The term "anti-Semitism," denoting opposition to and hatred of Jews became widely accepted from the end of the 1870s. Principally, it referred to the views at the core of the anti-Jewish political trends that appeared throughout Europe in the period following the Emancipation of the Jews in the nineteenth century. These were socio-political movements using nationalist and racist concepts, which placed opposition to Jews and to the threat, which the Jews allegedly posed, at the centre of their outlook and activities. With the passage of time, "anti-Semitism" came to denote hatred of Jews in all its forms, throughout history. Root Causes. The causes of anti-Semitism, as well as its enduring nature and intensity, are based primarily on the religious and spiritual creed of Judaism and later on the role-played by Jews in the economy and other spheres of life in the Western world. Furthermore, through the centuries the term "Jew" has been associated with concepts, stereotypes, images, and calumnies that together formed a negative composite image on both the conscious and the emotional level, often almost without any relationship to Jewish society as it really existed. In time, the anxieties and fears, as well as the stereotypical image of the Jews, entered the folklore of Christian peoples, their cultural legacy, their literature, and their education. No longer mere components of religious thought, these images became part of the general cultural background of Western society. The wrongdoing of an individual Jew is not the manifestation of a personal flaw, but an expression of the negative characteristics of all Jews; the responsibility for such individual wrongdoing falls on all Jews.
United States
Modern anti-Semitism is a by-product of ideological and social developments during the period of the Enlightenment and the rise of the middle classes. There were significant differences, however, between the granting of civil rights to Jews in France and the United States, and the process of the Jewish emancipation in Germany. In the United States, independence and the structure of national life were predicated on severance from the past, on founding the new nation on the basis of equality, and on the separation of church and state, which placed religion in a category that existed alongside the state structure. The different ethnic and national groups, living in a society that allowed much room for pluralism and recognised the right of entities to follow unique and diversified lines of development, were able to integrate into the national body and become partners in it. This pluralism, to be sure, did not imply a partnership among equals, and from the beginning, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants dominated. The founders of the United States and their descendants determined the national challenges and norms of behaviour and retained, in their own hands, the central positions of authority and the key economic positions. The problem of slavery confronted the American nation and society, and in its wake, the problem of the blacks and the path toward its solution was strewn with much internal strife and divisiveness. Such a time of turmoil as the fateful period between the two world wars, when an anti-Jewish tendency appeared on the scene that had grave ramifications for the destiny of the Jews in Europe. Men of stature and influence in American culture, e.g., Henry Adams and Henry James, expressed anti-Semitic views in the face of the rapid urbanisation and changes in American society that followed the Civil War. The noted anthropologist Madison Grant, in his book "The Passing of the Great Race" (1916), openly claimed that the flooding of the United States by great numbers of weak, broken, and mentally deficient people of all races, from the lowest strata of society in the Mediterranean countries and the Balkans to the wretched multitudes from the ghettos of Poland, endangered the American way of life and the "Nordic" racial structure of the people whose ancestors had founded America. After World War I, Henry Ford contributed his money and influence to further the distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the United States, and the book The International Jew , which appeared under his name, helped spread the ideas contained in the Protocols throughout the world. American anti-Semitism often took the form of social separation and rejection - the refusal to accept Jews into exclusive clubs and certain hotels, and the blocking of their paths to senior posts and leading positions in certain companies. Anti-Semitism was keenly felt in the United States during the twentieth century and was influenced from outside by various forces, including the Nazis. It continued to be felt keenly until after the end of World War II. It never took on a generally brutal and violent character, however, and never led to the passage of restrictive national laws specifically against Jews. Even at the height of the Great Depression in the United States, whose source was the financial crisis that engendered massive unemployment, Jews were never blamed for the situation, as had happened more than once in Europe during financial and economic collapses.
Modern Anti-Semitism
The anti-Semitism in its new form, as it emerged from the 1870s, moved the allegations against the Jews and the concept of their innate disability into the national, and indeed the universal, social and political sphere. The Jews ceased being a separate category, judged through their behaviour and deeds; the new anti-Semitism, really the old anti-Semitism in its new guise, became a general ideology, a Weltanschauung with its own existence and, at times, without a real connection to Jews or Jewish society. It claimed to clarify the complex and troubling problems of modern man and to reveal the sources of economic crisis and poverty, of political conflicts, of societal ferment and war, and in fact, of all the sicknesses that troubled mankind. The old anti-Semitism, in the view of the advocates of the new version, had been merely an impulsive emotion, whereas the new anti-Semitism was regulated and rational, based on objective scientific analysis that discovered the Jewish role in society. The very name of anti-Semitism, with which the advocates of the new version chose to define their ideology, was meant to emphasise the difference between it and earlier Jew-hatred. The name "anti-Semitism," which was taken from the Greek, was also intended to endow the ideology with a sort of scientific basis. In actuality, anti-Semitism was never directed against other "Semites," such as the Arabs, but only against the Jews. The new version of anti-Semitism was destined, in the twentieth century, to play a major and destructive role in the lives of Jews and all Mankind. The German scholar Reinhard Rurup has stated that 'Germany is the cradle of both the movement and the term anti-Semitism,' from which they spread through countries in Western, central, and Eastern Europe. The question of whether one type of anti-Semitism spread generally, or whether indigenous varieties sprouted in each locality, has yet to be answered conclusively. It is reasonable to assume, however, that both general external and particular internal factors led to its spread. Psychological Roots. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who set forth his ideas in "Reflexions Sur La Question Juive" (1946; published in English as "Anti-Semite and Jew," 1965), argued that the essence of anti-Semitism is not grounded in historical fact relating to the Jews, but in the concept that the forces of history have created for themselves of the Jew. He emphasised that it is not the anti-Semite's personal experience with Jews that evokes his hatred toward them, but rather his tendency to see the source of his own personal failings in his abstract perception of Jews. Psychologists explain this type of antipathy in times of stress as a projection of the frustration of the modern anonymous masses and the consequences of this frustration on an object outside their circle. The Jew is the available scapegoat and meets these basicaparanoid needs. In periods of crisis, on the face of failure or public outbursts of anger, an accusing finger was pointed at the Jews.
Germany
In the 1890s, the anti-Semitic parties in Germany were in a state of decline. However, the right-wing conservative parties incorporated anti-Semitism as part of their platforms. With signs of defeat in World War I becoming apparent, strident anti-Semitism again became prominent. During the war, rumours were rife that Jews were not serving at the front but had infiltrated non-combat positions, and military leaders ordered that the matter be checked. Jews were also accused of fostering defeatism in the rear during the revolutionary period of 1918 and 1919. The frustration that came in the wake of the collapse of the war effort, the economic crisis during the Weimar Republic and the revulsion felt by many toward the republic, all engendered anti-Jewish ideas and feelings.
France
Political anti-Semitism was not only a German phenomenon, but embraced all of Europe. As mentioned, it struck deep roots in France as well. There, during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the Jewish issue was a component of the long debate between the republicans and royalists. The Dreyfus affair of the 1890s is seen as an anti-Jewish campaign that made a profound and stormy imprint on Europe. Eduard Drumont, the author of the book, "La France Juive" ("Jewish France"), whose anti-Jewish activities began before the Dreyfus affair and reached their apogee during it, has been appraised by the historian Jacob Katz as having expressed views as extreme and severe as those of the Nazis during the Weimar Republic. The situation of Jews in states with one dominant nationality, like Germany and France, must be distinguished from those in states where the Jews were one of many large minorities.
Austria
In Austria, the Germans after World War I lost the dominance they had held in the former large Austro-Hungarian Empire and moreover, remained isolated from other Germans. Anti-Semitism was strong there, with foundations both in popular culture and in a nationalist ideology. In "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler claimed that Vienna was for him a school in anti-Semitism. The effective and popular mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, was (in the late nineteenth century) the first person of high rank in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who openly expressed anti-Semitic ideas and knew how to sell them to the Catholic majority. Another anti-Semitic leader who influenced Hitler, according to the latter's writings, was Georg von Schonerer, an advocate of Pan-Germanism who was close to the nationalist racist concept, but whose influence in Austrian politics was limited. Although anti-Semitism increased and was directed primarily toward Jews who came to Vienna from Eastern Europe, it never played an important role in internal Austrian politics or Austrian foreign relations between the two world wars. Antipathy toward the Jews attained a brutal, totally unrestrained expression with the Anschluss in 1938, and more than one of the Nazi leaders who were extreme in the persecution and murder of the Jews were of Austrian origin.
Hungary, Poland, and Romania
In Hungary, and to some extent in Poland, during the 1860s and 1870s, the trend was to bring the Jews closer to the nationalist movement within the multinational state structure, to make them a part of the population that identified with Hungarian or Polish nationalist aims. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, political anti-Semitism with an ideological tone increased in both countries. Both had long-standing, brutal, and vulgar anti-Semitic traditions, as in Germany. In both, Jews constituted a relatively high percentage of the urban population and controlled a significant proportion of trade, finance, and the professions. Since the Jews were considered outsiders, and since they themselves often maintained their uniqueness and separateness from the gentiles (in particular in Poland and Romania), to a certain extent there was in these countries a real conflict or problem with regard to the Jews. The dominant anti-Semite in Hungary before World War I, Victor Istoczy, defined himself as an advocate of socio-political anti-Semitism and spoke of "defence" against the Jews. He was in contact with prominent anti-Semites in Germany and took part in the first anti-Semitic congress, in Dresden. Istoczy spoke of "racism," but it seems that racism did not play a significant role in his anti-Jewishness. In Poland during the 1890s, a national democratic movement, that of the Endeks, arrived on the scene and adopted a platform emphasising anti-Semitism. The party's authoritarian leader and ideologist, Roman Dmowski, was an aggressive anti-Semite, and at times wielded great influence in the party. As early as 1907, Dmowski called the Jews an ethnic entity that was foreign to the Polish mentality, was not able to assimilate, and was likely to spread foreign and repulsive ways among the Poles. The anti-Semitic climate increased in Poland until the period during the inter-war era, when it became a significant component in Polish public life.
Between World War I and World War II
Except for Czechoslovakia, the situation of the Jews deteriorated in the countries of central and Eastern Europe that had been created after the end of World War I. Although these states signed minority rights treaties, it was not within their power to uphold them, especially with regard to protecting the Jews' rights. Moreover, the desire of the largest ethnic group in each state to impose its own stamp on the country harmed all minorities, and the Jews as a weak minority suffered more than others. The economic difficulties that struck the countries of central and Eastern Europe strengthened anti-Jewish attitudes. For the most part, anti-Semitism in these countries was neither racial nor biological. Among other reasons, the deep religiosity prevailing in them did not permit that kind of racist anti-Semitism to spread, and the relative isolation of the Jews prevented a search for ways of separating them out. In the second half of the 1930s, especially after the Nazi rise to power in 1933, open and strident anti-Semitism received legitimisation as an acceptable national policy. In Hungary and Romania, fascist parties with a clear anti-Semitic tone were active. In Poland, the right-wing parties and (after the death of the authoritative leader, Josef Pilsudski) the political camp in power supported a mass exodus of Jews. The extreme rightist movements wanted to speed up such an exodus by using violence and pogroms. Hungary saw itself as an ally of Germany and a partner in territorial Revisionism, and in 1938 and 1939 it passed anti-Semitic and racial laws. For a while in Romania, pillages, violence, and pogroms took place under government auspices. The position of these peoples and nations during the period of Nazi rule and occupation forms a separate and important chapter in the history of anti-Semitism. The Poles did not take an active part in the annihilation of the Jews, but the dominant attitude of the population and the underground was one of indifference during the murder of the Jews, most of which, through no fault of the Poles, was carried out on their soil. The Romanians participated actively in the mass murder, but in the last stages of the war they recoiled from handing over Jews for total destruction. In Hungary the situation of the Jews during most of the war years was relatively tolerable; however, with the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 and the beginning of deportations to extermination camps, the Hungarian authorities helped in the work of annihilation, and much of the Hungarian population also played a shameful role.
The Soviet Union
Russian anti-Semitism has special characteristics. For centuries, Russia was closed off to Jews. Later, the authorities attempted to break down Jewish separateness through administrative measures. For a long time, anti-Semitism in Russia was government , and only small groups of Jews were permitted to play any part the nation's economic development. The wave of pogroms that swept Russia during the 1880s, even not the government but by extremist organisations close to it, was not opposed by the regime. These developments spurred the emigration of large numbers of Jews from Russia to countries overseas, especially to the United States. Only after the February 1917 revolution were Russian Jews granted equal rights. The wave of emigrant's that left Russia after the 1917 revolution contributed to the spread of anti-Semitic ideas in the countries where they took refuge. Between the two world wars, anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union was illegal, and therefore hidden. The roles filled by individual Jews in the Soviet regime contributed to a new kind of anti-Semitism, one with new motives, which, during World War II and the Holocaust, had a deadly effect in the Nazi-occupied areas of the Soviet Union. In the opinion of some historians, Stalin's campaign against the old Bolsheviks was not free of an anti-Jewish motive.
German Anti-Semitism and its Theory
In Germany, political anti-Semitism was first and foremost ideological in nature, claiming that the Jew played a key role in the confrontation between universalist philosophies and in current social and political conflicts. However, the future would teach that even a non-violent racial anti-Semitism, which spoke of "rational" solutions to the "Jewish question" as an answer to the problems of the nation and the entire world, contained within it sparks that would ignite a raging fire. A major place in the development of racism in Germany belongs to Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who added to it the dimension of historical evolution and the struggle within that evolution. Chamberlain was an Englishman who became Germanised and believed he had a mission to the German people. According to Chamberlain, the Jews had declined over time. Chamberlain's book, "Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts" ("The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century") was written to describe and explain this evolution and the racial struggle conducted throughout history. It was also written to make the Germans aware of the geographic expansion they deserved and of the enemies surrounding them.
Racial Anti-Semitism and National Socialism
In Germany, racism, more than any other theory (aside from nationalism), was the substance of National Socialism. National Socialism did not adopt one anti-Jewish line while abandoning the others. The authorities of the Third Reich were faced with the challenge of defining who was an Aryan and of determining who was a Jew. They never attempted to define a person's race by means of elements in his blood, the shape of his skull or nose, his hair colour or body type, and so on, realising that such criteria would undoubtedly lead to many Nazis being defined as Jews and many Jews being considered pure Aryans. Therefore, the Nazis turned to religion as the measurement of Race, even though Hitler had claimed many times that the Jews did not constitute a religion but a race, and that it was race which determined their identity as Jews. Some of the Mischlinge (people of mixed German and Jewish ancestry) were classified with the Jews, although they belonged to families that were German by any definition. It has not been substantiated that anti-Semitism affected the entire German nation or even that the majority of Germans adopted an actively anti-Semitic outlook, and it would be wrong to make such a claim.
Nationalism and Anti-Semitism
Political anti-Semitism was a sign of the crisis that struck society and nationalism at the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Countries in which democracy was rooted and flourishing - such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations - were not hurt much by the various radical movements or by anti-Semitism. Other countries, however, suffered great turmoil.
Fascism and National Socialism
The inter war period is regarded by many historians as an era in which Fascism spread all over Europe. Yet, these scholars tend to differentiate between National Socialism, which had anti-Semitism at the core of its ideology and Fascism in Italy and other countries of Western Europe. The latter, for a long time, rejected anti-Semitism, and even when accepting it, did not adopt racism as a main ideological component. During the Nazi period, "anti-Jewishness" became part of an overall outlook in several ways. First, it was integral to the Nazi ideology, not as just one among many different concepts, but as a central element. Second, it was considered a powerful and effective propaganda weapon, used to explain all the existing inadequacies and failures, and to shore up the opposition to the liberal parliamentary regime. Third, with Hitler's rise to power, anti-Jewish racism became a political component of the means employed by the government to implement its policies - of excluding the Jews from social, cultural, and economic life; separating them, insofar as possible, from the rest of the population; and, in the end, eliminating them altogether in all the lands under German control. At one stage, the Nazi State tried to replace the term "anti-Semitism" with "anti-Jewishness." This was done both for political reasons ("anti-Semitism" could be considered to apply to Arabs as well as to Jews) and because Jew-hatred was no longer a separate subject, but a fundamental part of a political ideology. Although this effort did not succeed and the term "anti-Semitism" remained in use, certain new terms did enter circulation, such as "Jewish blood" and, conversely, "German and related blood." The Nazis took pains not to speak of the export of racism since, according to the principles of the Nazi version of that ideology, the different peoples of Europe would not be promised equality and partnership with the German master race. To the extent that the Nazis did try to disseminate and export anti-Semitism, they did so in the belief that it would help obscure their long-term goals as well as deflect public attention abroad from the emerging Nazi threat.
Anti-Semitism and the Nazi Rise to Power
Political anti-Semitism did not lead directly and inevitably to Nazism, and the Nazi take over of Germany was not mainly a result of anti-Semitism. Nazism came to power as a form of German nationalism, aided by the prevailing circumstances of defeat and crisis. Yet anti-Semitism helped Nazis to gain power and win the hearts of the German masses.
The Influence of the Third Reich on European Anti-Semitism
Between the two world wars, anti-Semitism was on the increase all over Europe as an ideology, and, in some countries, also as a practical policy applied to the Jews. This development derived from the growing influence of the Third Reich and the various fascist movements, and it was particularly strong in the countries of Eastern Europe. The democracies did not accept anti-Semitism - indeed, they opposed it - but they preferred to downplay their disapproval so that their policies and actions would not be interpreted as a defence of persecuted Jews, since in the Nazi period such a "reputation" was unpopular and considered politically detrimental.
The "Final Solution."
The "Final Solution" may be said to have been the all-out implementation of two closely related tendencies in the Nazi party and the Third Reich's ideology and policy: the Nazis' racist anti-Jewish ideology, which regarded the confrontation with the Jews as a struggle in which there could be no compromise; and the conclusion reached by the Nazis that the threat inherent in "Jewish blood" could be removed only by spilling that blood. The dynamics of the anti-Jewish policies and the relentless escalation of the methods applied by the Nazis reached the point where the only means left to be used were indiscriminate mass murder. It was this combination of ideology and its practical outcome that led to the "Final Solution." Undoubtedly, the crystallisation of the diabolic plawas facilitated by the climate of resignation to the Third Reich's anti-Jewish policies and, at times, by the approval and collaboration that the Nazis found nearly everywhere, even at the stage of the "Final Solution" itself.
