Anti-Semitism

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how although the term anti-Semitism is reasonably new--dating back to the latter half of the nineteenth century--prejudice and persecution of Europe's Jewish community began as long ago as the rise of Hellenistic culture in Greece. It discusses how Judaism has become the object of state-sanctioned persecution. It also looks at how from early Roman times into the twentieth century, Jews have occupied exclusive residences and communities within nations dominated by competing religions and how this, in turn, generated additional hostilities among those who believed that the Jews had been afforded some exceptional status.

From the Paper:

"After emancipation, by the 1860s it could have been "concluded that European Jewry was becoming completely integrated." (Katz, 14). Yet, these political advances, it would seem, masked an underlying social force: the demand to find new grounds upon which to single the Jewish people out. Ultimately, this is the only reasonable cause for the dramatic turn of events that, once again, identified Jews as a troubling sect within European society: "Writers, politicians, and scholars in the 1870s, again attacked Jews and found their onslaught so well received by the general public that an entire movement sprang up, one openly proclaiming its opposition to Jews." (Katz, 14). This, however, was a new form of anti-Jewish literature; no-longer were Jews merely hated on the basis of their role in the death of Christ, or their peculiar social station, but also upon racial and wholly secular grounds. "

More papers on Anti-Semitism:

• Essay # 61483 : "Anti-Semitism"
• Research Paper # 45499 : "Anti-Semitism in 19th Century Europe"
• Research Paper # 49746 : "Anti-Semitism"
• Analytical Essay # 47582 : "Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: