Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Some Christian Churches, Christian groups, and ordinary Christians express religious antisemitism toward the Jewish people and the associated religion of Judaism. These can be thought of examples of anti-Semitism expressed by Christians or by Christian communities. However, the term "Christian Anti-Semitism" has also been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiments that arise out of Christian doctrinal or theological stances. The term "Christian Anti-Semitism" is also used to suggest that to some degree, contempt for Jews and for Judaism inhere to Christianity as a religion, itself, and that centralized institutions of Christian power, as well as governments with strong Christian influence have generated societal structures that survive to this day which perpetuate anti-Semitism. This usage appears particularly in discussions of Christian structures of power within society, which are referred to as Christian Hegemony or Christian Privilege; these are part of larger discussions of Structural inequality and power dynamics.
Antisemitism and the New Testament is the discussion of how Christian views of Judaism in the New Testament have contributed to discrimination against Jewish people throughout history and in the present day.
The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with antisemitism being called "the longest hatred". Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:
- Pre-Christian anti-Judaism in Ancient Greece and Rome that was primarily ethnic in nature
- Christian antisemitism in antiquity and the Middle Ages that was religious in nature and has extended into modern times
- Muslim antisemitism that was—at least in its classical form—nuanced, in that Jews were a protected class
- Political, social, and economic antisemitism during the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe that laid the groundwork for racial antisemitism
- Racial antisemitism that arose in the 19th century and culminated in Nazism
- Contemporary antisemitism, which has been labeled by some as the new antisemitism
The persecution of Jews has been a major event in Jewish history prompting shifting waves of refugees and the formation of diaspora communities. As early as 605 BCE, Jews who lived in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were persecuted and deported. Antisemitism was also practiced by the governments of many different empires and the adherents of many different religions (Christianity), and it was also widespread in many different regions of the world.
Cherchell is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, 89 kilometers (55 mi) west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania.
The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. There have been Jews in Austria since the 3rd century CE. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality, and during other periods it suffered pogroms, deportations to concentration camps and mass murder, and antisemitism. The Holocaust drastically reduced the Jewish community in Austria and only 8,140 Jews remained in Austria according to the 2001 census. Today, Austria has a Jewish population of 10,300 which extends to 33,000 if Law of Return is accounted for, meaning having at least one Jewish grandparent.
On the Jews and Their Lies is a 65,000-word anti-Judaic and antisemitic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther (1483–1546).
The history of the Jews in Denmark goes back to the 1600s. At present, the Jewish community of Denmark constitutes a small minority of about 6,000 persons within Danish society. The community's population peaked prior to the Holocaust at which time the Danish resistance movement took part in a collective effort to evacuate about 8,000 Jews and their families from Denmark by sea to nearby neutral Sweden, an act which ensured the safety of almost all the Danish Jews.
The history of the Jews and the Crusades is part of the history of antisemitism toward Jews in the Middle Ages. The call for the First Crusade intensified the persecutions of the Jews, and they continued to be targets of Crusaders' violence and hatred throughout the Crusades.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles events in the history of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as members of a religious and/or ethnic group. It includes events in Jewish history and the history of antisemitic thought, actions which were undertaken in order to counter antisemitism or alleviate its effects, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
Christians were persecuted, sporadically and usually locally, throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century AD and ending in the 4th century. Originally a polytheistic empire in the traditions of Roman paganism and the Hellenistic religion, as Christianity spread through the empire, it came into ideological conflict with the imperial cult of ancient Rome. Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. The state and other members of civic society punished Christians for treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy. The first, localized Neronian persecution occurred under Emperor Nero in Rome. A more general persecution occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. After a lull, persecution resumed under Emperors Decius and Trebonianus Gallus. The Decian persecution was particularly extensive. The persecution of Emperor Valerian ceased with his notable capture by the Sasanian Empire's Shapur I at the Battle of Edessa during the Roman–Persian Wars. His successor, Gallienus, halted the persecutions.
The persecution of Christians in the New Testament is an important part of the Early Christian narrative which depicts the early Church as being persecuted for their heterodox beliefs by a Jewish establishment in what was then the Roman province of Judea.
Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity is a description of anti-Judaic sentiment in the first three centuries of Christianity; the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries. Early Christianity is sometimes considered as Christianity before 325 when the First Council of Nicaea was convoked by Constantine the Great, although it is not unusual to consider 4th and 5th century Christianity as members of this category as well.
Jews were numerous and had significant roles throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire.
Damnatio ad bestias was a form of Roman capital punishment where the condemned person was killed by wild animals, usually lions or other big cats. This form of execution, which first appeared during the Roman Republic around the 2nd century BC, had been part of a wider class of blood sports called Bestiarii.
The woman with seven sons was a Jewish martyr described in 2 Maccabees 7. She and her seven sons were arrested during the persecution of Judaism initiated by King Antiochus IV Epiphanes. They were ordered to consume pork and thus violate Jewish law as part of the campaign. They repeatedly refused, and Antiochus tortured and killed the sons one by one in front of the unflinching and stout-hearted mother before eventually killing her as well.
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, an award-winning historian and professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to the writing of this book Moss had published two other works on early Christian martyrdom. In her book, Moss advances the thesis that:
- The traditional idea of the "Age of Martyrdom", when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional. Here she adapts and emends the work of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix.
- There was never sustained, targeted persecution of Christians by Imperial Roman authorities. Official persecution of Christians by order of the Roman Emperor lasted for at most twelve years of the first three hundred of the Church's history. Moss writes: "This does not mean, however, that there were no martyrs at all or that Christians never died. It is clear that some people were cruelly tortured and brutally executed for reasons that strike us as profoundly unjust."
- Most of the stories of individual martyrs amassed by the early modern period are pure inventions. She agrees with Bollandist scholar Hippolyte Delehaye that most martyrdom literature developed in the fourth century and beyond.
- Even the oldest and most historically accurate stories of martyrs and their sufferings have been altered and re-written by later editors, so that it is impossible to know for sure what any of the martyrs actually thought, did or said.
Saint Marciana of Toledo is a venerated martyr in Toledo, Spain whose feast day is celebrated by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church on July 12.
The history of the Jews in Alexandria dates back to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Jews in Alexandria played a crucial role in the political, economic, cultural and religious life of Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria, with Jews comprising about 35% of the city's population during the Roman Era. Alexandrian Jewry were the founders of Hellenistic Judaism and the first to translate the Torah from Hebrew to Koine Greek, a document known as the Septuagint.
