ANTISEMITISM - PERSECUTION Again gathering momentum for the last days

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2000 YEARS OF JEWISH PERSECUTION mainly by Church and State combined
Antisemitism: Racially-based persecution of Jews: 1800 to present
Author: B.A. Robinson
Copyright © 1997 to 2003 incl., by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

The conversion from religiously-based to racially-based persecution: Prior to 1800 CE: Persecution was directed at followers of Judaism because of their religious beliefs; it has been referred to as anti-Judaism. CE, Jews could escape oppression by converting to Christianity, and being baptized.

The Christian church taught in past centuries that all Jews (past, present and future) were responsible for Jesus' death.

The Church also believed that some Jews must be allowed to live, because the biblical book of Revelation indicated that they had a role to play in the "end times." They concluded that it was acceptable to make Jews' lives quite miserable. Since about 1800: "...Nationalism became a dominant value in the Western and Arab worlds...antisemitism increasingly focused on the Jews' peoplehood and nationhood." 15 Persecution became a form of racism, and has generally been called "anti-Semitism" -- a word "created by an antisemite, Wilhelm Marr [in 1879]. Marr's intention was to replace the German word Judenhass (Jew-hatred) with a term that would make Jew-haters sound less vulgar and even somewhat scientific." 15 The word, (variously spelled antisemite, anti-Semite and anti-semite). It is not a particularly good choice, because the root word "Semitic" refers to a group of languages, not to a single language or to a race, people or nation. However, it is in near-universal usage.

Antisemitism: Persecution of Jews along Racial Lines:

Subsequent attacks against Jews tended to be racially motivated. They were perpetrated primarily by the state. The Jewish people were viewed as a separate people or race. 1806: A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. This triggered a belief in an international Jewish conspiracy in Germany, Poland and some other European countries later in the 19th century. 1846 - 1878: Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazi era. On 2000-SEP-3, Pope John Paul II beautified Pius IX; this is the last step before sainthood. He explained: "Beatifying a son of the church does not celebrate particular historic choices that he has made, but rather points him out for imitation and for veneration for his virtue."
1858: Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped, at the age of six, from his Jewish family by Roman Catholic officials after they found out that a maid had secretly baptized him. He was not returned to his family but was raised a Catholic. He eventually became a priest.  1873: The term "antisemitism" is first used in a pamphlet by Wilhelm Marr called "Jewry's Victory over Teutonism."

1881: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated by radicals. The Jews were blamed.

About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot." In Russia, a pogrom was typically a mob riot against Jewish individuals, shops, homes or businesses. They were often supported and even organized by the government.) Thousands of Jews became homeless and impoverished. The few public who were charged with offenses generally received very light sentences. 1 1893: "...anti-Semitic parties won sixteen seats in the German Reichstag." 2

1894: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an officer on the French general staff, was convicted of treason.

The evidence against him consisted of a piece of paper from his wastebasket with another person's handwriting, and papers forged by antisemitic officers. He received a life sentence on Devil's Island, off the coast of South America. The French government was aware that a Major Esterhazy was actually guilty. 3 The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Writer Emile Zola and politician Jean Jaurès fought for justice and human rights. After 10 years, the French government fell and Drefus was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair was world-wide news for years. It motivated Journalist Theodor Herzl to write a book in 1896: "The Jewish State: A Modern Solution to the Jewish Question." The book led to the founding of the Zionist movement which fought for a Jewish Homeland. A half century later, the state of Israel was born.
1903: At Easter, government agents organized an anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishinev, Moldova, Russia. The local newspaper published a series of inflammatory articles. A Christian child was discovered murdered and a young Christian woman at the Jewish Hospital committed suicide. Jews were blamed for the deaths. Violence ensured. The 5,000 soldiers in the town did nothing. When the smoke cleared, 49 Jews had been killed, 500 were injured; 700 homes looted and destroyed, 600 businesses and shops looted, 2000 families left homeless. Later, it was discovered that the child had been murdered by its relatives and the suicide was unrelated to the Jews. 4
1905: The Okhrana, the Russian secret police in the reign of Czar Nicholas II, converted an earlier antisemitic novel into a document called the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." It was published privately in 1897. A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly  in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." 5 The Protocols were used by the Okhrana in a propaganda campaign that was associated with massacres of the Jews. These were the Czarist Pogroms of 1905.
1915: 600,000 Jews were forcibly moved from the western borders of Russia towards the interior. About 100,000 died of exposure or starvation.
1917: "In the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the reactionary White Armies made extensive use of the Protocols to incite widespread slaughters of Jews." 5  Two hundred thousand Jews were murdered in the Ukraine alone.
1920: The Protocols reach England and the United States. They are exposed as a forgery, but are widely circulated. Henry Ford sponsored a study of international activities of Jews. This led to a series of antisemitic articles in the Dearborn Independent, which were published in a book, "The International Jew."
1920: The defeat of Germany in World War I and the continuing economic difficulties were blamed in that country on the "Jewish influence." One antisemitic poster has been preserved from that era. 6 It shows a German, presumably Christian woman, a male Jew with distorted facial features, a coffin and the word "Deutschland" (Germany)
1920's, 1930's: Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "Today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." The Protocols are used by the Nazis  to whip up public hatred of the Jews  in the 1930's. Widespread pogroms occur in Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Rumania, and the USSR.

Radio programs by many conservative American clergy, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, frequently attacked Jews.

Reverend Fr. Charles E Coughlin was one of the best known. "In the 1930's, radio audiences heard him rail against the threat of Jews to America's economy and defend Hitler's treatment of Jews as justified in the fight against communism." (12) Other conservative Christian leaders, such as Frank Norris and John Straton supported the Jews. 7
Discrimination against Jews in North America is widespread. Many universities set limits on the maximum number of Jewish students that they would accept. Harvard accepted all students on the basis of merit until after World War I when the percentage of Jewish students approached 15%. At that time they installed an informal quota system. In 1941, Princeton had fewer than 2% Jews in their student body. Jews were routinely barred from country clubs, prestigious neighborhoods, etc. 8
1933: Hitler took power in Germany. Jews "were barred from civil service, legal professions and universities, were not allowed to teach in schools and could not be editors of newspapers." 2 Two years later, Jews were no longer considered citizens.

1934: Various laws were enacted in Germany to force Jews out of schools and professions.

1935: The Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws restricting citizenship to those of "German or related blood." Jews became stateless.
1936: Cardinal Hloud of Poland urged Catholics to boycott Jewish businesses.
1938: On NOV-9, the Nazi government in Germany sent storm troopers, the SS and the Hitler Youth on a pogrom that killed 91 Jews, injured hundreds, burned 177 synagogues and looted 7,500 Jewish stores. Broken glass could be seen everywhere; the glass gave this event its name of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. 9
1938: Hitler brought back century-old church law, ordering all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David as identification. A few hundred thousand Jews are allowed to leave Germany after they give all of their assets to the government.

1939: The Holocaust, the systematic extermination of Jews in Germany begins.

The process only ended in 1945 with the conclusion of World War II. Approximately 6 million Jews (1.5 million of them children), 400 thousand Roma (Gypsies) and others were slaughtered. Some were killed by death squads; others were slowly killed in trucks with carbon monoxide; others were gassed in large groups in Auschwitz, Dacau, Sobibor, Treblinka and other extermination camps. Officially, the holocaust was described by the Nazis as subjecting Jews "to special treatment" or as a "solution of the Jewish question." Gold taken from the teeth of the victims was recycled; hair was used in the manufacture of mattresses. In the Buchenwald extermination camp, lampshades were made out of human skin; however, this appears to be an isolated incident. A rumor spread that Jewish corpses were routinely converted into soap. However, the story appears to be false. 10 
1940: The Vichy government of France collaborated with Nazi Germany by freezing about 80,000 Jewish bank accounts. During the next four years, they deported about 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps; only about 2,500 survived. It was only in 1995 that a French president, Jacques Chirac, "was able to admit that the state bore a heavy share of responsibility in the mass round-ups and deportations of Jews, as well as in the property and asset seizures that were carried out with the active help of the Vichy regime." 11
1941: The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC estimates that 13,000 Jews died on 1941-JUN-19 during a pogrom in Bucharest, Romania. It was ordered by the pro-Nazi Romanian regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu. The current government has admitted that this atrocity happened, but most Romanians continue to deny that the Jews were killed on orders from their own government. 12

1941: Polish citizens in Jedwabne in northeastern Poland killed hundreds of Jews, by either beating them to death or burning them alive in a barn.

According to the Associated Press: "The role played by Polish citizens was suppressed for nearly six decades until publication of a book by a Polish emigre historian, Jan Tomasz Gross. After release of the book in 2000, the Polish government launched an investigation. 'The role of the Poles was decisive in conducting the criminal act,' [prosecutor Radoslaw] Ignatiew, said. The book, 'Neighbours,' sparked national soul-searching among Poles, many of whom could not believe that anybody but the Nazis would have committed the atrocity." 13
1942: From JUL-28 to 31, almost 18,000 inhabitants of the Minsk ghetto in what is now Belarus were exterminated. This was in addition to 5,000 to 15,000 who had been massacred in earlier pogroms in that city. This was just one of many such pogroms during World War II. 14
1946: Even though World War II ended the year before, antisemitic pogroms continued, particularly in Poland, with the deaths of many Jews.

References:
1. "The Pale of Settlement and the pogroms of 1881 in Russia," at: http://204.165.132.2/crucible/whunts/frames_pogromrussia.htm
2. Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/res/incidents.htm#protokols1
3. "The Dreyfus Affair,"  http://holocaust.miningco.com/msub15.htm
4. "The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903," at: http://www.netwiz.net/~mchavez/familytales/pogrom.htm
5. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," article. See:  http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/protocols.html
6. Antisemitic poster from 1920 Germany at: http://holocaust.miningco.com/msub15.htm
7. G.M. Marsden, "Fundamentalism and American Culture," Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK (1980)
8. G.M. Marsden, "Religion and American Culture," Harcourt, San Diego, CA, (1990), Page 220.
9. Robert Fulford, "Historian recalls life as a Jew among the Nazis", Article, Globe and Mail, Toronto ON, 1998-OCT-31.
10. "A Picture Tells a Thousand Words," http://www.primenet.com/~rvolk/english/antiprop/jewish_soap/
11. Jon Henley, "France faces up to wartime role," The Guardian, reprinted in the Toronto Star, 2001-JAN-11, Page A28 
12. "Survivors mark Romania pogrom: First memorial to 1941 victims," Associated Press, 2000-DEC-6.
13. "Poles close probe into Jewish wartime massacre," Associated Press. Published in the Toronto Star, Toronto ON, 2002-JUL-9. at: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/
14. "Pogrom," Vecherny Minsk newspaper, Minsk, Belarus, 1967-NOV. See: http://204.165.132.2/crucible/whunts/frames_belarus.htm
15. J. Telushkin, "Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History; Item 241: Antisemitism" William Morrow, (1991). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store     
Author: B.A. Robinson
Copyright © 1997 to 2003 incl., by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

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A OVERVIEW OF 2000 YEARS OF JEWISH PERSECUTION
ANTI-JUDAISM: 70 TO 1200 CE

Persecution of Jews by Roman Pagans:

70: The Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, killed over 1 million Jews, took about 100,000 into slavery and captivity, and scattered many from Palestine to other locations in the Roman Empire.
113: Jews in Cyprus, Cyrene, Egypt and Mesopotamia revolted against the Roman Empire. This caused "the death of several hundreds of thousands of Romans and Jews." 1 Judaism was no longer recognized as a legal religion. 2
132: Bar Kochba led a hopeless three-year revolt against the Roman Empire. Many Jews had accepted him as the Messiah. About a half-million Jews were killed; thousands were sold into slavery or taken into captivity.  The rest were exiled from Palestine and scattered throughout the known world, adding to what is now called the "Diaspora."
135: Serious Roman persecution of the Jews began. They were forbidden, upon pain of death, from practicing circumcision, reading the Torah, eating unleavened bread at Passover, etc. A temple dedicated to the Roman pagan god Jupiter was erected on temple mountain in Jerusalem. A temple of Venus was built on Golgotha, just outside the city.
200: Roman Emperor Severus forbade religious conversions to Judaism.

Persecution of Jews by Christians:
Initial persecution of Jews was along religious lines. Persecution would cease if the person converted to Christianity.

306: The church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews. 3,4
315: Constantine published the Edict of Milan which extended religious tolerance to Christians. Jews lost many rights with this edict. They were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize.
325: The Council of Nicea decided to separate the celebration of Easter from the Jewish Passover. They stated: "For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people...We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews...our worship follows a...more convenient course...we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews...How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."
337: Christian Emperor Constantius created a law which made the marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian punishable by death.
339: Converting to Judaism became a criminal offense.
343-381: The Laodicean Synod approved Cannon XXXVIII: "It is not lawful [for Christians] to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety." 5
367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at this time.
380: The bishop of Milan was responsible for the burning of a synagogue; he referred to it as "an act pleasing to God."
415: The Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled the Jews from that Egyptian city.
415: St. Augustine wrote "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
418: St. Jerome, who created the Vulgate translation of the Bible wrote of a synagogue: "If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it deserves."
489 - 519: Christian mobs destroyed the synagogues in Antioch, Daphne (near Antioch) and Ravenna.

528: Emperor Justinian (527-564) passed the Justinian Code. It prohibited Jews from building synagogues, reading the Bible in Hebrew, assemble in public, celebrate Passover before Easter, and testify against Christians in court. 3

535: The "Synod of Claremont decreed that Jews could not hold public office or have authority over Christians." 3
538: The 3rd and 4th Councils of Orleans prohibited Jews from appearing in public during the Easter season. Canon XXX decreed that "From the Thursday before Easter for four days, Jews may not appear in the company of Christians." 5 Marriages between Christians and Jews were prohibited.

Christians were prohibited from converting to Judaism.

561: The bishop of Uzes expelled Jews from his diocese in France.
612: Jews were not allowed to own land, to be farmers or enter certain trades.
613: Very serious persecution began in Spain. Jews were given the options of either leaving Spain or converting to Christianity. Jewish children over 6 years of age were taken from their parents and given a Christian education
692: Cannnon II of the Quinisext Council stated: "Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off." 5
694: The 17th Church Council of Toledo, Spain defined Jews as the serfs of the prince. This was based, in part, on the beliefs by Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, and other Church Fathers that God punished the Jews with perpetual slavery because of their responsibility for the execution of Jesus. 5
722: Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.
855: Jews were exiled from Italy
1050: The Synod of Narbonne prohibited Christians from living in the homes of Jews.

1078: "Pope Gregory VII decreed that Jews could not hold office or be superiors to Christians." 6

1078: The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes
1096: The First Crusade was launched in this year. Although the prime goal of the crusades was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Jews were a second target. As the soldiers passed through Europe on the way to the Holy Land, large numbers of Jews were challenged: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade. This behavior continued for 8 additional crusades until the 9th in 1272.
1099: The Crusaders forced all of the Jews of Jerusalem into a central synagogue and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were forced back into the burning building.
1121: Jews were exiled from Flanders (now part of present-day Belgium)
1130: Some Jews in London allegedly killed a sick man. The Jewish people in the city were required to pay 1 million marks as compensation.
1146: The Second Crusade began. A French Monk, Rudolf, called for the destruction of the Jews.
1179: Canon 24 of the Third Lateran Council stated: "Jews should be slaves to Christians and at the same time treated kindly due of humanitarian considerations." Canon 26 stated that "the testimony of Christians against Jews is to be preferred in all causes where they use their own witnesses against Christians." 7
1180: The French King of France, Philip Augustus, arbitrarily seized all Jewish property and expelled the Jews from the country. There was no legal justification for this action. They were allowed to sell all movable possessions, but their land and houses were stolen by the king.

1189: Jews were persecuted in England. The Crown claimed all Jewish possessions. Most of their houses were burned.

References:
1. "A Calendar of Jewish Persecution," at "HearNow," a Messianic Judaism web site. See: http://www.hearnow.org/caljp.htm
2. Randy Felton, "Anti-Semitism and the Church," at: http://www.haydid.org/antsemr.htm
3. Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/res/incidents.htm#protokols1
4. "Classical and Christian Anti-Semitism," at:   http://www.virtualjerusalem.co.il/education/education/holocaust/
5. Max Solbrekken, "The Jews & Jesus: Mistreatment of Jews: Christian shame," at: http://www.mswm.org/jews.htm
6. Fritz B. Voll, "A Short Review of a Troubled History," at: http://www.jcrelations.com/res/incidents.htm#protokols1
7. Bob Michael, "Jews as Serfs," at: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/subject/hd/fak7/hist/e3/gen/

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THE FOLLOWING TEXT HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM OTHER SELECTED WEBSITES
CONCERNING THESE ISSUES FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE