Here’s a thing about antisemitism.
Right now, a popular post I made about religion is being reposted by a dark subset of people who are literally asserting that all Jews are reptilian overlords, baby killers, ritual child murderers, satan worshipers, and animal abusers. Some are literally saying things like “we need to have a holy war to cleanse these people.” I have reported and blocked over 100 accounts for this, and I’ve seen their bios, their profile pics, and their pages. And here’s the thing.
They’re right wing, and they’re left wing. They’re men, and women, and trans, and nonbinary. Some have their preferred pronouns in their header, and some have deus vult or 14/88. They will have a post about meaningful gun reform right before a post about killing Jews for blood libel. Which it turns out people definitely still believe in today. They are from America and Germany, but also Ireland and Kazakstan, dozens of countries. They have swatzika tattoos, and cross tattoos, and bisexual pride flag tattoos. They are white, but they are also black, asian, latinx, mixed race. They are Evangelical, they are Catholic, they are atheists, they are all religions. They are all ages. They share the same viral posts you share, they laugh at the same memes you laugh at (although they do have a strange love of frogs). They work manual labor jobs in rural areas, driving trucks, but they also wear suits and live in the city and work in politics. They are diverse. They are “woke.”
I’m just so disgusted by what I’ve seen today.
The thing about anti-Semitism is that it can be transferred to just about any ideology: jews are communists or they’re bourgeois, they want to stay separate, they want to assimilate, they want to maintain their own boundaries but still take a part in community affairs.
It really stinks, and please feel free to stop by anytime for some Jewish solidarity.
And anyone can stop by anytime for any solidarity about any form of hate.
The fine results of sixty years of demonizing Israel’s governmental policies.
Hey you know what? I think you probably mean well, but no, antisemitism is not about Israel, and saying that it is gives antisemites a lot of ammunition (“I don’t hate Jews; I just have a problem with the Israeli government!”).
The modern State of Israel was founded in 1948. That, as far as antisemitism is concerned, is so modern that it barely even registers on the timeline of brutal antisemitic violence and genocide.
Let me walk you through a timeline, focusing only on some of the largest, most violent antisemitic purges:
The Holocaust began in 1941, and left 6 million Jews dead.
Before that, there was Kristallnacht, which occurred in 1938.
That same year, Ecuador forcibly expelled all Jewish residents not working in agriculture.
Four years before that, in 1934, 2,000 Afghani Jews were expelled from their towns forced to live in the wilderness.
In 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron was massacred.
In 1922, the Hebrew language was banned in the Soviet union, and thousands were sent to the Gulag for so-called “Jewish cultural particularism”.
In 1921 all Jews living in Mongolia were forcibly expelled.
In 1919, Jews were mass executed by the Polish Army in the Pinsk massacre, and the the Kiev Pogroms killed 30,000-70,000 Jews, and left half a million more homeless.
The year before that, 3,000–10,000 Caucasus Jews were killed during The March Days.
Between 1917–1921, Russian Pogroms killed as many as 250,000 Jews.
In one 48-hour interval in May 1915, all 40,000 Jews living in Kaunas, Lithuania were forcibly expelled from the city.
In 1910, Shiraz blood libel pogrom swept through Shiraz, Iran, brutalizing thousands.
In 1891, 20,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from Moscow, Russia.
In 1881–1884, pogroms swept through all of Russia, forcing 2 million Jews to flee the country.
In 1864, at least 500 Moroccan Jews were massacred in Marrakech and Fez.
In 1862, during the American Civil War, General Grant issued an order expelling all Jews from his military district, before being directed by President Lincoln to rescind the order.
In 1815 Pope Pius VII reestablished the ghetto in Rome, and forcibly confined the Jewish population of the city there.
On June 29, 1805, 200-500 Algerian Jews were massacred.
In 1791 Catherine II of Russia confined Jews to the Pale of Settlement and doubled their taxes.
Between 1790–1792, most of the Jewish communities of Morocco were destroyed.
In 1786, Jews were forcibly expelled from Jeddah.
In 1776, the Jewish community of Basra was massacred.
In 1768, the Jews of the Jews of Uman, Ukraine were massacred.
In 1766, Jews were forcibly expelled from Toruń.
In 1753, the Jewish community of Kaunas was forcibly expelled.
In 1744, the Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa forced the entire Bohemian Jewish community to pay for their readmission into the country every ten years, and introduced a law limiting each Jewish family to one son.
In 1743, the Jewish community of Riga was forcibly expelled.
In 1742 Elizabeth of Russia issues a decree of expulsion of all the Jews out of Russian Empire.
In 1727, Catherine I of Russia issued an edict forcibly expelling all Jews from Ukraine.
In 1718, the Jews of Carniola, Styria and Carinthia were forcibly expelled
In 1717, all Jews living in Gibraltar were forciblt expelled.
In 1715, Elector Max Emanuel ordered the deportation of all Jews living in Bavaria.
In 1712, a blood libel in Sandomierz led to the forcibly expulsion of the entire local Jewish population.
In 1691, 219 people were convicted of being Jewish in a court in Palma, Majorca, and 37 of them were publicly burned to death.
Only 500 Jews survived Austrian sieged the city of Buda in 1686. Half of them were then sold into slavery.
In 1679, a large percentage of the Jews of Yemen were forcibly expelled in the Exile of Mawza. Many died along the march to the Mawza, and more died once there due to the barren and inhospitable conditions there.
Between 1648–1655, the Ukrainian Cossacks massacred about 100,000 Jews and destroyed 300 Jewish communities.
In 1639, more than 60 people accused of being Jews in Lima, Peru were burned at the stake in a single Auto-da-fé.
In 1633, Jews were forcibly expelled from Radom.
In 1615 King Louis XIII of France decreed that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death.
In 1593, at least 900 Jews were forcibly expelled from Bologna.
In 1593 Pope Clement VIII forcibly expelled Jews from all Papal states except the ghettos in Rome and Ancona.
In 1591, Philip II, King of Spain, banished and forcibly expelled all Jews from the duchy of Milan.
In 1571, the Mexican Inquisition began, leading to the trial and execution of those suspected of secretly practicing Judaism.
In 1569, Pope Pius V forcibly expelled all the Jews of Bologna, and encouraged the vandalization and destruction of all Jewish graveyards within the region.
In 1560, the Goa Inquisition began, and those in the region who were suspected of secretly practicing Judaism were tried and executed.
Between 1537-1546, Martin Luther whips up antisemitic sentiment throughout Germany, leading to multiple forcible expulsions of the Jewish communities living in the region.
In 1543, all Jews were exiled and forcibly expelled from Basel.
In 1540, all Jews were banished from Prague.
In 1539, all Jews were forcibly expelled from Nauheim.
In 1535, the Spanish sold all of the Jews of Tunis into slavery.
In 1526 Jews were expelled from Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia following the Battle of Mohács.
In 1519, the Jewish community of Ratisbon was forcibly expelled, and it’s synagogues and graveyards were looted for building materials.
In 1511, most Apulian Jews were either expelled or tortured to death.
In 1510, the Jews of Naples were forcibly expelled.
In 1510, 40 Jews were executed in Brandenburg, Germany, and the remainder of the Jewish population was forcibly expelled.
That same year, 38 Jews publicly burned at the stake in Berlin.
In 1506, a massacre in Lisbon, Portugal killed over 2,000 Jews in the span of just three days.
In 1499, all Jews were forcibly expelled from both Nuremberg and Verona.
In 1498, Jews were forcibly expelled from most of France.
In 1496, the Jews of Portugal, including those who had fled the Spanish Inquisition just four years prior, were forcibly converted to Christianity and expelled.
In 1495, the Jews of Lecce were massacred and the Jewish quarter was burned to the ground.
In 1493 approximately 37,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from Sicily.
In 1492, the Jewish population of Tuat was massacred in a pogrom.
In 1481, the Spanish Inquisition began, leading to the murder, torture, forced conversion, and forcible expulsion of the Jewish population of Spain.
On Assumption Day, August 15, 1474, the Jews of Modica were massacred. During the evening, Christians are recorded to have run through the streets chanting: “Hurrah for Mary! Death to the Jews!”
In 1473, the Jews of Cordova, Spain were massacred.
In 1421 in Vienna, 270 Jews were burned at stake, and all remaining Viennese Jews were forcibly expelled.
In the single year of 1391, more than 400 Jews were massacred in Barcelona, another 250 Jews were massacred in Valencia, and all the Jewish inhabitants of Palma, Majorca were killed or forced to convert.
In March of 1389, approximately 3,000 Jews in Prague were killed in a single massacre.
In 1370, the entire Jewish population of Brussels was massacred, completely eliminating the Jewish community there. The event was commemorated by local Christians as “the Sacrament of Miracle”.
In 1354, approximately 12,000 Jews were massacred throughout Spain.
On August 4, 1349, 6,000 Jews were burned to death in Mainz as a part of the Black Death Jewish persecutions. Around 3,000 more Jews were massacred in Erfurt for the same reason, 600 were burned at the stake in Zurich, 600 more were burned at the stake in Basel, and the entire Jewish population of Speyer was destroyed.
In 1336, roughly 1500 Jews were killed in Franconia and Alsace.
In 1328, approximately 5,000 Jews were massacred following antisemitic preaching by a Franciscan friar.
In 1321 the Jews in central France were accused of ordering lepers to poison wells. After a massacre which killed an estimate 5,000 Jews, King Philip V admitted that the rumor was false and they were innocent.
In 1298, German knight Rintfleisch claimed to have received a mission from heaven to exterminate “the accursed race of the Jews”. Under his leadership, approximately 100,000 Jews were massacred, often by mass burning at stake.
In 1290, the Jews of Baghdad were massacred.
In 1290, the Edict of Expulsion forcibly expelled all Jews from England.
In 1285, a blood libel in Munich, Germany resulted in the massacre of 68 Jews. Following the massacre, 180 more Jews were burned alive inside synagogue which was lit on fire.
In 1275, King Edward I of England passed the Statute of the Jewry, forcing Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying yellow badge, and seizing Jewish assets. Scores of English Jews were arrested, and 300 were publicly hanged.
In 1236, Crusaders attacked the Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou and slaughtered an estimated 3,000 Jews.
In 1232, over 1,000 Moroccan Jews in Marrakesh were killed.
In 1203, the entire Jewish quarter of Constantinople was burned down by Crusaders.
In 1190, the Jews of York were massacred by departing Crusaders.
In 1171 the Jews of Bologna were forcibly expelled.
In 1146, an estimated 100,000 Jews were massacred by the Almohads in Fez and 120,000 more were massacred in Marrakesh.
In 1124, the Jewish Quarter of Kiev was burned to the ground by antisemitic arsonists.
During the First Crusade, more than 5,000 Jews were murdered in the Rhineland. Another 1,200 Jews committed suicide in Mainz to escape torture and forcible conversion.
In 1066, the Granada Massacre killed more than 4,000 Jews in a single day.
In 932, the Jewish quarter of Bari, Italy was destroyed.
In 694 King Ergica of Toledo ordered the kidnapping of all Jewish children over the age of seven, and the raising of those kidnapped children as Christians.
In 469, half of the Jewish population of Isfahan was put to death.
In 325, all Jews were forcibly expelled and banned from Jerusalem.
Between 132–135, the Bar Kokhba revolt was crushed, and 580,000 Jews were killed. Hadrian then ordered the forcible expulsion of all Jews from Judea, which was then merged with Galilee in order to form the province of Syria Palaestina, renamed in order to suppress the Jewish people’s connection to their historic homeland.
Sixty years?! Sixty years is nothing.
Antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of bigotry that still exists, and it exists in largely the same form that it always has. Non-Jews persecute Jews because we refuse to assimilate, because we emphasize literacy and education, and because we are an ethnic minority. These thousands of years of violent murder, torture, expulsion, exile, and degradation have nothing whatsoever to do with the modern State of Israel.
Antisemitism, much like the original post highlighted, transcends modern politics. It transcends most modern cultural divides.
Antisemitism is religious bigotry and racial hatred all rolled into one, and virtually no group on Earth has clean hands.
How the FUCK is this list so long. What the fuck. What the Fuck. How is there SO MUCH HATRED for them what the Actual Fuck
like what did Jewish people ever do to you????? like seriously???? like I understand animosity. I have some strong personal hatred for individuals and some disdain for a group of people (billionaires) but even if someone did do something to me, that is absolutely not grounds for maiming or irreparably harming or killing them, much less killing their family, their friends, their friends’ families, and anyone else that shares a particular association with them!!!! like what the actual shit?????
edit: I will however gladly throw the FUCK down with anyone who wants to hurt jewish people for being jewish
Hi!
A lot of it is/was motivated by money. Yes, even the holocaust.
The justification for hating is classically based in the Christian religion, but antisemitism is now definitely also political. It’s about blaming everything on us and having a scapegoat.
But the motivation? Money. Pogroms, expulsions, killings, all of these were and are forms of real estate and property liquidation.
If anyone who is unfamiliar with historical and modern antisemitism and how it functions and wants to educate themselves as an ally, I recomend reading the book Why the Jews?. Some of the language is a bit outdated but it’s a short and informative introduction to the topic. It is an emotionally difficult read though, so keep that in mind before cracking it open
I’m gonna add on that the origins of left wing antisemitism, the whole thing they try to gaslight with the explination of “I’m not antisemitic, I’m just antizionist” has a direct line connecting it to Stalin and Russian Orthodox/Tsarist antisemitism.
Stalin had hoped that the freshly created state of Israel, which was a very left leaning nation when it was reconstituted, would side with the Soviet/Communist bloc. When it didn’t he felt personally slighted, and so started trying to take that petty grudge out on Russian/Soviet Jews. That whole Doctors Plot conspiracy was actually just an excuse to added Jewish doctors to the list of dead in Stalin’s purges. Thankfully he died before it could be fully started, but it started the ball rolling. His hatred of Israel tapped into the latant Russian antisemitism left over from the Tsarist period and twisted it from the recent antisemitism that birthed that conspiracy book Protocols of the Elders of Zion and into a whole gaslighting thing of “we are just opposing a settler/colonial state, not just blindly hating Jews for fake reasons again.” This led to various levels of Soviet/Russian antisemitism, ranging from passing over Jews for various jobs in various fields to outright denying Soviet Jews the ability to even visit Israel (the Refuseniks).
And so that soon became party line for many left leaning groups around the world, never really realizing that all Zionism is is just an indigenous people that have been targeted and hated and oppressed for millennia living with security and autonomy in their indigenous homeland. The fact that western society focuses so much on Ashkenazi Jews (Jews that went to central/Eastern Europe in the diaspora after Rome expelled us after we failed to expel their occupation of Ancient Israel and so have become white-passing over the near 2,000 years in Europe) as what all Jews look like doesn’t help either. Cause that ignores Jews of color, such as all of those that got ethnically cleansed or expelled from Arab lands, who make up two thirds of Israel’s population.
Left wing antisemitism that’s hidden behind “antizionism” is definitely another link in the chain of baseless hatred directed at us. 60 years is definitely enough time to have another “reason” to hate us. Stalin was a master manipulator, and he took the leftover Tsarist era antisemitism and twisted it into the beginnings of what we recently saw in UK Labour under Jeremey Corbyn and in the US with people like Linda Sarsour. To ignore what it is is to let it continue.
What the fuck did Jewish people do to receive any of this hatred?? I know that there had been Christian propaganda written about jewish people throughout history. But why? Why did that happen?
Historically, our homeland was a VERY important trade route, connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe. Control trade, and you control food imports, and you control empires. That’s why Rome invaded. (Actually, it’s also why Greece/Macedonia, Medeo-Persia, Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt invaded. Its been a very strategic land to control since the dawn of civilization. Location location location.)
The two largest religions in the world (Xianity, Islam) are later derivations of OUR religion. That makes that piece of land MORE attractive to them, because controlling it gives them a sense of religious authority.
A big reason that Xianity as a (technically heretical) sect of Judaism split off and became their OWN religion is that VERY early Xians and mainstream Jews were allied during a revolt against the Romans (who again, wanted that land because location location location). The job of Mashiach in Judaism is to free Israel and establish a safe home for Jews there, and to establish world peace. (Jesus obviously did not accomplish this, hence the need for a “second coming.”) Because the leader of this revolt looked like he was about to succeed in DOING THOSE THINGS, most Jews said “hey, maybe THIS guy, Bar Kokvah, is the Mashiach!” Xians DID NOT LIKE THIS, because they thought that their dead guy (who again, did not accomplish the things) was the Mashiach. So we already didnt LIKE each other because they were heretics, but it boiled over when…
They betrayed Jews at a crucial point, thousands died, and the revolution failed. Jews got mad and said “you can’t be part of our synagogues anymore because you BETRAYED US AND WE DIED,” and Xians said “fine, we hated you anyway because you didnt accept our weird Mithras cult” and ran directly to the Mommy, the remainders of Roman Empire, and said “can we be the state religion now?” Mommy Byzantium, seeing an oppprtunity, said yes, Xianity separated from Judaism and rose to POWER, and held a bunch of official meetings and added things to their own writings (even they will admit this). They added theology that is 100% not compatible with Judaism, and they also outlawed Jewish practices and shit talked Jews a lot. Many verses in their books before ecumenical councils are also antisemitic. The Byzantine royal family (at this point, all that’s left of actual Rome) had sensed a shift in religion and power, and capitalized on this new and upcoming religion by making themselves very important figures in it, solidifying their political power through divine authority. (Later, Germans and Italians would say “hey, that’s not a bad idea, and copied them, creating the Holy Roman Empire, famously neither holy, nor Roman, nor an actual empire. Popes did not like this, and constantly tried to squash the HRE and Byzantine Empire, and I guess ultimately they did, but they also lost all political power in the process.)
Xians also then decided that they would blame Jews for killing Jesus forever, and would constantly murder and punish them for it, even though A) according to Xianity Jesus HAD TO DIE for them to be “saved,” so really they shouldn’t be mad about it and B) Jews literally DID NOT have the authority to sentence people to death, especially by crucifixion, literally ONLY Rome could do that.
Then, Xians decided that they needed to control Ye Holee Lande™, so they slaughtered a bunch of Jews and Muslims to get it and promptly lost it again, but they didn’t stop trying to get it back, and they killed thousands on all sides in the process.
Jews at this point have no homeland, having been kicked around by Romans, Xians, and Muslims. The latter of whom actually usually treated us way better than Xians, in general, especially in Al-Andalus, which you might unfortunately know now as “Spain,” because a bunch of important Xian families married and united their armies and killed all the Jews and Muslims there and said “this is our country now, get out and/or we will kill you.” They erased a powerful and prosperous Emirate of universities, poets, scholars, artists, musicians, and theologians, which had flourished all through the Dark Ages in Xian lands. (They then promptly sailed to the Americas, so that they could forcibly convert, rape, steal from, and murder those people too. )
But anyway, no homeland, which means that we often lived in OTHER peoples countries and didn’t get to participate in society or government. General xenophobia turned people against these Jewish “outsiders.” Painting us as dangerous, disloyal, christ killers, immigrants, was an easy way to create fear and fighting and keep the poor poor and the rich in power. (We see this today all the time. Think about it with other groups. I’m sure you can think of how leaders in your country have exploited public fear and xenophobia to stay in power.)
Xians, who had by this time been stealing and mistranslating our holy books for >1000 years, saw a verse that said “Jews may not charge other Jews unfair interest rates.” But Xians are “uncomfortable when we are not about me,” so THEY decided that this meant “Xians are not allowed to charge other Xians ANY INTEREST AT ALL.” But that would have made their economy collapse. So they had an idea. “What if we make it illegal for Jews to own any property or land or normal businesses, BUT, we let them run banking guilds, and THEY can charge US interest, and the economy will work.” It was a great idea for everybody but Jews, because the side effect was that A) poor people suddenly saw JEWS as the ones taxing them and taking their money when really it was the Kings, and B) whenever Jews got too successful, the government would kill them all (or kick them out, if it was a nice day), and poof - all that money (and land they were renting) was “liquidated” and could go to the government. (This was a super easy score for the Church, largely synonymous with the government for many centuries, because the idea that Jews are greedy money grubbing thieves is baked into the literal text of the New Testament, so they didnt even need to be creative to get people to accept this lie.)
This trope of Jews running things and making money off everyone and being greedy eventually led to a conspiracy theory that we wanted to/did already secretly dominate the Entire World, which is where the Elders of Zion/Illuminati/Lizard people/“Global Elite” trope comes from. That’s why you get FUCK-OFF RIDICULOUS things like DC councilmen saying “well we all know Jews control the weather and cause natural disasters to make money off them” from. Yes, that really happened. (And then, they made him go on an apology tour of the DC Holocaust Museum, where he played games on his phone and stormed out halfway through. Yes really.)
Again, because xenophobia, lots of other nasty aspects of Jew hatred popped up. The formula goes: Jews killed Christ -> Satan is the enemy of Christ -> Jews are in league with Satan -> Jews are witches and evil. This isnt even a stretch for them, because this kind of language is ALSO literally found in the Xian bible. A particularly nasty and pervasive part of this cycle was the idea that Jews (in a perverted version of holy communion, because Catholics and Xians view of witchcraft was just “upsidedown/backwards Xianity”) was the idea that Jews kidnapped Xian babies and used their blood to make bread. That one got a LOT of Jews killed.
Even the Holocaust is fundamentally part of this whole pattern. Post WWI Germany owed MASSIVE unpayable debts to the world for their role in the great war. They were bankrupt, disunified, and unstable. Hitler used fear and propaganda to rise to power by appealing to a base who were economically suffering and already super racist and xenophobic (like… many modern politicians… do the math…) and then the Holocaust itself was again, super super about real estate and property liquidation. (Bonus, they were invading the rest of Europe, so they ALSO got to steal art and money and national treasures from conquered governments, not JUST Jews.) Nazis really liked shiny things, and they really liked taking them to Berlin.
Later, Russia, who got to Berlin, also admitted to really linking shiny things, having made off with a LOT of international treasures and pretending they didnt have them for decades. They still have them, and they basically announced “there’s nothing you girls can do about it.” They also killed millions of Jews during the USSR days, made our religion illegal, and the current Russian government and Orthodox Church officially blames Jews for the revolution and murder of the Romanovs. Yes really. Let me say, unequivocally, fuck Russia.
There you have it, a VERY BREIF overview of antisemitism.
I should add, a VERY BRIEF history of antisemitism IN EUROPE, because I’m too exhausted to even get into the rest of the world right now, but it’s really a continuation of those same themes and cycles.
Compare to the list above if you’re curious about specific historical events you can google to learn more.
i really fucking hate how many ppl here are like “what did jews do???????” as if bigotry is a punishment for an ancient crime. we existed. that’s what we did. and that was, and still is, a crime punishable by death.
spot on @king-shit-thembo thank you
“The uniqueness of anti-Semitism lies in the fact that no other people in the world have ever been charged simultaneously:
With alienation from society and with cosmopolitanism.
With being capitalistic exploiters and also revolutionary communist advocators.
The Jews were accused of having an imperious mentality, and at the same time, they were the people of the book.
They’re accused of being militant aggressors, at the same time as being cowardly pacifists.
With being a chosen people and also having an inferior human nature.
With both arrogance and timidity.
With both extreme individualism and community adherence.
With being guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus and at the same time held to account for the invention of Christianity…
Everything and its opposite becomes a reason for anti-Semitism.”
- Professor Michael Curtis, (Anti-Semitism in the Contemporary World, ch. 1.)
