Antisemitism

There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution. On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews, and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide, which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although the term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death, between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine, between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair, between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies. Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe. However, since the early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world, largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories, which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories.^[13][14]


In the contemporary era, a manifestation known as "new antisemitism" was identified. This concept argues the exploitation of the Arab–Israeli conflict by a large number of concealed antisemites, who may attempt to gain traction or legitimacy for their antisemitic hoaxes by portraying themselves as criticizing the Israeli government's actions.^[15] Likewise, as the State of Israel has a Jewish-majority population, it is common for antisemitic rhetoric to be manifested in expressions of anti-Israeli sentiment,^[16][17] though this is not always the case and such expressions may sometimes be part of wider anti–Middle Eastern sentiment without an exclusively antisemitic motive.^[18]


Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879^[19] as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'),^{[20][21][22][23][24]} and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.^[20][25][26]

Causes

Antisemitism has been explained in terms of racism, xenophobia, projected guilt, displaced aggression, and the search for a scapegoat.^[281] Some explanations assign partial blame to the perception of Jewish people as unsociable. Such a perception may have arisen by many Jews having strictly kept to their own communities, with their own practices and laws.^[282] Theodor W. Adorno wrote that 'Anti-Semitism is the rumour about Jews'.^[283][284]


It has also been suggested that parts of antisemitism arose from a perception of Jewish people as greedy (as often used in stereotypes of Jews), and this perception has probably evolved in Europe during medieval times where a large portion of money lending was operated by Jews.^[285] Factors contributing to this situation included that Jews were restricted from other professions,^[285] while the Christian Church declared for their followers that money lending constituted immoral "usury".^[286]