Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

To account for the rise of anti-Semitism in the West in the modern period we can turn to the evolution and popularization of its four principal roots. The four roots, religious, racial, economic, and political, contain within themselves four distinct anti-Semitic narratives, each of which entailed its own set of themes depicting Jewish malfeasance. Anti-Semitism in the years prior to 1870 was largely characterized by a dislike based primarily on religious differences and perceived Jewish economic practices. After 1870, both religious and economic anti-Semitism continued – albeit with new themes – to be joined by the rising racial and political strains. Of the four roots of anti-Semitism, religious anti-Semitism has the longest history in western Christian societies. Religious anti-Semitism encompasses hostility derived from the Jewish people's refusal to abandon their religious beliefs and practices, and, specifically within Christian societies, from the accusation of Jewish collective responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ. By the eighteenth century, the religious root would expand to include the French Enlightenment's critique that Judaism was responsible for the anti-progressive and exclusionist characters of its followers. Official Christian antipathy toward Judaism began to gather steam within one hundred years of the death of Christ. Christian bitterness may have stemmed ... log in or subscribe to read full text