisemitic because of their "Semitism" is what is called a "etymological fallacy" -- When the archaic root words or original meaning of a term are used to make an argument about the current meaning or even the generally accepted definition.
- "Origins and concept of anti-Semitism". Britannica. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
- "Semite | #TranslateHate | AJC". American Jewish Committee. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
- ↑ "Discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States: experiences and perceptions of antisemitism" (PDF). European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2013. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
- ↑ "Who Are the Jews? | AJC - American Jewish Committee". American Jewish Committee. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
- 1 2 3 Gil, Moshe (1997). The origin of the Jews of Yathrib. Brill. pp. 4–5. ISBN 9789004138827.
- ↑
- Cohen, Amnon (1984). Jewish Life under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century. Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674283589. ISBN 9780674283572. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- Simonsen, Jørgen Bæk (2004). "Administration In The Islamic State: An Interpretation Of The Terms "Dhimma" And "Jizya"". Islam: State And Society (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9780203060957. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- Wagner, Mark (November 30, 2018). "What Do You Know? Dhimmi, Jewish Legal Status under Muslim Rule". Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- 1 2
- Gardet, Louis (1954). La Cité Musulmane. Vie Sociale et Politique (in French) (2 ed.). Paris, France: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. p. 348. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- Ye'or, Bat (1985). The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 43–44, 56–57. ISBN 9781611470796. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- Spencer, Robert (2009). "The Qur'an: Israel Is Not for the Jews". Middle East Quarterly. 16 (4). Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- Gershenson, Miriam (November 21, 2024). "Israeli Scholar Explains Religious Conflicts Between Jews and Muslims". San Diego Jewish World. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- "Jews in Islamic Countries: The Treatment of Jews". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
- ↑ "Muslim-Western Tensions Persist - Pew Research Center". Washington, D.C. July 21, 2011.
- ↑ "In First, New ADL Poll Finds Majority of Americans Concerned About Violence Against Jews and Other Minorities, Want Administration to Act". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
- ↑
- "AJC Warns: Staggering FBI Hate Crimes Data Likely Represents Under-Reporting of Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes". American Jewish Committee. September 23, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2024.
- "Jewish community most targeted religious group, new FBI hate crime report says". The Jerusalem Post. September 23, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2024.