A Brief Overview of Antisemitism

The history of antisemitism is a long one, but one that changes with time and place. It therefore is difficult to label it as a hate that is identical to others, even though it often shares many features with discrimination and persecution faced by other groups. Antisemitism has sometimes been rooted in religion, sometimes based on politics or nationalism, sometimes the product of racial definitions, and still other times the simple but elusive result of being “different.”

Antisemitism contains many contradictory elements. Jews have been viewed as backward, superstitious, physically weak, and culturally inferior even while supposedly being capable of world domination. They have been labeled as subversive, political radicals while also blamed as sinister capitalists and financiers who seek to control media, banking, government.

Discrimination against Jews is particularly difficult to assess and combat because it does not always neatly divide between people who are oppressed and people who oppress. The story of Jews is often one of in- betweenness; they have very often lived at significant disadvantage to those with greater power, but depending upon the place and time, they sometimes occupied a position of relative advantage when compared to people who faced even greater discrimination.

Historians often point to two broad ways in which Jews have faced discrimination, one from the distant past, and one in the modern era. They call the former “anti-Judaism,” a persecution based on religious difference, to distinguish it from modern “antisemitism,” which usually refers to discrimination connected to political movements and racial classifications.