The word “Anti-Semitism ” is a masculine noun, used to designate everything that is hostile to the Jewish people and culture .
If we start from an etymological analysis, we find that anti-Semitism refers to all speakers of Semitic languages, such as Hebrews, Assyrians, Arameans, Phoenicians and the Arabs. These people would be descendants of Sem , firstborn of Noah.
Therefore, hardly anyone can be, in fact, anti-Semitic , as this would imply that it is against Semitic languages.
This is even more true in the case of Arab anti-Semitism, as they would have to be against their own linguistic origin. In this case, the most correct term is therefore Anti-Zionism .
Therefore, we can consider anti-Semitism as the ideology that nurtures hatred and aversion to all ethnic and socio-cultural aspects of the Jewish people.
This system of ideas has been built over more than twenty centuries of history and has political, social, economic and religious implications.
On the one hand, religious anti-Judaism strengthened by accusing the Jews of Christ's death (deicide). On the other hand, they allege that this people became rich by practicing usury (the practice of borrowing) at the expense of other nations.
More recently, nineteenth-century racial theories justified the domination of Jews, who were considered inferior. These theories legitimized the discourse that they were only interested in national wealth, as they did not yet have a nation of their own.
Origin of the Concept
The concept of “Anti-Semitism ” would have appeared between 1879 and 1880, when Wilhem Mahrr (1819-1904), German journalist and founder of the anti-Semitic league, released the book “Zwanglose Antisemitische Heft ”.
In this work, she advocates a more “scientific” classification for the term “Judenhass ”, which referred to the hatred of Jews as a whole.
History
We know that Jews were already persecuted during the Roman Empire.
Hatred of Jews grew in antiquity. Christians did not accept the fact that Judaism claimed that Jesus was just another prophet and that the Hebrews were responsible for the death of the Messiah.
During the Middle Ages, it was no different:in the 11th century, Jews were persecuted during the Crusades.
At the end of the 13th century, they were expelled from England and, at the end of the 15th century, they were banished or converted to Christianity in Spain and Portugal.
However, no anti-Semitic massacre has equaled the Holocaust of World War II, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews.
Furthermore, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, when the Jewish people took up residence in their own territory, in the region of Palestine, deserves to be highlighted.
However, the escalation of conflicts with the Arabs could take anti-Semitism (or anti-Zionism) to a new phase.
Read Also :
- Judaism
- Racism
- Xenophobia
- Nazism
Holocaust
In 1933, the Nazi regime came to power and suppressed all civil rights of Jews in German territory, which allowed them to be used as a “scapegoat”.
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) accuses them of being the cause of the evils that occurred in the country, since, according to the dictator, they would only be interested in exploiting and making profit.
As a result, millions of Jews are sent to concentration camps or murdered in the ghettos. In total, more than 6 million Jews were killed in the historic event that became known as the Holocaust.
Discover the story of Anne Frank, one of the victims of the Holocaust.
Understand more about this subject :
- Films about the Second World War
- 6 Films About Hitler, the Dictator of Nazism
- Nuremberg Court:The Trial That Condemned the Nazis