Sara Lipton

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Sara Lipton is a medieval historian; she is a Professor of History at Stony Brook University, where she has been appointed as Department Chair for 2023-26. She has been elected to serve as the 100th President of the Medieval Academy of America (2024-25).

Lipton is noted for her work on the medieval origins of the iconography of antisemitism. [1] [2] According to Howard Jacobson, Lipton argues that the medieval artistic convention of depicting Jews with a Roman nose, dark skin, and scraggly or pointy beard originated in the 1200s, and was commissioned by Christian authorities as works of art depicting the sinfulness of greed in order to set the pious on a righteous (non-greedy) path to heaven. [3] Jacobson notes that even if the Church's motivation was to discourage sin rather than to promote Jew-hatred, it was "a hard distinction to maintain." [3]

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Antisemitism or Jew-hatred 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.

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Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that claims that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a Jewish plot and that Jews controlled the Soviet Union and international communist movements, often in furtherance of a plan to destroy Western civilization. It was one of the main Nazi beliefs that served as an ideological justification for the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Holocaust.

Antisemitism in the history of the Jews in the Middle Ages became increasingly prevalent in the Late Middle Ages. Early instances of pogroms against Jews are recorded in the context of the First Crusade. Expulsions of Jews from cities and instances of blood libel became increasingly common from the 13th to the 15th century. This trend only peaked after the end of the medieval period, and it only subsided with Jewish emancipation in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

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References

  1. Kahn, Eve (30 October 2014). "Not All Medieval Sacred Art Was Anti-Semitic". New York Times. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  2. Pearl, Sharrona (8 February 2009). "The Myth of the Jewish Nose". Tablet . Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 Jacobson, Howard (17 April 2019). "Jews and the money myth From Judas to the Brick Lane mural, how the malicious libel about Jewish greed gripped the global imagination". New Statesman . Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  4. Roth, Michael (19 December 2014). "'Dark Mirror,' on origins of anti-Jewish iconography (book review)". Washington Post. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  5. Chazan, Robert (5 April 2015). "When Did Christian Art Begin Singling Out Jews? (book review)". Haaretz . Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  6. "Dark Mirror (brief review)". The New Yorker . 9 February 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  7. Christiansen, Eric (9 July 2015). "Two Cheers for the Middle Ages! (book review)". New York Review of Books . Retrieved 22 May 2019.