Anti- Semitism changes over history

Notes

Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and anti-Semitic incidents have increased in parts of Europe, the Middle East and North America in the last several years.

The term anti-Semitism was first popularized by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879 to describe hatred or hostility toward Jews.

In much of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish people were denied citizenship and forced to live in ghettos.

Anti-Semitism in Medieval Europe

Jews were denied citizenship and civil liberties, including religious freedom throughout much of medieval Europe.

Poland was one notable exception. In 1264, Polish prince Bolesław the Pious issued a decree allowing Jews personal, political and religious freedoms. Jews did not receive citizenship and gain rights throughout much of western Europe, however, until the late 1700s and 1800s.

Russian Pogroms

Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, Jews throughout the Russian Empire and other European countries faced violent, anti-Jewish riots called pogroms.

Pogroms were typically perpetrated by a local non-Jewish population against their Jewish neighbors, though pogroms were often encouraged and aided by the government and police forces.

Kristallnacht

30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Anti-Semitism in the Middle East

anti-Semitic activities grew in many Arab nations, causing most Jews to leave over the next few decades.

Nazi Anti-Semitism

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany in the 1930s on a platform of German nationalism, racial purity and global expansion.c

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 introduced many anti-Semitic policies and outlined the definition of who was Jewish based on ancestry.

According to the Nuremberg Laws, Jews were no longer German citizens and had no right to vote.

Holocaust

Hitler and the Nazis began to implement their plan to exterminate the Jewish people, which they referred to as the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem.”