Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism refers to hostility toward Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group that is manifested on an individual, institutional, or societal level. This definition highlights one of the major difficulties of defining anti-Semitism accurately–that is, Jews often confound established notions of ethnic, racial, and religious identity. Unfortunately, many people see Judaism only as a religion, and others see Jews as Caucasian; the latter designation is particularly problematic for Jews of color. These categorizations are overly simplistic and do not fully describe the diversity of Jews. For example, there are Jewish ethnic differences (i.e., Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrachim) and different Jewish movements (i.e., Orthodox, Hasidic, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Renewal). Hence, anti-Semitism is more than simple religious bias. It is important to note that many scholars no longer hyphenate the term anti-Semitism in order to cease the coopting of this word for anything other than what it truly means: Jew hatred.

Anti-Semitism has been documented for more than 2,000 years and comes in many forms, including oppression, discrimination, segregation, pogroms, and genocide. Scholars have outlined seven categories of anti-Semitism: (1) religious (e.g., Jews' “refusal” to embrace Jesus); (2) social (e.g., limiting Jews' occupational choices); (3) political (e.g., blaming Jews for communism); (4) economic (e.g., the myth that all Jews are rich); (5) psychological (e.g., the majority culture's desire to assimilate Jews is projected onto Jews so that they are seen as wanting to take over the world); (6) sexual (e.g., Jewish women are stereotyped as being both teases and prudes simultaneously); and (7) racial (e.g., Jews are seen as biologically inferior).

Other examples of anti-Semitism include questioning the Jewish identity of nonreligious Jews, violence against Jews at the individual and community levels, denying the occurrence of the Holocaust, and bashing the state of Israel.

Why does anti-Semitism persist? Three factors appear to be responsible. The first and foremost is Christian anti-Semitism. With the creation and maintenance of Christian state power, the deicide myth (i.e., the erroneous belief that the Jews killed Jesus), the blood libel myth (i.e., the belief that Jews killed Christian children for religious ceremonies), and the New Testament's depiction of Judaism (e.g., Christianity superseding the Hebrew covenant with God) became institutionalized. This made anti-Semitism a state- and church-sanctioned activity, lasting for hundreds of years. In the United States, this led to the creation of an invisible yet powerful anti-Semitic system that provides unearned privileges to Christians in a process parallel to the way racism benefits Caucasians. This Christian dominance is just beginning to be deconstructed.

Second, Jews historically served as a middle class whom those in power used as an intermediary between the oppressed and the oppressors. As a stateless people, Jews were permitted to enter countries in exchange for serving those in power; simultaneously, a continuous low-level, unofficial campaign of anti-Jewish propaganda was kept alive among the oppressed majority. In times of threatened revolt among the oppressed, violent, official anti-Jewish propaganda emerged. Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions were organized to turn the resentments of the oppressed majority, prepared to revolt against the oppressors, toward the Jews as scapegoats. This strategy has been used throughout the last 2,000 years, and scholars contend that Jews are difficult to categorize because this intermediary status has made them [Page 45]simultaneously part of both the dominant and subordinate groups.

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