Before taking this course, I was under the impression that anti-Judaism and antisemitism were one and the same; however, in lecture YPS emphasized that there was a distinction between the two. While both anti-Judaism and antisemitism refer to hostility directed at those identified as Jews, anti-Judaism refers to the negative attitudes manifested towards adherents of the Jewish religion. By contrast, antisemitism takes on a more politically and racially-charged tone by not discriminating against Jews based on their religion per se, but rather by attacking them on the basis of supposed hereditary and genetic racial characteristics.
A close examination of the history of French Jewry makes it clear that antisemitism is a relatively modern concept. This was demonstrated by the gradual transformation in the attitude of the French population towards Jews, which evolved from anti-Judaism to outright antisemitism.
The historical record of the Jewish experience in France is rife with prejudice, discrimination, and violence. The French Enlightenment brought about increased tolerance for Jews, and many enlightened Christian thinkers, specifically Abbé Grégoire and Count Mirabeau, began to call for the emancipation of Jews (PPT 3).
In spite of this, even the most progressive thinkers had Christian bias. While Jews were characterized in a negative fashion, it was generally believed that they had redemptive qualities. Many philosophers believed that Jews could be bettered, “fixed”, and ultimately integrated into French society (PPT 3). For example, in an essay entitled “Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Regeneration of the Jews”, Abbé Grégoire argued that the persecution of the Jews was at the root of Jewish degeneracy, and that gran...
... middle of paper ...
...erated, antisemitism lived on and became ingrained in the French consciousness. World Jewry was stunned that such an affair could have occurred in France, the birthplace of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and the first country to emancipate its Jews. The fact that the public, including nobles and members of the clergy, saw Dreyfus, an assimilated Jew, as an outsider, suggested that assimilation was no longer a legitimate strategy to combat antisemitism.
One of the key differences between this newer form of Jew-hatred and the older anti-Judaism was that the proponents of these racist theories believed that Jews were inherently evil, and that they could not be reformed by society.
My exploration of the history of French Jewry and the events surrounding the Dreyfus Affair highlighted the distinction between theological anti-Judaism and modern, racial antisemitism.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, anti-Semitism is hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. There are two main types of anti-Semitism: classical anti-Semitism and modern anti-Semitism. Classical anti-Semitism is the hatred and intolerance towards Jews because of their religious differences. According to remember.org,
Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.
The French people were quick to blame the government for all the misfortune they possess, yet ignored the potential evil or crisis the social body was heading towards within themselves. Because of the rapid sequence of horrific events in the beginning of the French revolution, it prevented the subversive principles to be spread passes the frontiers of France, and the wars of conquest which succeeded them gave to the public mind a direction little favorable to revolutionary principles (2). French men have disgraced the religion by ‘attacking with a steady and systematic animosity, and all it is there that the weapon of ridicule has been used with the most ease and success (2). Metternich was not in support of the French
Anti-Semitism, hatred or prejudice of Jews, has tormented the world for a long time, particularly during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a critical disaster that happened in the early 1940s and will forever be remembered. Also known as the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, an assassination by the German Nazis lead by Adolf Hitler.
Anti-semitism originates back to the Middle Ages, when Christians believed that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. They were also accused of the ritual murder of Christian children in what were called blood libels. The main idea of racial anti-semitism was developed and presented by a philosophist named Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, explaining that the Je...
"Demonological anti-Semitism, of the virulent racial variety, was the common structure of the perpetrators' cognit...
Winter, J. (2002, Jan). The Death of American Antisemitism by Spencer Blakeslee. American Sociological Association. Retrieved Mar 2, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3089419
As Sartre explains, "the Jew whom the anti-Semite wishes to lay hands upon is not a schematic being defined solely by his function, as under administrative law; or by status or acts, as under the Code. He is a Jew, the son of a Jew, recognizable by his physique, by the colour of his hair, by his clothing perhaps, and, so they say, by his character." To the anti-Semite, the Jew's character is oily, tactless, intriguing, selfish and greedy. He believes that all Jews are this way, and therefore treats them all the same, with hatred and repulsion. While a Jew might be a successful business man, a doctor, lawyer, or teacher etc. he is also a Jew, and that is all he is recognized for in the eyes of the anti-Semite.Furthermore, Sartre argues that "if the Jew did not exist, the Anti-Semite would invent him." This is self explanatory by the fact that Jews have been used as scapegoats and will continuously be used as such in the future.
Throughout history Jewish people have been discriminated against relentlessly and while one may think that the world has finally become an accepting place to live in, unfortunately the battle against discrimination still exists even in countries such as the USA. Different opposing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the Knights Party have not only discriminated against people of non-white races, but they have helped promote anti-Semitism in the United States. Anti-Semitism is the hatred of or discrimination of against Jews, which according to Efron et al. “anti-Semitism was born of modern racial theories and political ideas, or for that matter with Christian anti-Semitism, fueled by distinctive theological ideas unique to Christianity” (Efron et al. Pg. 68).
Frida Scheps was a Russian-Jewish immigrant living in France. Her father was an Engineer who fled to Palestine to pave the way for Frida and her mother. Frida mentions in her testimony that a young sixteen year old boy, Adolphe tried to help them get their documentation; proven difficult because of increase of demand. Frida and her mother could not escape France prior to German’s occupation. Stuck in France, Ms. Scheps wanted to protect her child’s life by placing her in a Catholic covenant, Chateau de Beaujeu. Persecution of the Jews of France began in 1940, but by 1942, the Germans began rounding up Jews and shipping them to various death camps in Poland. An estimated 300,000 Jews lived in France prior to the invasion, between 19...
One of the first writers to express the racial anti-Semitic view was Wilhelm Marr, who it is believed invented the word “anti-Semitism”. He, like other Germans had grievance with the Jews on the basis that a universally successful Jew had pushed them out of getting a good job. Marr himself was fired from his job as a journalist at a paper owned by Jews. He wrote “Der Sieg des Judentums uber das Germanentum”. In other words Jew was not contrasted with Christian, religiously but with German, racially. In 1879 he founded The Antisemiten-Liga, its purpose was in short to bring together all non-Jewish Germans into a common union which strives to saving the Fatherland from the Jewish influence. Marr was the first to appreciate the possibili...
Anti-Semitism dates all the way back to the Middle Ages, where all over Europe, persecutions
In conclusion, the Alfred Dreyfus Affair represents a historical overview of the past injustices that occurred because of prejudice against the Jewish community. The main propelling forces behind this affair were the anti-Semitic views, military grounds and the discovery of the bordereau. The affair started with the unjust prosecution of an artillery military captain of Alsatian-Jewish background over spying allegations. Later, the country split into two political fronts with one part supporting Dreyfus and another against him. The major force behind this Affair was the prevalent anti –Semitic vies that demonized the Jewish community.
The Dreyfus Case began after French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a jew, was accused and convicted of treason. Dreyfus was sentenced to life and was imprisoned in French Guinea on Devil’s island. Five years later, in 1896, French Army Major Ferdinand Esterhazy was identified as the real traitor, and was brought to trial for Dreyfus’ crimes. Ferdinand was acquitted after a two day trial, and Dreyfus was charged with more crimes involving the falsification of documents. Information involving Dreyfus’ framing began to spread, but a cover up began. In 1899, Dreyfus had another trial in France that split the people into those in favor of him, and those against him. That trial resulted in another conviction, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and freed. Later, Dreyfus was reinstated as a general after it was revealed that all accusations against him were false. The case was so drawn out because of the antisemites in France wanting Dreyfus convicted, and they were willing to cover up details of the case in order to do so. These sort of events would repeat themselves throughout the next several years, as well as into World War Two, as jews were framed for crimes they didn’t commit, and were convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes even
... blood, a forerunner of the racialist antisemitism on the twentieth century”(Laqueur, 70). This idea supported that the Jewish blood carried qualities which were unappealing or desired, and showed that they were of lesser quality than the France people.