Antisemitism

Historical Background

As a tribe, Jews were enslaved in the 14th century BCE in Egypt and in the 7th century BCE in Babylon. In Greco-Roman times, Jews were persecuted for their monotheistic religious beliefs, strict adherence to ritual as a way of life, and unwillingness to recognize or accept Greek or Roman deities. Christians justified antisemitism by blaming Jews for Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. In the 4th century CE, a Catholic saint, Jerome, translated the Hebrew word “Koren” to mean “horns,” rather than “becoming radiant.” This mistranslation changed the story of Moses receiving of the Ten Commandments as when he descended Mount Sinai, the Catholic version now stated he had grown horns. Over time, superstition grew, Jews were considered devils with horns, hooves, tails, and secret rites. In the First Crusade (1095–1099), the Pope decreed that all non-Christians, Muslims, and Jews could be killed without violating the commandment prohibiting murder. On their way to Jerusalem, the Crusaders invaded Jewish villages where they pillaged, burned, raped, and killed their inhabitants.

In the late 14th century CE, Christians, on pain of excommunication, were banned from lending money and charging interest. Jews, however, were allowed to do so, and as they were barred from many professions, many Jews became moneylenders to the aristocracy, merchants, and the Christian church. At times, when clients defaulted on or were unwilling to repay their loans, Jews were accused of usury and victimized either individually or as a whole. In 1478, Spain established the Spanish Inquisition, [Page 85]requiring all Jews to convert to Christianity; in 1492, Jews were expelled from Spain, and Jews who did not convert, or who were suspected of falsely converting, were tortured or killed.

Over the next four centuries, European Jews, depending on the country in which they resided, were variously welcomed and protected under statutes of religious freedom or forced to live separately in locked ghettos, barred from owning land, prohibited from certain professions, exiled from their generational homes, terrorized, imprisoned, and killed. It was not unusual for the same country or kingdom, like Austria and Poland, to change its policies, reflecting the antisemitism of the times. In the United States, a country founded on religious freedom, Union General Grant issued General Order No. 11 (1862) during the Civil War, expelling all Jews from his military district on antisemitic assumptions of profiteering.

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