Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism (or antisemitism) is hostility toward – or discrimination against – Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.

The Columbia Encyclopedia describes anti-Semitism as a “form of prejudice against Jews, ranging from antipathy to violent hatred.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has documented that “1.09 billion people in the world today harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.”

The opposite of anti-semitism is Philo-Semitism (or philosemitism) – an interest in or respect for the Jewish people, and the historical significance of Jewish culture.

Note: the publishers of Apologetics Index have a deep love and respect for the Jewish people. We consider any form of anti-Semitism to be not only misguided and unreasonable, but also hateful.

Articles

• Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe? Jeffrey Goldbeg, The Atlantic, April 2015
  

  For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended–the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice. […]

  But what makes this new era of anti-Semitic violence in Europe different from previous ones is that traditional Western patterns of anti-Semitic thought have now merged with a potent strain of Muslim Judeophobia. Violence against Jews in Western Europe today, according to those who track it, appears to come mainly from Muslims, who in France, the epicenter of Europe’s Jewish crisis, outnumber Jews 10 to 1.
  – Source: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe? Jeffrey Goldbeg, The Atlantic, April 2015

Encyclopedias

• Anti-Semitism Encyclopedia Brittanica
• Anti-Semitism Extensive article in Wikipedia
  

  Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled antisemitism) is hostility toward or prejudice against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group, which can range from individual hatred to institutionalized, violent persecution. The highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler’s Nazism was the most extreme example of this phenomenon, leading to a genocide of the European Jewry. Anti-Semitism takes different forms:

  • Religious anti-Semitism, or anti-Judaism. Before the 19th century, most anti-Semitism was primarily religious in nature, based on Christian or Islamic interactions with and interpretations of Judaism. Since Judaism was generally the largest minority religion in Christian Europe and much of the Islamic world, Jews were often the primary targets of religiously-motivated violence and persecution from Christian and, to a lesser degree, Islamic rulers. Unlike anti-Semitism in general, this form of prejudice is directed at the religion itself, and so generally does not affect those of Jewish ancestry who have converted to another religion, although the case of Conversos in Spain was a notable exception. Laws banning Jewish religious practices may be rooted in religious anti-Semitism, as were the expulsions of the Jews that happened throughout the Middle Ages.

  • Racial anti-Semitism. With its origins in the early and popularly misunderstood evolutionary ideas of race that started during the Enlightenment, racial anti-Semitism became the dominant form of anti-Semitism from the late 19th century through today. Racial anti-Semitism replaced the hatred of Judaism as a religion with the idea that the Jews themselves were a racially distinct group, regardless of their religious practice, and that they were inferior or worthy of animosity. With the rise of racial anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories about Jewish plots in which Jews were somehow acting in concert to dominate the world became a popular form of anti-Semitic expression.
  

  

  The ADL GLOBAL 100 survey documents attitudes and opinions toward Jews in over 100 countries around the world

  
  • New anti-Semitism. Many analysts and Jewish groups believe there is a distinctly new form of late 20th century anti-Semitism, called the New anti-Semitism, which is associated with the Left, rather than the Right, borrowing language and concepts from anti-Zionism. Some of these analysts identify anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, arguing that anti-Zionism “advocates denial of the right to self-determination of the Jewish people.”
  – Source: Anti-Semitism, Wikipedia. As posted at Wikipedia on Mar. 30, 2006, 00:35 CET

• New Anti-Semitism
  

  The term new anti-Semitism refers to the contemporary international resurgence of anti-Jewish incidents and attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of anti-Semitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse.

  The term, which first came into general use in the early 1970s, is used to distinguish a form of anti-Semitism regarded as differing in its rhetoric, its professed purpose, and its place on the political spectrum from the old anti-Semitism, which derived from the Right and was motivated by racial theory, religion, or nationalism. The new anti-Semitism is closely associated with the Left and its opposition to Zionism, and to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

  Controversy regarding new anti-Semitism centers on whether opposition to the state of Israel expresses anti-Semitism only as a symptom or by-product, or whether it is more closely linked to, and supported by, more general anti-Semitic beliefs. Critics of the concept contend that it serves only to equate legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
  – Source: New Anti-Semitism, Wikipedia. As posted at Wikipedia on Mar. 30, 2006, 00:37 CET

• Christians and Anti-Semitism
  

  This article is about the history of Christianity and anti-Semitism. Anti-Jewish sentiment has been expressed by many Christians over the last 2000 years, but many other Christians, increasingly in recent years, have also condemned these sentiments.
  – Source: Christians and Anti-Semitism, Wikipedia. As posted at Wikipedia on Mar. 30, 2006, 00:40 CET

News & News Archive

Anti-Semitism news tracker, provided by Religion News Blog
Google News: Anti-Semitism

See Also

Hate Groups
• ADL Global 100 This survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League documents attitudes and opinions toward Jews in over 100 countries around the world.
• Latest Trends in Religious Restrictions and Hostilities Pew Research Center, Feb. 26, 2015. “Overall Decline in Social Hostilities in 2013, Though Harassment of Jews Worldwide Reached a Seven-Year High”

Websites

• Anti-Defamation League (ADL) International Jewish organization based in the US. It’s motto is “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people…to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”
  

  The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.
  – Source: About the Anti-Defamation League

• MEMRI — Middle East Media Research Institute CAUTION: Includes many images and videos of atrocities. MEMRI documents trends, including antisemitism and Islamic extremism, in the Middle East and South Asia by “providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends.”