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Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people,[1] from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity.[2] Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, and family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance.[3] Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise.
There has not been a political unity of Jewish society since the united monarchy. Since then Israelite populations were always geographically dispersed (see Jewish diaspora), so that by the 19th century the Ashkenazi Jews were mainly located in Eastern and Central Europe; the Sephardi Jews were largely spread among various communities which lived in the Mediterranean region; Mizrahi Jews were primarily spread throughout Western Asia; and other populations of Jews lived in Central Asia, Ethiopia, the Caucasus, and India. (See Jewish ethnic divisions.)
Although there was a high degree of communication and traffic between these Jewish communities many Sephardic exiles blended into the Ashkenazi communities which existed in Central Europe following the Spanish Inquisition; many Ashkenazim migrated to the Ottoman Empire, giving rise to the characteristic Syrian-Jewish family name "Ashkenazi"; Iraqi-Jewish traders formed a distinct Jewish community in India; to some degree, many of these Jewish populations were cut off from the cultures which surrounded them by ghettoization, Muslim laws of dhimma, and the traditional discouragement of contact between Jews and members of polytheistic populations by their religious leaders.
Medieval Jewish communities in Eastern Europe continued to display distinct cultural traits over the centuries. Despite the universalist leanings of the Enlightenment (and its echo within Judaism in the Haskalah movement), many Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe continued to see themselves as forming a distinct national group " 'am yehudi", from the Biblical Hebrew but, adapting this idea to Enlightenment values, they assimilated the concept as that of an ethnic group whose identity did not depend on religion, which under Enlightenment thinking fell under a separate category.
Constantin Mciuc writes of the existence of "a differentiated but not isolated Jewish spirit" permeating the culture of Yiddish-speaking Jews.[4] This was only intensified as the rise of Romanticism amplified the sense of national identity across Europe generally. Thus, for example, members of the General Jewish Labour Bund in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were generally non-religious, and one of the historical leaders of the Bund was the child of converts to Christianity, though not a practicing or believing Christian himself.[citation needed]
The Haskalah combined with the Jewish Emancipation movement under way in Central and Western Europe to create an opportunity for Jews to enter secular society. At the same time, pogroms in Eastern Europe provoked a surge of migration, in large part to the United States, where some 2 million Jewish immigrants resettled between 1880 and 1920.By 1931, shortly before The Holocaust, 92% of the World's Jewish population was Ashkenazi in origin. Secularism originated in Europe as series of movements that militated for a new, heretofore unheard-of concept called "secular Judaism". For these reasons, much of what is thought of by English-speakers and, to a lesser extent, by non-English-speaking Europeans as "secular Jewish culture" is, in essence, the Jewish cultural movement that evolved in Central and Eastern Europe, and subsequently brought to North America by immigrants.During the 1940s, the Holocaust uprooted and destroyed most of the Jewish communities living in much of Europe. This, in combination with the creation of the State of Israel and the consequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, resulted in a further geographic shift.
Defining secular culture among those who practice traditional Judaism is difficult, because the entire culture is, by definition, entwined with religious traditions: the idea of separate ethnic and religious identity is foreign to the Hebrew tradition of an " 'am yisrael". (This is particularly true for Orthodox Judaism.) Gary Tobin, head of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, said of traditional Jewish culture:
The dichotomy between religion and culture doesn't really exist. Every religious attribute is filled with culture; every cultural act filled with religiosity. Synagogues themselves are great centers of Jewish culture. After all, what is life really about? Food, relationships, enrichment So is Jewish life. So many of our traditions inherently contain aspects of culture. Look at the Passover Seder it's essentially great theater. Jewish education and religiosity bereft of culture is not as interesting.[5]
Yaakov Malkin, Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture[6] in Jerusalem, writes:
Today very many secular Jews take part in Jewish cultural activities, such as celebrating Jewish holidays as historical and nature festivals, imbued with new content and form, or marking life-cycle events such as birth, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, and mourning in a secular fashion. They come together to study topics pertaining to Jewish culture and its relation to other cultures, in havurot, cultural associations, and secular synagogues, and they participate in public and political action coordinated by secular Jewish movements, such as the former movement to free Soviet Jews, and movements to combat pogroms, discrimination, and religious coercion. Jewish secular humanistic education inculcates universal moral values through classic Jewish and world literature and through organizations for social change that aspire to ideals of justice and charity.[7]
In North America, the secular and cultural Jewish movements are divided into three umbrella organizations: the Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations (CSJO), and Workmen's Circle.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. The Jewish philosophy is extended over several main eras in Jewish history, including the ancient and biblical era, medieval era and modern era (see Haskalah).
The ancient Jewish philosophy is expressed in the bible. According to Prof. Israel Efros the principles of the Jewish philosophy start in the bible, where the foundations of the Jewish monotheistic beliefs can be found, such as the belief in one god, the separation of god and the world and nature (as opposed to Pantheism) and the creation of the world. Other biblical writings that associated with philosophy are Psalms that contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works; from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current[8] and Ecclesiastes that is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible; its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world and life's meaning.[9] Other writings related to philosophy can be found in the Deuterocanonical books such as Sirach and Book of Wisdom.
During the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic Judaism aspired to combine Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture and philosophy. The philosopher Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His work attempts to combine Plato and Moses into one philosophical system.[10] He developed an allegoric approach of interpreting holy scriptures (the bible), in contrast to (old-fashioned) literally interpretation approaches. His allegorical exegesis was important for several Christian Church Fathers and some scholars hold that his concept of the Logos as God's creative principle influenced early Christology. Other scholars, however, deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source.[11]
Between the Ancient era and the Middle Ages most of the Jewish philosophy concentrated around the Rabbinic literature that is expressed in the Talmud and Midrash. In the 9th century Saadia Gaon wrote the text Emunoth ve-Deoth which is the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism. The Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain included many influential Jewish philosophers such as Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Halevi, Isaac Abravanel, Nahmanides, Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, Nissim of Gerona, Bahya ibn Paquda, Abraham bar Hiyya, Joseph ibn Tzaddik, Hasdai Crescas and Isaac ben Moses Arama. The most notable is Maimonides who is considered, beside the Jewish world, to be a prominent philosopher and polymath in the Islamic and Western worlds. Outside of Spain, other philosophers are Natan'el al-Fayyumi, Elia del Medigo, Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi and Gersonides.
Philosophy by Jews in Modern era was expressed by philosophers, mainly in Europe, such as Baruch Spinoza founder of Spinozism, whose work included modern Rationalism and Biblical criticism and laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment.[12] His work has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers; Others are Isaac Orobio de Castro, Tzvi Ashkenazi, David Nieto, Isaac Cardoso, Jacob Abendana, Uriel da Costa, Francisco Sanches and Moses Almosnino. A new era began in the 18th century with the thought of Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn has been described as the "'third Moses,' with whom begins a new era in Judaism," just as new eras began with Moses the prophet and with Moses Maimonides.[13] Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. He has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism, though Reform spokesmen have been "resistant to claim him as their spiritual father".[14] Mendelssohn came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews. The Jewish Enlightenment philosophy included Menachem Mendel Lefin, Salomon Maimon and Isaac Satanow. The next 19th century comprised both secular and religious philosophy and included philosophers such as Elijah Benamozegh, Hermann Cohen, Moses Hess, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Samuel Hirsch, Nachman Krochmal, Samuel David Luzzatto, and Nachman of Breslov founder of Breslov. The 20th century included the notable philosophers Jacques Derrida, Karl Popper, Emmanuel Levinas, Claude Lvi-Strauss, Hilary Putnam, Alfred Tarski, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A. J. Ayer, Walter Benjamin, Raymond Aron, Theodor W. Adorno, Isaiah Berlin and Henri Bergson.
A range of moral and political views is evident early in the history of Judaism, that serves to partially explain the diversity that is apparent among secular Jews who are often influenced by moral beliefs that can be found in Jewish scripture, and traditions. In recent centuries, secular Jews in Europe and the Americas have tended towards the political left[citation needed], and played key roles in the birth of the 19th century's labor movement and socialism. While Diaspora Jews have also been represented on the conservative side of the political spectrum, even politically conservative Jews have tended to support pluralism more consistently than many other elements of the political right. Some scholars[15] attribute this to the fact that Jews are not expected to proselytize, derived from Halakha. This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in diaspora countries, and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed since 363 CE. Jews value education, and the value of education is strongly embedded in Jewish culture.[16][17]
In the Middle Ages, European laws prevented Jews from owning land and gave them powerful incentive to go into other professions that non-Jewish Europeans were not willing to follow.[20] During the medieval period, there was a very strong social stigma against lending money and charging interest among the Christian majority. In most of Europe until the late 18th century, and in some places to an even later date, Jews were prohibited by Roman Catholic governments (and others) from owning land. On the other hand, the Church, because of a number of Bible verses (e.g., Leviticus 25:36) forbidding usury, declared that charging any interest was against the divine law, and this prevented any mercantile use of capital by pious Christians. As the Canon law did not apply to Jews, they were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon usurers by the popes. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication, and so the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews.
However, in almost every instance where large amounts were acquired by Jews through banking transactions the property thus acquired fell either during their life or upon their death into the hands of the king. This happened to Aaron of Lincoln in England, Ezmel de Ablitas in Navarre, Heliot de Vesoul in Provence, Benveniste de Porta in Aragon, etc. It was often for this reason that kings supported the Jews, and even objected to them becoming Christians (because in that case their fortunes earned by usury could not be seized by the crown after their deaths). Thus, both in England and in France the kings demanded to be compensated by the church for every Jew converted. This type of royal trickery was one factor in creating the stereotypical Jewish role of banker and/or merchant.
As a modern system of capital began to develop, loans became necessary for commerce and industry. Jews were able to gain a foothold in the new field of finance by providing these services: as non-Catholics, they were not bound by the ecclesiastical prohibition against "usury"; and in terms of Judaism itself, Hillel had long ago re-interpreted the Torah's ban on charging interest, allowing interest when it's needed to make a living.[citation needed]
The strong Jewish tradition of religious scholarship often left Jews well prepared for secular scholarship. In some times and places, this was countered by banning Jews from studying at universities, or admitting them only in limited numbers (see Jewish quota). Over the centuries, Jews have been poorly represented among land-holding classes, but far better represented in academia, professions, finance, commerce and many scientific fields. The strong representation of Jews in science and academia is evidenced by the fact that 193 persons known to be Jews or of Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2014.[21] Of whom, 26% in physics,[22] 22% in chemistry[23] and 27% in Physiology or Medicine.[24] In the fields of mathematics and computer science, 31% of Turing Award recipients[25] and 27% of Fields Medal in mathematics[26] were or are Jewish.
The early Jewish activity in science can be found in the Hebrew Bible where some of the books contain descriptions of the physical world. Biblical cosmology provides sporadic glimpses that may be stitched together to form a Biblical impression of the physical universe. There have been comparisons between the Bible, with passages such as from the Genesis creation narrative, and the astronomy of classical antiquity more generally.[30] The Bible also contains various cleansing rituals. One suggested ritual, for example, deals with the proper procedure for cleansing a leper (Leviticus 14:132). It is a fairly elaborate process, which is to be performed after a leper was already healed of leprosy (Leviticus 14:3), involving extensive cleansing and personal hygiene, but also includes sacrificing a bird and lambs with the addition of using their blood to symbolize that the afflicted has been cleansed.
The Torah proscribes Intercropping (Lev. 19:19, Deut 22:9), a practice often associated with sustainable agriculture and organic farming in modern agricultural science.[31][32] The Mosaic code has provisions concerning the conservation of natural resources, such as trees (Deuteronomy 20:1920) and birds (Deuteronomy 22:67).
During Medieval era astronomy was a primary field among Jewish scholars and was widely studied and practiced.[33] Prominent astronomers included Abraham Zacuto who published in 1478 his Hebrew book Ha-hibbur ha-gadol[34] where he wrote about the Solar System, charting the positions of the Sun, Moon and five planets.[34] His work served Portugal's exploration journeys and was used by Vasco da Gama and also by Christopher Columbus. The lunar crater Zagut is named after Zacuto's name. The mathematician and astronomer Abraham bar Hiyya Ha-Nasi authored the first European book to include the full solution to the quadratic equation x2 ax + b = 0,[35] and influenced the work of Leonardo Fibonacci. Bar Hiyya proved by the method of indivisibles the following equation for any circle: S = LxR/2, where S is the surface area, L is the circumference length and R is radius.[36]
Garcia de Orta, Portuguese Renaissance Jewish physician, was a pioneer of Tropical medicine. He published his work Colquios dos simples e drogas da India in 1563,[37] which deals with a series of substances, many of them unknown or the subject of confusion and misinformation in Europe at this period. He was the first European to describe Asiatic tropical diseases, notably cholera; he performed an autopsy on a cholera victim, the first recorded autopsy in India. Bonet de Lattes known chiefly as the inventor of an astronomical ring-dial by means of which solar and stellar altitudes can be measured and the time determined with great precision by night as well as by day. Other related personalities are Abraham ibn Ezra, whose the Moon crater Abenezra named after, David Gans, Judah ibn Verga, Mashallah ibn Athari an astronomer, The crater Messala on the Moon is named after him.
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist and is considered one of the most prominent scientists in history, often regarded as the "father of modern physics". His revolutionary work on the relativity theory transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the 20th century. When first published, relativity superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics created primarily by Isaac Newton.[38][39][40] In the field of physics, relativity improved the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves.[38][39][40]Einstein formulated the well-known Massenergy equivalence, E = mc2, and explained the photoelectric effect. His work also effected and influenced a large variety of fields of physics including the Big Bang theory (Einstein's General relativity influenced Georges Lematre), Quantum mechanics and nuclear energy.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II and many Jewish scientists had a significant role in the project.[41] The theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, often considered the "father of the atomic bomb", was chosen to direct the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1942. The physicist Le Szilrd, that conceived the nuclear chain reaction; Edward Teller, "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and Stanislaw Ulam; Eugene Wigner contributed to theory of Atomic nucleus and Elementary particle; Hans Bethe whose work included Stellar nucleosynthesis and was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory; Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Victor Weisskopf and Joseph Rotblat.
The mathematician and physicist Alexander Friedmann pioneered the theory that universe was expanding governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations. Arno Allan Penzias, the physicist and radio astronomer co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory, the scientists Robert Herman and Ralph Alpher had also worked on that field. In quantum mechanics Jewish role was significant as well and many of most influential figures and pioneers of the theory were Jewish: Niels Bohr and his work on the atom structure, Max Born (Schrdinger equation), Wolfgang Pauli, Richard Feynman (Quantum chromodynamics), Fritz London work on London dispersion force and London equations, Walter Heitler and Julian Schwinger work on Quantum electrodynamics, Asher Peres a pioneer in Quantum information, David Bohm (Quantum potential).
Sigmund Freud, known as the father of psychoanalysis, is one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst,[42] Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind.[43] Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.[44]
John von Neumann, a mathematician and physicist, made major contributions to a number of fields,[47] including foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, topology, numerical analysis, quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics and game theory.[48] In made also a major work with computing and the development of the computer, he suggested and described a computer architecture called Von Neumann architecture and worked on linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics. Emmy Noether was an influential mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by many prominent scientists as the most important woman in the history of mathematics,[49][50][incomplete short citation] she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws.[51]
More remarkable contributors include Heinrich Hertz and Steven Weinberg in Electromagnetism; Carl Sagan, his contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of Venus and known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life; Felix Hausdorff (founder of topology); Edward Witten (M-theory); Vitaly Ginzburg and Lev Landau (GinzburgLandau theory); Yakir Aharonov (AharonovBohm effect); Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR paradox); Moshe Carmeli (Gauge theory). Rudolf Lipschitz (Lipschitz continuity); Paul Cohen (Continuum hypothesis, Axiom of choice); Laurent Schwartz (theory of distribution); Grigory Margulis (Lie group); Richard M. Karp (Theory of computation); Adi Shamir (RSA, cryptography); Judea Pearl (Artificial intelligence, Bayesian network); Max Newman (Colossus computer); Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (Jacobi elliptic functions, Jacobian matrix and determinant, Jacobi symbol). Sidney Altman (Molecular biology, RNA); Melvin Calvin (Calvin Cycle); Otto Wallach (Alicyclic compound); Paul Berg (biochemistry of nucleic acids); Ada Yonath (Crystallography, structure of the ribosome); Dan Shechtman (Quasicrystal); Julius Axelrod and Bernard Katz (Neurotransmitter); Elie Metchnikoff (discovery of Macrophage); Selman Waksman (discovery of Streptomycin); Rosalind Franklin (DNA); Carl Djerassi (the pill); Stephen Jay Gould (Evolutionary biology); Baruch Samuel Blumberg (Hepatitis B virus); Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin (developers of the Polio vaccines); Paul Ehrlich (discovery of the Bloodbrain barrier); In fields such as psychology and neurology: Otto Rank, Viktor Frankl, Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch; linguistics: Noam Chomsky, Franz Boas, Roman Jakobson, Edward Sapir, Joseph Greenberg; and sociology: Theodor Adorno, Nathan Glazer, Erving Goffman, Georg Simmel.
Beside Scientific discoveries and researches, Jews have created significant and influential innovations in a large variety of fields such as the listed samples: Siegfried Marcus- automobile pioneer, inventor of the first car; Emile Berliner- developer of the disc record phonograph; Mikhail Gurevich- co-inventor of the MIG aircraft; Theodore Maiman- inventor of the laser; Robert Adler- inventor of the wireless remote control for televisions; Edwin H. Land inventor of Land Camera; Bob Kahn- inventor of TCP and IP; Bram Cohen- creator of Bittorent; Sergei Brin and Larry Page- creators of Google; Laszlo Biro Ballpoint pen; Simcha Blass- Drip irrigation; Lee Felsenstein designer of Osborne 1; Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans co-creators of PHP and founders of Zend Technologies; Ralph H. Baer, "The Father of Video Games".
In some places where there have been relatively high concentrations of Jews, distinct secular Jewish subcultures have arisen.[52] For example, ethnic Jews formed an enormous proportion of the literary and artistic life of Vienna, Austria at the end of the 19th century, or of New York City 50 years later (and Los Angeles in the mid-late 20th century). Many of these creative Jews were not particularly religious people. In general, Jewish artistic culture in various periods reflected the culture in which they lived.
Literary and theatrical expressions of secular Jewish culture may be in specifically Jewish languages such as Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo-Tat or Ladino, or it may be in the language of the surrounding cultures, such as English or German. Secular literature and theater in Yiddish largely began in the 19th century and was in decline by the middle of the 20th century. The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism. Apart from the use of Hebrew in Israel, whether a Jewish community will speak a Jewish or non-Jewish language as its main vehicle of discourse is generally dependent on how isolated or assimilated that community is. For example, the Jews in the shtetls of Poland and the Lower East Side of New York City during the early 20th century spoke Yiddish at most times, while assimilated Jews in 19th and early 20th-century Germany spoke German, and American-born Jews in the United States speak English.
Jewish authors have both created a unique Jewish literature and contributed to the national literature of many of the countries in which they live. Though not strictly secular, the Yiddish works of authors like Sholem Aleichem (whose collected works amounted to 28 volumes) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize), form their own canon, focusing on the Jewish experience in both Eastern Europe, and in America. In the United States, Jewish writers like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and many others are considered among the greatest American authors, and incorporate a distinctly secular Jewish view into many of their works. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg often touches on Jewish themes (notably the early autobiographical works such as Howl and Kaddish). Other famous Jewish authors that made contributions to world literature include Heinrich Heine, German poet, Mordecai Richler, Canadian author, Isaac Babel, Russian author, Franz Kafka, of Prague, and Harry Mulisch, whose novel The Discovery of Heaven was revealed by a 2007 poll as the "Best Dutch Book Ever".[54]
In Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide, Yaakov Malkin, Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture in Jerusalem, writes:
Secular Jewish culture embraces literary works that have stood the test of time as sources of aesthetic pleasure and ideas shared by Jews and non-Jews, works that live on beyond the immediate socio-cultural context within which they were created. They include the writings of such Jewish authors as Sholem Aleichem, Itzik Manger, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, S.Y. Agnon, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, Isaiah Berlin, Haim Nahman Bialik, Yehuda Amichai, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, and David Grossman. It boasts masterpieces that have had a considerable influence on all of western culture, Jewish culture included works such as those of Heinrich Heine, Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Chagall, Jacob Epstein, Ben Shahn, Amedeo Modigliani, Franz Kafka, Max Reinhardt (Goldman), Ernst Lubitsch, and Woody Allen.[7]
Other notable contributors are Isaac Asimov author of the Foundation series and others such as I, robot, Nightfall and The Gods Themselves; Joseph Heller (Catch-22); R.L. Stine (Goosebumps series); J. D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye); Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union); Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time); Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible); Will Eisner (A Contract with God); Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree); Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon, The Thirteenth Tribe); Saul Bellow (Herzog); The historical novel series The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon is an inspiration for George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.[55][56][57]
Among recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature, 13% were or are Jewish.[58]
Another aspect of Jewish literature is the ethical, called Musar literature. This literature has been composed by both religious and secular authors.[59]
Hebrew poetry is expressed by various of poets in different eras of Jewish history. Biblical poetry is related to the poetry in biblical times as it expressed in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish sacred texts. In medieval times the Jewish poetry was mainly expressed by piyyutim and several poets such as Yehuda Halevi, Samuel ibn Naghrillah, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra and Dunash ben Labrat. Modern Hebrew poetry is mostly related to the era of and after the revival of the Hebrew language, pioneered by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the Haskalah era and succeeded by poets such as Hayim Nahman Bialik, Nathan Alterman and Shaul Tchernichovsky.
The Ukrainian Jew Abraham Goldfaden founded the first professional Yiddish-language theatre troupe in Iai, Romania in 1876. The next year, his troupe achieved enormous success in Bucharest. Within a decade, Goldfaden and others brought Yiddish theater to Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany, New York City, and other cities with significant Ashkenazic populations. Between 1890 and 1940, over a dozen Yiddish theatre groups existed in New York City alone, in the Yiddish Theater District, performing original plays, musicals, and Yiddish translations of theatrical works and opera. Perhaps the most famous of Yiddish-language plays is The Dybbuk (1919) by S. Ansky.
Yiddish theater in New York in the early 20th century rivalled English-language theater in quantity and often surpassed it in quality. A 1925 New York Times article remarks, "Yiddish theater is now a stable American institution and no longer dependent on immigration from Eastern Europe. People who can neither speak nor write Yiddish attend Yiddish stage performances and pay Broadway prices on Second Avenue." This article also mentions other aspects of a New York Jewish cultural life "in full flower" at that time, among them the fact that the extensive New York Yiddish-language press of the time included seven daily newspapers.[60]
In fact, however, the next generation of American Jews spoke mainly English to the exclusion of Yiddish; they brought the artistic energy of Yiddish theater into the American theatrical mainstream, but usually in a less specifically Jewish form.
Yiddish theater, most notably Moscow State Jewish Theater directed by Solomon Mikhoels, also played a prominent role in the arts scene of the Soviet Union until Stalin's 1948 reversal in government policy toward the Jews. (See Rootless cosmopolitan, Night of the Murdered Poets.)
Montreal's Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre continues to thrive after 50 years of performance.
From their Emancipation to World War II, Jews were very active and sometimes even dominant in certain forms of European theatre, and after the Holocaust many Jews continued to that cultural form. For example, in pre-Nazi Germany, where Nietzsche asked "What good actor of today is not Jewish?", acting, directing and writing positions were often filled by Jews. Both MacDonald and Jewish Tribal Review would generally be counted as anti-Semitic sources, but reasonably careful in their factual claims. "In Imperial Berlin, Jewish artists could be found in the forefront of the performing arts, from high drama to more popular forms like cabaret and revue, and eventually film. Jewish audiences patronized innovative theater, regardless of whether they approved of what they saw."[61] The British historian Paul Johnson, commenting on Jewish contributions to European culture at the Fin de sicle, writes that
The area where Jewish influence was strongest was the theatre, especially in Berlin. Playwrights like Carl Sternheim, Arthur Schnitzler, Ernst Toller, Erwin Piscator, Walter Hasenclever, Ferenc Molnr and Carl Zuckmayer, and influential producers like Max Reinhardt, appeared at times to dominate the stage, which tended to be modishly left-wing, pro-republican, experimental and sexually daring. But it was certainly not revolutionary, and it was cosmopolitan rather than Jewish.[62]
Jews also made similar, if not as massive, contributions to theatre and drama in Austria, Britain, France, and Russia (in the national languages of those countries). Jews in Vienna, Paris and German cities found cabaret both a popular and effective means of expression, as German cabaret in the Weimar Republic "was mostly a Jewish art form".[63] The involvement of Jews in Central European theatre was halted during the rise of the Nazis and the purging of Jews from cultural posts, though many emigrated to Western Europe or the United States and continued working there.
In the early 20th century the traditions of New York's vibrant Yiddish Theatre District both rivaled and fed into Broadway. In the English-speaking theatre Jewish migrs brought novel theatrical ideas from Europe, such as the theatrical realist movement and the philosophy of Konstantin Stanislavski, whose teachings would influence many Jewish-American acting teachers such as the Yiddish theatre-trained acting theorist Stella Adler. Jewish immigrants were instrumental in the creation and development of the genre of musical theatre and earlier forms of theatrical entertainment in America, and would innovate the new, distinctly American, art form, the Broadway musical.[64]Brandeis University Professor Stephen J. Whitfield has commented that "More so than behind the screen, the talent behind the stage was for over half a century virtually the monopoly of one ethnic group. That is... [a] feature which locates Broadway at the center of Jewish culture".[65] New York University Professor Laurence Maslon says that "There would be no American musical without Jews Their influence is corollary to the influence of black musicians on jazz; there were as many Jews involved in the form".[66] Other writers, such as Jerome Caryn, have noted that musical theatre and other forms of American entertainment are uniquely indebted to the contributions of Jewish-Americans, since "there might not have been a modern Broadway without the "Asiatic horde" of comedians, gossip columnists, songwriters, and singers that grew out of the ghetto, whether it was on the Lower East Side, Harlem (a Jewish ghetto before it was a black one), Newark, or Washington, D.C."[67] Likewise, in the analysis of Aaron Kula, director of The Klezmer Company,
the Jewish experience has always been best expressed by music, and Broadway has always been an integral part of the Jewish-American experience The difference is that one can expand the definition of "Jewish Broadway" to include an interdisciplinary roadway with a wide range of artistic activities packed onto one avenuetheatre, opera, symphony, ballet, publishing companies, choirs, synagogues and more. This vibrant landscape reflects the life, times and creative output of the Jewish-American artist.[68]
In the 19th and early 20th centuries the European operetta, a precursor the musical, often featured the work of Jewish composers such as Paul Abraham, Leo Ascher, Edmund Eysler, Leo Fall, Bruno Granichstaedten, Jacques Offenbach, Emmerich Kalman, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Straus and Rudolf Friml; the latter four eventually moved to the United States and produced their works on the New York stage. One of the librettists for Bizet's Carmen (not an operetta proper but rather a work of the earlier Opra comique form) was the Jewish Ludovic Halvy, niece of composer Fromental Halvy (Bizet himself was not Jewish but he married the elder Halevy's daughter, many have suspected that he was the descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity, and others have noticed Jewish-sounding intervals in his music).[69] The Viennese librettist Victor Leon summarized the connection of Jewish composers and writers with the form of operetta: "The audience for operetta wants to laugh beneath tearsand that is exactly what Jews have been doing for the last two thousand years since the destruction of Jerusalem".[70] Another factor in the evolution of musical theatre was vaudeville, and during the early 20th century the form was explored and expanded by Jewish comedians and actors such as Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, The Marx Brothers, Anna Held, Al Jolson, Molly Picon, Sophie Tucker and Ed Wynn. During the period when Broadway was monopolized by revues and similar entertainments, Jewish producer Florenz Ziegfeld dominated the theatrical scene with his Follies.
By 1910 Jews (the vast majority of them immigrants from Eastern Europe) already composed a quarter of the population of New York City, and almost immediately Jewish artists and intellectuals began to show their influence on the cultural life of that city, and through time, the country as a whole. Likewise, while the modern musical can best be described as a fusion of operetta, earlier American entertainment and African-American culture and music, as well as Jewish culture and music, the actual authors of the first "book musicals" were the Jewish Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. From that time until the 1980s a vast majority of successful musical theatre composers, lyricists, and book-writers were Jewish (a notable exception is the Protestant Cole Porter, who acknowledged that the reason he was so successful on Broadway was that he wrote what he called "Jewish music").[71] Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Schwartz, Kander and Ebb and dozens of others during the "Golden Age" of musical theatre were Jewish. Since the Tony Award for Best Original Score was instituted in 1947, approximately 70% of nominated scores and 60% of winning scores were by Jewish composers. Of successful British and French musical writers both in the West End and Broadway, Claude-Michel Schnberg and Lionel Bart are Jewish, among others.
One explanation of the affinity of Jewish composers and playwrights to the musical is that "traditional Jewish religious music was most often led by a single singer, a cantor while Christians emphasize choral singing."[72]Many of these writers used the musical to explore issues relating to assimilation, the acceptance of the outsider in society, the racial situation in the United States, the overcoming of obstacles through perseverance, and other topics pertinent to Jewish Americans and Western Jews in general, often using subtle and disguised stories to get this point across.[73] For example, Kern, Rodgers, Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote musicals and operas aiming to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urging racial harmony; these works included Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Finian's Rainbow, South Pacific and The King and I. Towards the end of Golden Age, writers also began to openly and overtly tackle Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof and Rags; Bart's Blitz! also tackles relations between Jews and Gentiles. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism. The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic.[74]
The ranks of prominent Jewish producers, directors, designers and performers include Boris Aronson, David Belasco, Joel Grey, the Minskoff family, Zero Mostel, Joseph Papp, Mandy Patinkin, the Nederlander family, Harold Prince, Max Reinhardt, Jerome Robbins, the Shubert family and Julie Taymor. Jewish playwrights have also contributed to non-musical drama and theatre, both Broadway and regional. Edna Ferber, Moss Hart, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon are only some of the prominent Jewish playwrights in American theatrical history. Approximately 34% of the plays and musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama were written and composed by Jewish Americans.[75]
The Association for Jewish Theater is a contemporary organization that includes both American and international theaters that focus on theater with Jewish content. It has also expanded to include Jewish playwrights.
The earliest known Hebrew language drama was written around 1550 by a Jewish-Italian writer from Mantua.[76] A few works were written by rabbis and Kabbalists in 17th-century Amsterdam, where Jews were relatively free from persecution and had both flourishing religious and secular Jewish cultures.[77] All of these early Hebrew plays were about Biblical or mystical subjects, often in the form of Talmudic parables. During the post-Emancipation period in 19th-century Europe, many Jews translated great European plays such as those by Shakespeare, Molire and Schiller, giving the characters Jewish names and transplanting the plot and setting to within a Jewish context.
Modern Hebrew theatre and drama, however, began with the development of Modern Hebrew in Europe (the first Hebrew theatrical professional performance was in Moscow in 1918)[78] and was "closely linked with the Jewish national renaissance movement of the twentieth century. The historical awareness and the sense of primacy which accompanied the Hebrew theatre in its early years dictated the course of its artistic and aesthetic development".[79] These traditions were soon transplanted to Israel. Playwrights such as Natan Alterman, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Leah Goldberg, Ephraim Kishon, Hanoch Levin, Aharon Megged, Moshe Shamir, Avraham Shlonsky, Yehoshua Sobol and A. B. Yehoshua have written Hebrew-language plays. Themes that are obviously common in these works are the Holocaust, the ArabIsraeli conflict, the meaning of Jewishness, and contemporary secular-religious tensions within Jewish Israel. The most well-known Hebrew theatre company and Israel's national theatre is the Habima (meaning "the stage" in Hebrew), which was formed in 1913 in Lithuania, and re-established in 1917 in Russia; another prominent Israeli theatre company is the Cameri Theatre, which is "Israel's first and leading repertory theatre".[80]
The first theatrical event by Mountain Jews took place in December 1903,[81] when Asaf Agarunov, a teacher and a Zionist, staged a story by Naum Shoykovich, translated from Hebrew, "The Burn for Burn," and staged it in honor of schoolteacher Nagdimuna ben Simona's (Shimunov) wedding.[81]
In 1918, a drama studio was opened in Derbent, Soviet Union headed by Rabbi Yashaiyo Rabinovich.[81]
In 1935, the first Soviet Union theatre opened in Derbent, which included three troupes Russian, Mountain Jews and Turk. It was based on drama circles, which were led by Manashir and Khanum Shalumov. Initially, in the circle, men played the female roles. Later, women began to take part in the theatre.[82] In 1939, the Judeo-Tat theatre was the winner of the festival of theatres in Dagestan.
During World War II, most of the actors were drafted into the army. Many theatre actors died in the war.[83] In 1943, the theatre resumed its work, and in 1948 it was closed. The official reason was its unprofitability.[83]
In the 1960s, the theatre resumed its activities and experienced its second heyday. The actress, Akhso Ilyaguevna Shalumova (1909-1985), "Honored Artist of the Dagestan ASSR" returned to the theatre. She played the role of (Juhuri: ) - Shimi Derbendi's wife - Shahnugor, based on the stories of writer Hizgil Avshalumov.[83]
In the 1970s, the People's Judeo-Tat theatre was organized. For many years, its director was Abram Avdalimov, "Honored Cultural Worker of the Dagestan ASSR," singer, actor and playwright. His successor was Roman Izyaev, who was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his meritorious service.[83]
In the 1990s, the Judeo-Tat theatre experienced another crisis: it rarely held performances and did not have any premieres. Only in 2000, when it became a municipal theater, was it able to resume its activity. From 2000 to 2002, the theatre was headed by actor and musician Raziil Semenovich Ilyaguev (1945-2016), "Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Dagestan." For the next two years the theatre was headed by Alesya Isakova.
In 2004, Lev Yakovlevich Manakhimov (1950-2021), "Honored Artist of the Republic of Dagestan," became the artistic director of the theatre. After the death of Manakhimov, Boris Yudaev became the head of the theatre.
In the era when Yiddish theatre was still a major force in the world of theatre, over 100 films were made in Yiddish. Many are now lost. Prominent films included Shulamith (1931), the first Yiddish musical on film His Wife's Lover (1931), A Daughter of Her People (1932), the anti-Nazi film The Wandering Jew (1933), The Yiddish King Lear (1934), Shir Hashirim (1935), the biggest Yiddish film hit of all time Yidl Mitn Fidl (1936), Where Is My Child? (1937), Green Fields (1937), Dybuk (1937), The Singing Blacksmith (1938), Tevya (1939), Mirele Efros (1939), Lang ist der Weg (1948), and God, Man and Devil (1950).
The roster of Jewish entrepreneurs in the English-language American film industry is legendary: Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, the Warner Brothers, David O. Selznick, Marcus Loew, and Adolph Zukor, Fox to name just a few, and continuing into recent times with such industry giants as super-agent Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner, Lew Wasserman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen. However, few of these brought a specifically Jewish sensibility either to the art of film or, with the sometime exception of Spielberg, to their choice of subject matter. The historian Eric Hobsbawm described the situation as follows:[84]
It would be ... pointless to look for consciously Jewish elements in the songs of Irving Berlin or the Hollywood movies of the era of the great studios, all of which were run by immigrant Jews: their object, in which they succeeded, was precisely to make songs or films which found a specific expression for 100 per cent Americanness.
A more specifically Jewish sensibility can be seen in the films of the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, or Woody Allen; other examples of specifically Jewish films from the Hollywood film industry are the Barbra Streisand vehicle Yentl (1983), or John Frankenheimer's The Fixer (1968). More recently, Call Me By Your Name (2017) can be given as an example of a movie with Jewish sensibility. Jewish film festivals are nowadays conducted in many major cities around the world as vehicles of introducing such films to wider audiences, including among others the Boston JFF, San Francisco JFF, Jerusalem JFF, etc.
The first radio chains, the Radio Corporation of America and the Columbia Broadcasting System, were created by the Jewish-American David Sarnoff and William S. Paley, respectively. These Jewish innovators were also among the first producers of televisions, both black-and-white and color.[85] Among the Jewish immigrant communities of America there was also a thriving Yiddish language radio, with its "golden age" from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Although there is little specifically Jewish television in the United States (National Jewish Television, largely religious, broadcasts only three hours a week), Jews have been involved in American television from its earliest days. From Sid Caesar and Milton Berle to Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Andy Kaufman to Billy Crystal to Jerry Seinfeld, Jewish stand-up comedians have been icons of American television. Other Jews that held a prominent role in early radio and television were Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Walter Winchell and David Susskind. More figures are Larry King, Michael Savage and Howard Stern. In the analysis of Paul Johnson, "The Broadway musical, radio and TV were all examples of a fundamental principle in Jewish diaspora history: Jews opening up a completely new field in business and culture, a tabula rasa on which to set their mark, before other interests had a chance to take possession, erect guild or professional fortifications and deny them entry."[86]
One of the first televised situation comedies, The Goldbergs was set in a specifically Jewish milieu in the Bronx. While the overt Jewish milieu of The Goldbergs was unusual for an American television series, there were a few other examples, such as Brooklyn Bridge (19911993) and Bridget Loves Bernie. Jews have also played an enormous role among the creators and writers of television comedies: Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Selma Diamond, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon all wrote for Sid Caesar; Reiner's son Rob Reiner worked with Norman Lear on All in the Family (which often engaged anti-semitism and other issues of prejudice); Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created the hit sitcom Seinfeld, Lorne Michaels, Al Franken, Rosie Shuster, and Alan Zweibel of Saturday Night Live breathed new life into the variety show in the 1970s.
More recently, American Jews have been instrumental to "novelistic" television series such as The Wire and The Sopranos. Variously acclaimed as one of the greatest television series of all time, The Wire was created by David Simon. Simon also served as executive producer, head writer, and show runner. Matthew Weiner produced the fifth and sixth seasons of The Sopranos and later created Mad Men.More remarkable contributors are David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, creators of Game of Thrones TV series; Ron Leavitt co-creator of Married... with Children; Damon Lindelof and J. J. Abrams, co-creators of Lost; David Crane and Marta Kauffman, creators of Friends; Tim Kring creator of Heroes; Sydney Newman co-creator of Doctor Who; Darren Star, creator Sex and the City and Melrose Place; Aaron Spelling, co-creator of Beverly Hills, 90210; Chuck Lorre, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men; Gideon Raff, creator of Prisoners of War which Homeland is based on; Aaron Ruben and Sheldon Leonard co-creators of The Andy Griffith Show; Don Hewitt creator of 60 Minutes; Garry Shandling, co-creator of The Larry Sanders Show; Ed. Weinberger, co-creator of The Cosby Show; David Milch, creator of Deadwood; Steven Levitan, co-creator of Modern Family; Dick Wolf, creator of Law & Order; David Shore, creator House; Max Mutchnick and David Kohan creators of Will & Grace; Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis creators of Once Upon a Time (TV Series). There is also a significant role of Jews in acting by actors such as Sarah Jessica Parker, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Mila Kunis, Zac Efron, Hank Azaria, David Duchovny, Fred Savage, Zach Braff, Noah Wyle, Adam Brody, Katey Sagal, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Michelle Trachtenberg, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Mayim Bialik.
Jewish musical contributions also tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. Some music, however, is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as Israeli music, Israeli folk music, Klezmer, Sephardic and Ladino music, and Mizrahi music.
Before Emancipation, virtually all Jewish music in Europe was sacred music, with the exception of the performances of klezmorim during weddings and other occasions. The result was a lack of a Jewish presence in European classical music until the 19th century, with a very few exceptions, normally enabled by specific aristocratic protection, such as Salamone Rossi and Claude Daquin (the work of the former is considered the beginning of "Jewish art music").[87] After Jews were admitted to mainstream society in England (gradually after their return in the 17th century), France, Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and Russia (in that order), the Jewish contribution to the European music scene steadily increased, but in the form of mainstream European music, not specifically Jewish music. Notable examples of Jewish Romantic composers (by country) are Charles-Valentin Alkan, Paul Dukas and Fromental Halevy from France, Josef Dessauer, Karl Goldmark and Gustav Mahler from Bohemia (most Austrian Jews during this time were native not to what is today Austria but the outer provinces of the Empire), Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer from Germany, and Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein from Russia. Singers included John Braham and Giuditta Pasta. There were very many notable Jewish violin and pianist virtuosi, including Joseph Joachim, Ferdinand David, Carl Tausig, Henri Herz, Leopold Auer, Jascha Heifetz, and Ignaz Moscheles. During the 20th century the number of Jewish composers and notable instrumentalists increased, as did their geographical distribution. Sample Jewish 20th-century composers include Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky from Austria, Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill from Germany, Viktor Ullmann and Jaromr Weinberger from Bohemia and later the Czech Republic (the former perished at the Auschwitz extermination camps), George Gershwin and Aaron Copland from the United States, Darius Milhaud and Alexandre Tansman from France, Alfred Schnittke and Lera Auerbach from Russia, Lalo Schifrin and Mario Davidovsky from Argentina and Paul Ben-Haim and Shulamit Ran from Israel. There are some genres and forms of classical music that Jewish composers have been associated with, including notably during the Romantic period French Grand Opera. The most prolific composers of this genre included Giacomo Meyerbeer, Fromental Halvy, and the later Jacques Offenbach; Halevy's La Juive was based on Scribe's libretto very loosely connected to the Jewish experience.
While orchestral and operatic music works by Jewish composers would in general be considered secular, many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) composers have incorporated Jewish themes and motives into their music. Sometimes this is done covertly, such as the klezmer band music that many critics and observers believe lies in the third movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, and this type of Jewish reference was most common during the 19th century when openly displaying one's Jewishness would most likely hamper a Jew's chances at assimilation. During the 20th century, however, many Jewish composers wrote music with direct Jewish references and themes, e.g. David Amram (Symphony "Songs of the Soul"), Leonard Bernstein (Kaddish Symphony, Chichester Psalms), Ernest Bloch (Schelomo), Arnold Schoenberg, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Violin Concerto no. 2) Kurt Weill (The Eternal Road) and Hugo Weisgall (Psalm of the Instant Dove).
In the late twentieth century, prominent composers like Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti or Alfred Schnittke gave significant contributions to the history of contemporary music
The great songwriters and lyricists of American traditional popular music and jazz standards were predominantly Jewish, including Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Frank Loesser, Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin.
Deriving from Biblical traditions, Jewish dance has long been used by Jews as a medium for the expression of joy and other communal emotions.[88] Each Jewish diasporic community developed its own dance traditions for wedding celebrations and other distinguished events. For Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe, for example, dances, whose names corresponded to the different forms of klezmer music that were played, were an obvious staple of the wedding ceremony of the shtetl.[89] Jewish dances both were influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. "Nevertheless the Jews practiced a corporeal expressive language that was highly differentiated from that of the non-Jewish peoples of their neighborhood, mainly through motions of the hands and arms, with more intricate legwork by the younger men."[90] In general, however, in most religiously traditional communities, members of the opposite sex dancing together or dancing at times other than at these events was frowned upon.
Jewish humor is the long tradition of humor in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, frequently self-deprecating and often anecdotal humor originating in Europe.[91] Jewish humor took root in the United States over the last hundred years, beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up, film, and television.[92] A significant number of American comedians have been or are Jewish.[citation needed]
Compared to music or theater, there is less of a specifically Jewish tradition in the visual arts. The most likely and accepted reason is that, as has been previously shown with Jewish music and literature, before Emancipation Jewish culture was dominated by the religious tradition of aniconism. As most Rabbinical authorities believed that the Second Commandment prohibited much visual art that would qualify as "graven images", Jewish artists were relatively rare until they lived in assimilated European communities beginning in the late 18th century.[93][94] Despite fears by early religious communities of art being used for idolatrous purposes, Jewish sacred art is recorded in the Tanakh and extends throughout Jewish Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[95] The Tabernacle and the two Temples in Jerusalem form the first known examples of "Jewish art". During the first centuries of the Common Era, Jewish religious art also was created in regions surrounding the Mediterranean such as Syria and Greece, including frescoes on the walls of synagogues, of which the Dura Europas Synagogue was the only survivor,[96] prior to its destruction by ISIL in 2017, as well as the Jewish catacombs in Rome.[97][98]
A Jewish tradition of illuminated manuscripts in at least Late Antiquity has left no survivors, but can be deduced from borrowings in Early Medieval Christian art. A number of luxury pieces of gold glass from the later Roman period have Jewish motifs. Several Hellenistic-style floor mosaics have also been excavated in synagogues from Late Antiquity in Israel and Palestine, especially of the signs of the Zodiac, which was apparently acceptable in a low-status position on the floor. Some, such as that at Naaran, show evidence of a reaction against images of living creatures around 600 CE. The decoration of sarcophagi and walls at the cave cemetery at Beit She'arim shows a mixture of Jewish and Hellenistic motifs. However, for a period of several centuries between about 700 and 1100 CE there are scarcely any survivals of identifiably Jewish art.
Middle Age Rabbinical and Kabbalistic literature also contain textual and graphic art, most famously illuminated haggadahs such as the Sarajevo Haggadah, and other manuscripts like the Nuremberg Mahzor. Some of these were illustrated by Jewish artists and some by Christians; equally some Jewish artists and craftsmen in various media worked on Christian commissions.[99] Outside of Europe, Yemenite Jewish silversmiths developed a distinctive style of finely wrought silver that is admired for its artistry. Johnson again summarizes this sudden change from a limited participation by Jews in visual art (as in many other arts) to a large movement by them into this branch of European cultural life:
Again, the arrival of the Jewish artist was a strange phenomenon. It is true that, over the centuries, there had been many animals (though few humans) depicted in Jewish art: lions on Torah curtains, owls on Judaic coins, animals on the Capernaum capitals, birds on the rim of the fountain-basis in the 5th century Naro synagogue in Tunis; there were carved animals, too, on timber synagogues in eastern Europe indeed the Jewish wood-carver was the prototype of the modern Jewish plastic artist. A book of Yiddish folk-ornament, printed at Vitebsk in 1920, was similar to Chagall's own bestiary. But the resistance of pious Jews to portraying the living human image was still strong at the beginning of the 20th century.[100]
There were few Jewish secular artists in Europe prior to the Emancipation that spread throughout Europe with the Napoleonic conquests. There were exceptions, and Salomon Adler was a prominent portrait painter in 18th-century Milan. The delay in participation in the visual arts parallels the lack of Jewish participation in European classical music until the nineteenth century, and which was progressively overcome with the rise of Modernism in the 20th century. There were many Jewish artists in the 19th century, but Jewish artistic activity boomed during the end of World War I. The Jewish artistic Renaissance has its roots in the 1901 Fifth Zionist Congress, which included an art exhibition featuring Jewish artists E.M. Lilien and Hermann Struck. The exhibition helped legitimize art as an expression of Jewish culture.[101] According to Nadine Nieszawer, "Until 1905, Jews were always plunged into their books but from the first Russian Revolution, they became emancipated, committed themselves in politics and became artists. A real Jewish cultural rebirth".[102] Individual Jews figured in the modern artistic movements of Europe With the exception of those living in isolated Jewish communities, most Jews listed here as contributing to secular Jewish culture also participated in the cultures of the peoples they lived with and nations they lived in. In most cases, however, the work and lives of these people did not exist in two distinct cultural spheres but rather in one that incorporated elements of both.
During the early 20th century Jews figured particularly prominently in the Montparnasse movement, and after World War II among the abstract expressionists: Alexander Bogen, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, Al Held, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Milton Resnick, Jack Tworkov, Mark Rothko, and Louis Schanker as well as among Contemporary artists, Modernists and Postmodernists.[103] Many Russian Jews were prominent in the art of scenic design, particularly the aforementioned Chagall and Aronson, as well as the revolutionary Lon Bakst, who like the other two also painted. One Mexican Jewish artist was Pedro Friedeberg; historians disagree as to whether Frida Kahlo's father was Jewish or Lutheran. Gustav Klimt was not Jewish, but nearly all of his patrons and several of his models were. Among major artists Chagall may be the most specifically Jewish in his themes. But as art fades into graphic design, Jewish names and themes become more prominent: Leonard Baskin, Al Hirschfeld, Peter Max, Ben Shahn, Art Spiegelman and Saul Steinberg.
Jews have also played a very important role in media other than painting; their involvement in sculpture came rather later, perhaps due to lingering feelings against "graven images". But there were many notable Jewish sculptors in the later 19th and 20th centuries, including Moses Jacob Ezekiel (American, d 1917), Sir Jacob Epstein (American-British, d 1959), Ossip Zadkine (French, d 1967) Naum Gabo (Russian, d 1977), Oscar Nemon (Croatian, d 1985), Louise Nevelson (American, d 1988), Herbert Ferber (American, d 1991).
In photography some notable figures are Andr Kertsz, Robert Frank, Helmut Newton, Garry Winogrand, Cindy Sherman, Steve Lehman,[104] and Adi Nes; in installation art and street art some notable figures are Sigalit Landau,[105] Dede,[106] and Michal Rovner.
Graphic art, as expressed in the art of comics, has been a key field for Jewish artists as well. In the Golden and Silver ages of American comic books, the Jewish role was overwhelming and a large number of the medium's foremost creators have been Jewish.[107]
Max Gaines was a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book when in 1935 he published the first one called Famous Funnies.[108] In 1939, he founded, with Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld, All-American Publications (the AA Group).[109] The publication is known for the creation of several superheroes such as the original Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman. Donenfeld and Liebowitz were also the owners of National Allied Publications which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics. That company was also a precursor of DC Comics.
In 1939, the pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman formed Timely Publications,[110] a company to be known, since the 1960s, as Marvel Comics. At Marvel, Artists such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby,[111] Larry Lieber and Joe Simon created a large variety of characters and cultural icons including Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, and the teams Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men (including many of its characters) and S.H.I.E.L.D.. Stan Lee attributed the Jewish role in comics to the Jewish culture.[112]
At DC Comics Jewish role was significant as well; the character of Superman, which was created by the Jewish artists Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel,[107] is partly based on the biblical figure of Samson.[113] It was also suggested the Superman is partly influenced by Moses,[114][115] and other Jewish elements.More at DC Comics are Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Martin Nodell, creators of Green Lantern, Batman[107] and many related characters as Robin, The Joker, Riddler, Scarecrow and Catwoman; Gil Kane, co-creator of Atom and Iron Fist.Many of those involved in the later ages of comics are also Jewish, such as Julius Schwartz, Joe Kubert, Jenette Kahn, Len Wein, Peter David, Neil Gaiman, Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis. There is also a large number of Jewish characters among comics superheroes such as Magneto, Quicksilver, Kitty Pryde, The Thing, Sasquatch, Sabra, Ragman, Legion, and Moon Knight, of whom were and are influenced by events in Jewish history and elements of Jewish life.[116]
In 1944, Max Gaines founded EC Comics.[117] The company is known for specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories. Jewish artists that are associated with the publisher include Al Feldstein, Dave Berg, and Jack Kamen.
Will Eisner was an American cartoonist and was known as one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry. He is the creator of the Spirit comics series and the graphic novel A Contract with God.[118] The Eisner Award was named in his honor, and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium.
In 1952, William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman founded Mad, an American humor magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1970s circulation peak.[119] Other known cartoonists are Lee Falk creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician; The Hebrew comics of Michael Netzer creator of Uri-On and Uri Fink creator of Zbeng!; William Steig, creator of Shrek!; Daniel Clowes, creator of Eightball; Art Spiegelman creator of graphic novel Maus and Raw (with Franoise Mouly).
In animation, Jewish animators role is expressed by many: Genndy Tartakovsky is the creator of several animation TV series such as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack;[120] Matt Stone co-creator of South Park; David Hilberman who helped animate Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Friz Freleng, Looney Tunes;C. H. Greenblatt,Chowder; and Harvey Beaks; Ralph Bakshi, Fritz the Cat, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Hey Good Lookin', Fire and Ice, and Cool World;[121] Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls; Dave Fleischer and Lou Fleischer, founders of Fleischer Studios; Max Fleischer, animation of Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman; Rebecca Sugar, creator of Steven Universe.[122] Several companies producing animation were founded by Jews, such as DreamWorks, which its products include Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and The Prince of Egypt; Warner Bros., whose animation division is known for cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid! .
Jewish cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Jews have settled, including Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Spanish, German and Eastern European styles of cooking, all influenced by the need for food to be kosher. Thus, "Jewish" foods like bagels,[123] hummus,[124] stuffed cabbage,[125] and blintzes all come from various other cultures. The amalgam of these foods, plus uniquely Jewish contributions like tzimmis,[126] cholent, gefilte fish[127] and matzah balls,[128] make up Jewish cuisine.
Philo-Semitism (also spelled philosemitism) or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for and an appreciation of Jewish people, their history, and their culture and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a gentile.[129] Within the Jewish community, philo-Semitism includes an interest in Jewish culture and a love of things that are considered Jewish.[130]
Very few Jews live in East Asian countries, but Jews are viewed in an especially positive light in some of them, partly owing to their shared wartime experiences during the Second World War. Examples include South Korea[131] and China.[132] In general, Jews are positively stereotyped as intelligent, business savvy and committed to family values and responsibility, while in the Western world, the first of the two aforementioned stereotypes more often have the negatively interpreted equivalents of guile and greed. In South Korean primary schools the Talmud is mandatory reading.[131]
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Posted By admin on April 8, 2023
In 1913, Leo Frank was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of the Atlanta pencil factory that Frank managed. After Georgias governor commuted his death sentence, a mob stormed the prison where Frank was being held and lynched him. Leo Frank thus became the only known Jew lynched in American history.
The case still spurs debate and controversy it even inspired a Broadway play. What are the facts of the Frank case?
Little Mary Phagan, as she became known, left home on the morning of April 26 to pick up her wages at the pencil factory and view Atlantas Confederate Day parade. She never returned home.
The next day, the factory night watchman found her bloody, sawdust-covered body in the factory basement. When the police asked Leo Frank, who had just completed a term as president of the Atlanta chapter of Bnai Brith (a Jewish fraternal organization), to view her body, Frank became agitated. He confirmed personally paying Mary her wages but could not say where she went next. Frank, the last to admit seeing Mary alive, became the prime suspect.
Georgias solicitor general, Hugh Dorsey, sought a grand jury indictment against Frank. Rumor circulated that Mary had been sexually assaulted. Factory employees offered apparently false testimony that Frank had made sexual advances toward them. The madam of a house of ill repute claimed that Frank had phoned her several times, seeking a room for himself and a young girl.
In this era, the cult of Southern chivalry made it a hanging crime for African-American males to have sexual contact with the flower of white womanhood. The accusations against Frank, a Northern-born, college-educated Jew, proved equally inflammatory.
For the grand jury, Hugh Dorsey painted Leo Frank as a sexual pervert who was both homosexual and who preyed on young girls. What he did not tell the grand jury was that a janitor at the factory, Jim Conley, had been arrested two days after Frank when he was seen washing blood off his shirt. Conley then admitted writing two notes that had been found by Mary Phagans body. The police assumed that, as author of these notes, Conley was the murderer, but Conley claimed, after apparent coaching from Dorsey, that Leo Frank had confessed to murdering Mary in the lathe room and then paid Conley to pen the notes and help him move Marys body to the basement.
Even after Franks housekeeper placed him at home, having lunch at the time of the murder and despite gross inconsistencies in Conleys story, both the grand and trial jury chose to believe Conley. This was perhaps the first instance of a Southern black mans testimony being used to convict a white man. In August of 1913, the jury found Frank guilty in less than four hours. Crowds outside the courthouse shouted, Hang the Jew.
Historian Leonard Dinnerstein reports that one juror had been overheard to say before his selection for the jury, I am glad they indicted the God damn Jew. They ought to take him out and lynch him. And if I get on that jury, Ill hang that Jew for sure.
Facing intimidation and mob rule, the trial judge sentenced Frank to death. He barred Frank from the courtroom on the grounds that, had he been acquitted, Frank might have been lynched by the crowd outside.
Despite these breaches of due process, Georgias higher courts rejected Franks appeals and the U. S. Supreme Court voted, 7-2, against reopening the case, with Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles Evans Hughes dissenting. Franks survival depended on Georgia GovernorFrank Slaton. After a 12-day review of the evidence and letters recommending commutation from the trial judge (who must have had second thoughts) and from a private investigator who had worked for Hugh Dorsey, Slaton commuted Franks sentence to life imprisonment.
That night, state police kept a protesting crowd of 5,000 from the governors mansion. Wary Jewish families fled Atlanta. Slaton held firm. Two thousand years ago, he wrote a few days later, another Governor washed his hands and turned over a Jew to a mob. For two thousand years that governors name has been accursed. If today another Jew [Leo Frank] were lying in his grave because I had failed to do my duty, I would all through life find his blood on my hands and would consider myself an assassin through cowardice.
On August 17, 1915, a group of 25 men described by peers as sober, intelligent, of established good name and character stormed the prison hospital where Leo Frank was recovering from having his throat slashed by a fellow inmate. They kidnapped Frank, drove him more than 100 miles to Mary Phagans hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and hanged him from a tree.
Frank conducted himself with dignity, calmly proclaiming his innocence.
Townsfolk were proudly photographed beneath Franks swinging corpse, pictures still valued today by their descendants. When his term expired a year later, Slaton did not run for reelection and Dorsey easily won election to the governors office.
In 1986, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles finally granted Leo Frank a posthumous pardon, not because they thought him innocent, but because his lynching deprived him of his right to further appeal. Mary Phagans descendants and their supporters still insist on his guilt.
Reprinted with permission of the American Jewish Historical Society from Chapters in American History.
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Posted By admin on April 8, 2023
In 1913, Leo Frank was found guilty of killing 13-year-old Mary Phagan, even though no physical evidence linked him to the crime. Two years later, a mob lynched him for it.
On August 17, 1915, a Georgia mob lynched Leo Frank, a Jewish man convicted of murder whose death sentence had just been commuted to life in prison by the governor.
Two years earlier, a jury sent Frank to prison for killing a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan, who worked at the pencil factory he managed. Police arrested six men for the brutal crime before focusing on Frank. And the jury took the word of the likely killer over the Yankee Jew.
Between 1882 and 1968, at least 4,743 people were lynched in the United States according to the NAACP. Around 72% of lynching victims were Black. The remainder included immigrants and religious minorities like Frank. Leo Franks lynching reveals how white Americans used terror to target anyone defined as an outsider including Jewish men like Frank.
And just three months later, many of the men who lynched Frank gathered at Georgias Stone Mountain for a ceremony that established the modern Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, in the North, Leo Franks case led directly to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League.
On April 26, 1913, Leo Frank handed 13-year-old Mary Phagan her paycheck. Phagan worked at the Atlanta factory of the National Pencil Company, where the 29-year-old Frank served as superintendent.
Leo Frank was the last person to see Mary Phagan alive.
Later that night, a watchman discovered Phagans body. The child had been sexually assaulted and hidden away in the basement. Next to her body, police found two handwritten notes.
The notes initially pointed police toward the night watchman, Newt Lee. But after arresting Lee, police began to suspect a different killer: Jim Conley, a Black janitor who could barely read or write. So the police arrested Conley.
During an interrogation, Conley threw suspicion on a third man: Leo Frank, the factory superintendent. Conley claimed Frank called the factory that night to check on any disturbances, something the superintendent had never done before.
Police quickly narrowed their focus to Frank. But not before arresting several other men, including a streetcar conductor, a bookkeeper at the factory, and one of the factorys elevator operators.
Even though witnesses saw Conley washing bloodstains from his shirt days after the murder, Leo Frank went to trial for the crime. And Conley became the states star witness.
The trial of Leo Frank began in the late summer. And before it even began, antisemitism was rampant. One potential juror who was eventually selected was overheard saying, I am glad they indicted the God damn Jew. They ought to take him out and lynch him. And if I get on that jury, Ill hang that Jew for sure.
Then, on the stand, Jim Conley claimed Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan and forced the janitor to hide her body. The jury never heard that Conley signed four affidavits with different explanations for why the janitor moved Phagans body. Nor did they hear Conleys confession that he wrote the notes found at the murder scene.
Behind the scenes, Conleys attorney told the judge that Conley confessed to lying about Franks involvement. But the judge allowed the trial to continue. The all-white jury believed Conley and convicted Frank of murder.
Leo Frank was an outsider a son of German Jewish immigrants raised in Brooklyn who relocated to Atlanta to work at the factory.
And he had the support of national newspapers, whose editors wrote columns supporting Frank and demanding a new trial. But the strategy backfired. Georgians became entrenched in their view that Leo Frank was guilty. And they didnt hide their anti-Jewish sentiment.
One local paper published an editorial titled When are the Northern Jews Going to Let Up On Their Insane Attempt to Bulldoze The State of Georgia? It ended with the line, WOMANHOOD MUST BE, AND SHALL BE PROTECTED; and we mean to have that understood by lascivious young Jews.
During the Leo Frank trial, the white jury chose to believe Conleys story. The prosecutor used racial bias against both Conley and Frank it wasnt possible that Conley wrote the murder notes, he argued, because they contained proper grammar. Frank, on the other hand, was a university-educated Jewish northerner.
Reuben Arnold, Franks defense attorney, called out the sham trial. Leo Frank comes from a race of people that have made money, Arnold declared. If Frank hadnt been a Jew he never would have been prosecuted.
The prosecutor offered a rebuttal: Gentlemen, do you think that I or these detectives are actuated by prejudice? Would we as sworn officers of the law have sought to hang Leo Frank on account of his race and religion and passed up Jim Conley? A negro!
A Georgia court sentenced Leo Frank to the death penalty. In response, Bnai Brith established the Anti-Defamation League to help him fight the conviction. Frank appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but failed.
By 1915, Leo Frank had spent two years in prison. His last hope was a commutation from the governor. Governor John M. Slaton took the responsibility seriously: he read 10,000 pages of documents and even visited the pencil factory.
In the final days of his term as governor, Slaton commuted Leo Franks sentence to life in prison. The governor believed Frank was innocent and that the commutation was the first step toward freeing the wrongly convicted man. Instead, the commutation triggered riots.
A mob marched on the governors mansion. Slaton had to call the National Guard and declare martial law. At the end of his term, police had to escort Slaton to safety. He would not return to Georgia for ten years.
But they had worse in store for Leo Frank.
On the night of Aug. 16, 1915, a group of 25 men arrived at the Milledgeville prison. Calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan, the men broke into the prison, abducted Leo Frank from his cell, and drove him to Phagans hometown.
According to The Washington Post, the men knew what they were doing and planned well in advance for the break-in. Some cut the prisons phone lines so no one could call for help. Others drained the gas tanks of police cars so the cops couldnt pursue them. And they posted lookouts in every town along the 150-mile route from the prison to Marietta, Georgia.
And once they arrived, the mob lynched Leo Frank on the property of the towns former sheriff and left his body hanging from an oak tree. The next day, 3,000 people came to see the dead man.
None of Leo Franks killers ever faced prosecution. And just three months later, on Nov. 25, 1915, between 15 and 30 men, many of whom had been present for Leo Franks lynching, gathered at Stone Mountain for a ceremony where they christened a new organization, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
One of the members of the lynch mob was Tom Watson, a lawyer and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia. In 1920, Georgians elected him to the U.S. Senate.
Who killed Mary Phagan? The evidence points overwhelmingly toward Jim Conley. Ultimately, Leo Frank paid for a crime he didnt commit with his life.
Had Leo Frank not been sitting in his office at the pencil factory, the last to see Mary Phagan before her murder, the police almost certainly would have targeted Conley. A mob might have even tried to lynch the janitor Black men accused of violence against white women were often targeted by lynch mobs.
Instead, the mob found a different outsider on which to focus their hatred. And Leo Frank paid with his life.
A vast majority of lynching victims in America were Black, but mobs also targeted other minority groups. Next, read about the New Orleans lynchings that targeted Italian immigrants, then read about the Chinese Massacre of 1871.
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Posted By admin on April 8, 2023
On Tuesday, April 11 the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer asserted that Syrian President Bashar al-Asad was guilty of worse acts than Hitler when he used sarin gas on civilians.
Spicer said, someone as despicable as Hitlerdidnt even sink to using chemical weapons on his people. The Nazis, as facts have shown, used Poison Zyclon B gas starting in 1939 on Germanys mentally ill and physically disabled populations. Later, gas chambers became part of the Reichs genocidal program in death camps.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect condemned Spicers comments and asserted that he was engaging in Holocaust denial the most offensive of fake news imaginable.
Fake news is not a new phenomenon, nor is it always harmless. I am a Jewish studies scholar. My research in the history of anti-Semitism shows that in 1913, fake news was used to feed into peoples fears and prejudices in America.
A particularly poignant story relates to the wrongful conviction of an innocent man named Leo Frank.
Leo Frank was a young Jewish-American factory superintendent, who in 1913 was convicted of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old employee named Mary Phagan, whose body was found in the factory basement.
The Frank case was symbolic of many of the Souths fears at that time. Frank was a former New Yorker educated at Columbia University, and was for many southerners representative of the influx of northern businesspeople moving south to profit from the reorganization of a formerly agrarian society. That Frank was Jewish simply exacerbated these feelings. The evidence against Frank was circumstantial, but the jury found him guilty in less than four hours while crowds outside the courthouse shouted, Hang the Jew.
Frank was sentenced to death, and his initial appeals were denied. But on the recommendation of the presiding judge and additional new testimony, the governor of Georgia eventually commuted Franks sentence to life.
This did not placate the anger of the public, however. The governor attempted to protect Frank from mob violence by moving him to a state facility. But, on August 15, 1915, about 25 men launched an armed attack on the penitentiary. After cutting all the telephone wires leading into the facility, they seized the barracks where Frank was held and took him to Marietta, Georgia, where they hanged him near a crossroads.
Evidence suggests that the fake news that frequently appeared in at least one Atlanta area newspaper both before and during Franks trial helped keep readers emotions high and desirous of revenge for Fagans murder.
Approximately one month before Franks lynching, Chicago journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Sandburg wrote a scathing piece for the ad-free Chicago daily newspaper The Day Book entitled How Hearst Treated the Leo Frank Case. William Randolph Hearst was the owner of media company Hearst Communications and publisher of Americas largest newspaper chain.
The following opening passage from Sandburgs piece expresses the intensity of American response to the Frank case:
A whole lot of good people in Chicago wondered what all there was behind that Leo Frank case down in Atlanta. When a crowd of people go crazy and want to hang a man on little or no evidencewe dont like it. This story is about things that happened in Atlanta. Yet it has a straight connection to Chicago. What happened in Atlanta can happen in Chicago.
In this passage, Sandburg expressed that he as well as other Americans around the country including those in the midwestern city of Chicago were both baffled and frightened by the southern response to the death of Mary Phagan and the overwhelming outcry for Franks death as retribution, despite the absence of anything more than circumstantial evidence of his guilt.
Sandburg used evidence collected by another Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, A.B. McDonald, to find out what made Atlanta crazy and how. According to McDonald, the thirst for Franks conviction and hanging had been provoked, if not created, by Hearsts daily newspaper, Atlanta Georgian.
McDonald traced no fewer than six stories about the Frank case appearing shortly after Franks arrest that were proven to be fake news. Two of those stories warranted official retractions (but that was done in small print, in the back pages of the paper), while another four were proven false in court.
Based on the phenomenal sales of the Atlanta Georgian during the Frank trial, McDonald and Sandburg both concluded that Hearst printed inflammatory and unsupported stories about Frank at least in part to sell more papers.
Both Foster Coates, a managing editor for Hearst, and Arthur Brisbane, editor of the Atlanta Georgian, attempted to persuade Hearst that Frank had not received a fair trial, and that it was the Atlanta Georgians duty to calm public passions and demand justice for Frank. But Hearst flatly refused.
Sandburg concluded that Hearst wanted Leo Frank choked dead by a ropefor a murder not proven in a fair trial. Frank was murdered by a lynch mob a month later.
The Frank trial had lasting consequences. Mary Phagans murder and Franks subsequent lynching led to the Bnai Brith Organizations creation of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all This was especially meaningful because Frank was himself the president of B'nai B'riths Atlanta chapter before his arrest in 1913.
A dark outcome of the Frank case was the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1917. The groups revival is directly attributed to the Frank trial, which also inspired them to target Jews as well as black Americans with violence, hatred and bigotry.
Finally, in 1982, Frank was cleared of all charges after an 83-year-old man named Alonzo Mann gave a sworn statement to the newspaper The Tennessean claiming that Jim Conley, who worked in the factory as a janitor at the time of Phagans death, was in fact the real murderer.
Mann had even seen Conley lugging Phagans body into the factory basement, but was threatened by Conley into silence. Mann passed both a lie detector test and a psychological stress evaluation.
Leo Franks plight is a reminder of the toxicity of fake news.
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What the Leo Frank case tells us about the dangers of fake news
Posted By admin on April 8, 2023
Image by Forward Photo
By Paul BergerAugust 20, 2015
Its a simple gravestone, a small, ground-level marker identical to the four stones beside it. Nothing about the inscription, Semper Idem Always the same hints at the significance of this 31-year-old mans untimely death.
But here, at the edge of Mount Carmel Cemetery, in New York City, 100 feet from traffic streaming by on the Jackie Robinson Parkway, lies Leo Max Frank.
Franks conviction in Atlanta in 1913 on charges of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl are well known. So, too, is the lynching of Frank, on August 17, 1915, after his death sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Less well known is the journey Franks body took after it was cut down from an oak tree in Marietta, Georgia, and transported to New York City, where, on August 20, 1915, as the Forverts reported, softly in a soundless dawn his body was lowered in a wooden coffin, into the deep grave.
It was to be a tumultuous journey. Franks corpse was displayed and celebrated like a trophy by the thousands who reveled in his murder. In New York City, thousands more turned out to mourn or to catch a glimpse of Franks casket, his bereaved parents or his widow.
Franks final hours alive began on August 16, when a group of armed men woke him up in the middle of the night. The men dragged Frank, who was wearing only a nightshirt, from his jail cell in Milledgeville, southeast of Atlanta, and bundled him into one of seven waiting cars.
As his car bumped along country roads, heading more than 100 miles northwest through the night, toward the town of Marietta, Franks captors gave him one final opportunity to admit raping and murdering Mary Phagan. Frank, who had professed his innocence for more than two years, remained silent, according to Steve Oneys painstakingly researched book about the Frank case, And the Dead Shall Rise.
Lucille Frank, Leo Frank's widow, is led down the steps of the family's Brooklyn brownstone. Image by Forward Photo
Shortly after daybreak, the car stopped at the edge of a wood close to the homestead where Phagan had grown up. The men walked Frank to an oak tree, helped him onto a table and looped a noose around his neck.
At around 7 a.m., Frank was asked if he had any final words. I think now more about my wife and mother than about my own life, he is reported to have said before the table was kicked away and Frank, his arms and legs bound, swung in the air.
As the minutes and then the hours passed, thousands came from the surrounding towns and countryside. They cheered, and posed for photographs. They cut away pieces of the rope that bound Frank and ripped off swatches of his clothing.
A local judge, Newt Morris, waded into the crowd, imploring the men and women to allow Franks body to be taken away. The Forverts, which had covered Franks case relentlessly since 1913, reported that Morris begged, Whatever sin the living Frank committed, he has a mother and father have mercy on them.
But no sooner had Frank been cut down than the mob swarmed the body. Among that mob was Robert E. Lee Howell who, according to the Atlanta Journal, stomped repeatedly with a crunching sound on Franks face. Later that day, at an undertakers in Atlanta, a doctor noted the well-defined markings of the sole of a shoe on Franks nose and close to his left eye.
Even in Atlanta, Franks body was not left in peace. As The New York Sun reported, crowds swarmed the undertakers garage threatening to break down the doors if they were not allowed to see Frank. The mob smashed a pane of glass, prompting the police to escort Franks body to the undertakers chapel, where, over the space of five hours, about 15,000 people filed in to view Franks body.
That evening, Franks casket was placed on a train and, along with his widow, Lucille Frank, a few of her relatives and Rabbi David Marx, spiritual leader of the Franks synagogue in Atlanta, The Temple, the party departed for New York City.
Over the days that followed, newspapers across the country reported Franks kidnapping and lynching. Early on, they noted that though it was well known that the lynch party was organized by civic leaders of Marietta and Cobb County, including lawyers, businesspeople and politicians, no one had been arrested. Indeed, many in Georgia supported the lynching. The mayor of Atlanta, J.G. Woodward, announced that when it comes to womans honor there is no limit to which we will not go to avenge and to protect it.
Much of the rest of the country was horrified. Former president William Howard Taft called the lynching a damnable outrage. The Jews of New York City, who had been so concerned about murderous anti-Semitism in the Old Country, were forced to confront a similar crime committed in their new home. On the Lower East Side, they gathered outside the offices of the Yiddish papers like the Forverts, according to Oneys book, while on street corners solitary mourners wept.
It was into this atmosphere of shock and mourning that the train carrying Franks casket arrived in New York City at dawn on August 19.
Franks father, Rudolph Frank, and Franks sister and brother-in-law, Marian and Otto Stern, were on the platform at Penn Station to greet the train. According to Oneys book, Lucille Frank broke down when she saw the trio, saying: Its over. Its all over now.
Franks casket was transferred to a hearse and, with his relatives following behind in taxicabs, a police motorcade led the group to Brooklyn through Manhattan. Franks body was taken to a mortuary, while the mourners continued to Franks parents home, a modest, three-story brownstone at 152 Underhill Avenue close to Prospect Park.
Over at the Frank home the early morning sun had shown the face of an elderly woman pressed from time to time against an upper window, waiting for her son to come home, the Sun reported. She had been up all night.
The report continued: When the party which had journeyed from Atlanta arrived she hastened downstairs and ran out on the steps to meet her sons widow and embrace her. Then the taxicabs were dismissed and after the last persons had passed inside the house the shades were drawn and from all outward appearances it might have been deserted.
Image by Library of Congress
As word spread that Franks widow had returned, a crowd began to form outside the house, swelling to between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Franks mother, Ray Frank, invited some reporters into the parlor, where, as the Sun reported, she sat with Franks uncle Mr. Jacobs, a mass of telegrams before her, which she handled nervously as she talked.
Ray Frank proclaimed her sons innocence as well as her trust that God would deal in His own way with those who have done this thing. She added: We shall never forget these kind friends, both gentile and Jew, who have been with us in our sorrow.
Reporters were still camped outside the Frank home when the undertaker arrived around midnight to deliver Franks body, now lying inside a new black coffin. The Forverts reported that as Franks parents, sister and widow waited at the top of the stoop for the coffin to be delivered, in the dark of night, a choking sob could be heard coming from the doorway of the house.
Franks coffin was brought inside, where, the Forverts continued, the gas lamp flickered on the walls and his parents tears were laced with the pain of the bit of flesh and bones that remained of their unfortunate son.
Frank was buried early the next morning, August 20. As Lucille Frank descended the steps of her in-laws home, shrouded in black, she stumbled. Two men standing nearby caught hold of her arms and helped her into one of the waiting carriages. It took about 20 minutes for the cortege of four carriages, plus the hearse, to wend its way 8 miles to Mount Carmel Cemetery, in Queens.
Mount Carmel was one of the most important Jewish cemeteries of its day.
The year after Franks funeral, it would become the final resting place of the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. Twenty years after that, Mendel Beilis, who, like Frank, was a Jewish factory superintendent accused of murdering a Christian teen at a time of heightened anti-Semitism, was buried there. Fortunately for Beilis, he was acquitted in his hometown of Kiev, Ukraine, and died of natural causes in New York.
Carmel is also the burial place of Abraham Cahan, founding editor of the Forverts. Cahan took Franks case personally, throwing all the Forvertss resources into covering his trial and imprisonment, and even visiting him in jail in 1914. His newspaper treated the aftermath of Franks lynching just as personally.
Franks family requested that the funeral be a private, family affair. According to the Forverts, there were just 18 mourners at the service, where Rabbi Alexander Lyons of Congregation Beth Elohim, in Brooklyn, said a prayer in English and Marx of Atlanta said a prayer in Hebrew.
As Franks coffin was lowered into the grave, the Forverts reported that a distressful sob tore out of his mothers heart [and] a distraught cry could be heard from the young widow and she fainted on her husbands grave.
Those close by her revived the widow and the coffin sank deeper and deeper, the metal spades swiftly at work, fresh earth thrown on the deceased, and in no time a small hill grows a little mound covering up and finalizing the last scene of a historic tragedy.
Contact Paul Berger at [emailprotected] or on Twitter, @pdberger
Paul Berger was a staff writer at the Forward from 2011-2016, covering crime and healthcare issues, such as sex abuse, circumcision, and fraud. He is a fluent Russian speaker and has reported from Russia and Ukraine. He also likes digging into historical mysteries.
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Posted By admin on April 8, 2023
The Anti-Defamation Leagues Jonathan Greenblatt has incited a considerable amount of heat and hate during his eight-year tenure as director of the Jewish lobbying group.
And some of that hate is coming from an unexpected place: within the Jewish community.
The ADL has raised tens of millions by talking about anti-Semitism and how theyre focused on anti-Semitism, Gerald Posner told The Post. But in the last seven years, theyve actually taken on a number of issues that are unrelated to their core mission racism, Dreamers, criminal justice reform and more, all of which are all the same talking points of the most left and progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Posner and his wife Patricia, both Jewish writer/journalists based in Miami Beach, have become so disillusioned with the current iteration of the ADL that they recently decided to form their own pro-Jewish organization.
Called Antisemitism Watch, the Posners say their organization is non-partisan unlike the ADL, which they feel has become indistinguishable from Democratic Party talking points.
Critics have blasted Greenblatt a one-time aide to President Obama who earned $575,716 in 2021 for having what they claim is a zealous conservative-crushing and Democratic Party-loving agenda rather than focusing just on pro-Jewish issues.
No More ADL. When it comes to Jews, the organization now does more harm than good, blared a headline in the Jewish online magazine The Tablet last fall.
The op-ed, by editor-at-large Liel Leibovitz, slammed Greenblatt for fattening the coffers of ADL which was formed in 1913 to fight the anti-Semitic defamation of Jews with donations from Big Tech and Democratic Party donors while allegedly not paying enough attention to battling anti-Semitism aimed at regular people.
The ADL reported revenues of $101,058,936 in 2021, according to the most recent public records, almost doubling what the organization pulled in before Greenblatt took over in 2015.
This is why having no ADL would be so much better than having the one we currently have, Liebovitz wrote. Because of its own massive conflicts of interests, the ADL under Greenblatt may very well be, inadvertently or otherwise, contributing to the growth of anti-Semitism, not its diminishment. Greenblatt has turned the ADL into a partisan attack machine, fueled by corporate cash and increasingly oblivious to any real suffering of any real Jews.
Charles Jacobs, head of the Jewish Leadership Project; Morton Klein, an economist and president of the Zionist Organization of America; and Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate are among the conservative Jewish leaders angry about how Greenblatt is running the ADL.
The ADL not only fails to protect the Jews but is misguiding them: it promotes the idea that the right is the most dangerous, if not the almost exclusive, source of Jew hatred, said Jacobs, who edited Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, a collection of essays by Jewish writers that will be published in May.
The ADL is trapped by its outdated view of liberalism, which once protected Jews and all minorities but has been defeated by woke progressivism which divides society into oppressed and oppressors and defines Jews as adjacent whites who oppress minorities, Jacobs added. [But] there are no neo-Nazi professors on campus rallying students against supporters of Israel and the thugs in New York beating up Jews are not whites but minorities.
Klein, whose organization includes about 30,000 members, criticized what he called Greenblatts public praise of US Rep. Ilhan Omar, who Klein labeled one of the great Jew haters in Congress, as well as positivity shown toward the pro-Palestinian Black Lives Matter group.
He focuses more on anti-black and anti-Muslim hatred than Jew hatred, Klein told The Post. This is a man who worked for Obama for many years. He worked for the Aspen Institute where George Soros is a major donor. Greenblatt is an extremist.
The Posners said they polled nearly 100 Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues and friends last summer and asked what they thought about the surge in anti-Semitism.
Data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino showed a 59% increasein anti-Semitic hate crimes in majorAmerican cities in 2021 and another increase of 28% last year, according to center director Brian Levin.
Two-thirds of those polled by the Posners said they felt they had done what they could by contributing to the ADL.
Greenblatt, 52, a former Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and businessman, took over the ADL in 2015 from longtime ADL head Abe Foxman.
During his tenure, hes expanded the ADLs focus to include other marginalized communities, Internet content moderation and even gender issues and critical race theory (a sympathetic discussion of CRT and racism, sexism and other forms of oppression can be found on the ADL website).
The ADL site has a page about the online amplifiers of anti-LBGTQ+ extremism targeting the social media account Libs of TikTok as well as Gays Against Groomers and pseudo journalists who are against gender-affirming care and drag queen shows.
Last year, the ADL said it was reviewing its education content after a Fox News investigation found concepts from CRT as well as far-left ideas within ADLs education wing. William Jacobson, founder of the conservative site Legal Insurrection, said the ADLs lesson plans reflect how ADL has lost its way.
An ADL spokesman denied that the organization was teaching CRT but added, that said, we are far from perfect and clearly there is content among our curricular materials that is misaligned with ADLs values and strategy. We intend to address this issue immediately and openly.
Greenblatt told radio host Charlamagne tha God in a recentinterviewon The Breakfast Club, that he hes been advising the major tech companies, including Meta, about content moderation and advising PayPal on how to ban groups it deems extremist.
Tobin claimed that Greenblatt has shifted the ADL into becoming another left wing auxiliary of the Democratic Party, adding that the ADL board is pleased with the director because he brings in so much money.
Its become like any other big business, Tobin said. Theyre raising more money now than when they were actuallydoing their job. Theyre appealing to donors who want it to be another left-wing talking shop with a left-wing gloss on it. A lot of people are angry at the ADL, but the ADL is stronger and wealthier and they dont care. In our bifurcated society thats how things work now.
The online magazine Jewish Currents reported March 8 that some criticism of Greenblatt comes from within the ADLs ranks. Audio leaked to the the site indicated that a special meeting was called to pacify some staffers upset with a speech Greenblatt gave last May in which he compared Palestinian rights groups to right-wing extremists.
The ADL caught flak under longtime CEO Foxman, too. It was widely criticized for cozying up to French fashion designer John Galliano, for example, after the Frenchmans wildly anti semitic tirade was caught in public in 2011.
But Foxman, one Jewish source pointed out, had a bulletproof back story that shielded him from some of the heavy criticism now being leveled at Greenblatt.
Foxman, who was born in Poland in 1940, was a hidden child. He was raised from the time he was 15 months old until about the age of 6 by his Catholic nanny, as Nazis murdered Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. His parents returned to get him after World War II.
But there are plenty of people who disagree with Greenblatts conservative critics.
Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism said Greenblatts focus on Internet content and other forms of extremism is correct given where society is at present.
If Jesus himself was running the ADL, Mort Klein would criticize his robes for being wrinkled, Levin told The Post.
Greenblatt is totally right on with his focus on tech companies and content thats coming out. Were seeing the way violent prejudice and false stereotypes and conspiracy theories are promoted online. Jonathan took the helm [of the ADL] in particularly stormy weather. Hes not necessarily pleasing the hard liberals either. Anyone who heads up a Jewish organization is never going to please everyone.
The ADL emailed a statement urging The Post to look at the source of these attacks and to focus on the facts.ADL has been and is currently the leading organization fighting antisemitism in the US and abroad. In light of the changing times and the recent disturbing uptick in antisemitism, we have redoubled our efforts ADLs leadership on antisemitism is the same now as it was historically, and even more so as we have adapted to the changing times and trends.
But Greenblatts detractors insist his reign is dangerous for Jews.
American Jews may not prevail against the tsunami of anti-Semitism surging against us if we do not have a change in Jewish establishment leadership, Jacobs said. Greenblatt has to go.
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Israeli jets hit sites in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday, in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on the Islamist group Hamas, as tensions following police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week threatened to spiral out of control.
Two explosions were heard in Gaza late on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted but Israel said its jets hit targets including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the blockaded southern coastal strip.
Israels response, tonight and later, will exact a significant price from our enemies, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a security cabinet meeting to discuss what the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described as the biggest rocket salvo since the 2006 war into northern Israel. Most of the 34 projectiles were intercepted, but there were two minor injuries and a fire.
As the Israeli jets struck in Gaza, salvoes of rockets were fired in response and sirens sounded in Israeli towns and cities in bordering areas. The IDF also said it had launched strikes in Lebanon hitting targets including terrorist infrastructures belonging to Hamas.
AFP reported at least three explosions in southern Lebanons Tyre region with at least two shells falling near a Palestinian refugee camp near Tyre city. One missile fell on a farmers house near the camp, causing material damage, an AFP correspondent in the area said.
The pro-Iranian Hezbollah channel Al-Manar reported that the shelling had targeted three areas in southern Lebanon, including the refugee camp area.
We hold the Zionist occupation fully responsible for the grave escalation and the flagrant aggression against the Gaza Strip and for the consequences that will bring onto the region, Hamas said in a statement.
With tensions running high on Friday, two Israeli sisters were killed and their mother seriously injured in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said it was searching for those behind the attack. No militant group immediately claimed responsibility but a Hamas spokesman praised the attack.
The marked uptick in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday comes after a year of increasing bloodshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also carried echoes of 2021, when clashes at al-Aqsa during Ramadan helped start an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas. Thursdays events have led to fears of a wider conflagration around the region.
Although Israel blamed Hamas for Thursdays attack, which took place as Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh was visiting Lebanon, security experts said Hezbollah, the powerful Shia group which helps Israels main enemy Iran project its power across the region, must have given its permission.
Hezbollah and its allies have faced extensive attacks by Israeli jets in Syrian territory over the last week, striking at what Israel believes to be sites to manufacture drones. At least two members of the organisation are believed to have been killed during night raids that levelled several hangars at Syrian airbases.
The militant group has vowed to strike back at its arch foe whenever its members are killed, but, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, remains wary of an escalation. Though Palestinian groups operate in the south of Lebanon, none do so without the knowledge of Hezbollah.
The raid on Palestinians by Israeli police inside al-Aqsa mosque could have offered a pretext for a limited rocket strike, which served both the Palestinians and Hezbollah and gave the latter at least some deniability.
Early on Thursday, Palestinian militants in Gaza launched about nine rockets into Israel in the early hours, setting off air raid sirens across the south of the country but causing no casualties or damage. Most of the rockets exploded before impact, the Israeli army said, and none of Gazas militant groups claimed responsibility.
Two rockets were fired just before the second incident at the holiest Jerusalem site late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, in which police using stun grenades and rubber bullets entered the compound to remove worshippers. Six people were injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The latest flare-up followed a large Israeli police raid on al-Aqsa the day before, in which at least 12 people were injured and more than 350 arrested. That raid also triggered rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which was countered with Israeli airstrikes on alleged military sites belonging to Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of the strip.
Al-Aqsa mosque sits at the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, on a hillknown to Muslimsas al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Muslims regard the site as the third holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Al-Aqsa is the name given to the whole compound and is home to two Muslim holy places: the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built in the 8th century AD.
The compound overlooks the Western Wall, a sacred place of prayer for Jews, for whom the Temple Mount is their most sacred site. Jews believe biblical King Solomon built the first temple there 3,000 years ago. A second temple was razed by the Romans in AD70.
Israel captured the site in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it with the rest of East Jerusalem and adjoining parts of the West Bank in a move not recognised internationally.
Jordan, whose ruling Hashemite family has custodianship of the Muslim and Christian sites, appoints members of the Waqf institution, which oversees the site.
The compound has long been a flashpoint for deadly violence over matters of sovereignty and religion in Jerusalem.
Under the longstanding "status quo" arrangement governing the area, which Israel says it maintains, non-Muslims can visit but only Muslims are allowed to worship in the mosque compound.
Jewish visitors have increasingly prayed more or less openly at the site in defiance of the rules, and Israeli restrictions on Muslim worshippers' access to the site have led to protests and outbreaks of violence. Reuters
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The first raid, in which disturbing footage of soldiers beating Palestinians with batons and the butts of rifles emerged, drew widespread condemnation in the Muslim world and concern from the White House over the possibility of escalation.
Both the UN and US called for calm on Thursday after the rocket fire, while the Lebanese government said it would coordinate with Unifil, the UN force on the Israeli-Lebanese border, to prevent an escalation.
Elsewhere on Thursday, clashes broke out overnight between protesters and police in the Arab-majority town of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel and a Palestinian teenager was shot and wounded by an Israeli civilian in Jerusalems Old City.
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Israel launches airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza Strip after biggest ...
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Aspect of history
The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with antisemitism being called "the longest hatred".[1] Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:[2]
Chanes suggests that these six stages could be merged into three categories: "ancient antisemitism, which was primarily ethnic in nature; Christian antisemitism, which was religious; and the racial antisemitism of the 19th and 20th centuries".[2] In practice, it is difficult to differentiate antisemitism from the general ill-treatment of nations by other nations before the Roman period, but since the adoption of Christianity in Europe, antisemitism has undoubtedly been present. The Islamic world has also historically seen the Jews as outsiders. The coming of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions in 19th-century Europe bred a new manifestation of antisemitism, based as much upon race as upon religion, which culminated in the Holocaust that occurred during World War II. The formation of the state of Israel in 1948 caused new antisemitic tensions in the Middle East.
Louis H. Feldman argues that "we must take issue with the communis sensus that the pagan writers are predominantly anti-Semitic".[3] He asserts that "one of the great puzzles that has confronted the students of anti-semitism is the alleged shift from pro-Jewish statements found in the first pagan writers who mention the Jews ... to the vicious anti-Jewish statements thereafter, beginning with Manetho about 270 BCE".[4] In view of Manetho's anti-Jewish writings, antisemitism may have originated in Egypt and been spread by "the Greek retelling of Ancient Egyptian prejudices".[5] As examples of pagan writers who spoke positively of Jews, Feldman cites Aristotle, Theophrastus, Clearchus of Soli and Megasthenes. Feldman concedes that after Manetho "the picture usually painted is one of universal and virulent anti-Judaism".
The first clear examples of anti-Jewish sentiment can be traced back to Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE.[6] Alexandrian Jewry were the largest Jewish community in the world and the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced there. Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian of that time, wrote scathingly of the Jews and his themes are repeated in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus.[6] Hecateus of Abdera is quoted by Flavius Josephus as having written about the time of Alexander the Great that the Jews "have often been treated injuriously by the kings and governors of Persia, yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think best; but that when they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet them after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers".[7] One of the earliest anti-Jewish edicts, promulgated by Antiochus Epiphanes in about 170167 BCE, sparked a revolt of the Maccabees in Judea.
The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria describes an attack on Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE in which thousands of Jews died.[8][9] The violence in Alexandria may have been caused by the Jews' being portrayed as misanthropic.[10] Tcherikover argues that the reason for the hatred of Jews in the Hellenistic period was their separateness in the Greek cities, the poleis.[11] However, Bohak has argued that early animosity against the Jews cannot be regarded as being anti-Judaic or antisemitic unless it arose from attitudes that were held against the Jews alone, because many Greeks showed animosity towards any group which they considered barbaric.[12]
Statements which exhibit prejudice against Jews and their religion can be found in the works of many pagan Greek and Roman writers.[13] Edward Flannery writes that it was the Jews' refusal to accept Greek religious and social standards that marked them out. Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek historian of the early third century BCE, wrote that Moses "in remembrance of the exile of his people, instituted for them a misanthropic and inhospitable way of life". Manetho wrote that the Jews were expelled Egyptian lepers who had been taught "not to adore the gods" by Moses. The same themes appear in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus. Agatharchides of Cnidus wrote about the "ridiculous practices" of the Jews and he also wrote about the "absurdity of their Law", and he also wrote about how Ptolemy Lagus was able to invade Jerusalem in 320 BC because its inhabitants were observing the Sabbath.[6] Edward Flannery describes the form of antisemitism which existed in ancient times as being essentially "cultural, taking the shape of a national xenophobia which was played out in political settings".[14]
There is a recorded instance in which an Ancient Greek ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and banned Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision, Shabbat observance and the study of Jewish religious books,[15] during the period when Ancient Greece dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Statements exhibiting prejudice towards Jews and their religion can also be found in the works of a few pagan Greek and Roman writers,[16] but the earliest occurrence of antisemitism has been the subject of debate among scholars, largely because different writers use different definitions of antisemitism. The terms "religious antisemitism" and "anti-Judaism" are sometimes used in reference to animosity towards Judaism as a religion rather than antisemitism, which is used in reference to animosity towards Jews as members of an ethnic or racial group.
Relations between the Jews in Judea and the occupying Roman Empire were antagonistic from the very start and they resulted in several rebellions. It has been argued that European antisemitism has its roots in the Roman policy of religious persecution.[17]
Several ancient historians report that in 19 CE, the Roman emperor Tiberius expelled the Jews from Rome. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Tiberius tried to suppress all foreign religions. In the case of the Jews, he sent young Jewish men, under the pretence of military service, to provinces which were noted for their unhealthy climate. He expelled all other Jews from the city, under threat of lifelong slavery for non-compliance.[18] Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities,[19] confirms that Tiberius ordered all Jews to be banished from Rome. Four thousand Jews were sent to Sardinia but more Jews, who were unwilling to become soldiers, were punished. Cassius Dio reports that Tiberius banished most of the Jews, who had been attempting to convert the Romans to their religion.[20] Philo of Alexandria reported that Sejanus, one of Tiberius's lieutenants, may have been a prime mover in the persecution of the Jews.[21]
The Romans refused to permit the Jews to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem after its destruction by Titus in 70 CE, imposed a tax on the Jews (Fiscus Judaicus) at the same time, ostensibly to finance the construction of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, and renamed Judaea to Syria Palestina. The Jerusalem Talmud relates that, following the Bar Kokhba revolt (132136 CE), the Romans killed many Jews, "killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils".[22] However, some historians argue that Rome brutally suppressed revolts in all of its conquered territories and they also point out that Tiberius expelled all adherents of foreign religions from Rome, not just the Jews.
Some accommodations, in fact, were later made with Judaism, and the Jews of the Diaspora had privileges that others did not have. Unlike other subjects of the Roman Empire, the Jews had the right to maintain their religion and they were not expected to accommodate themselves to local customs. Even after the First JewishRoman War, the Roman authorities refused to rescind Jewish privileges in some cities. And although Hadrian outlawed circumcision as a form of mutilation which was normally inflicted upon people who were unable to consent to it, he later exempted the Jews from the ban on circumcision.[23] According to the 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon, there was greater tolerance of the Jews from about 160 CE. Between 355 and 363 CE, Julian the Apostate permitted the Jews to rebuild the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
Although most of the New Testament was written, ostensibly, by Jews who became followers of Jesus, there are a number of passages in the New Testament that some consider antisemitic, and they have been used for antisemitic purposes, including:[24][25][26]
The Quran, the holy book of Muslims, contains some verses that can be interpreted as expressing very negative views of some Jews.[28] After the Islamic prophet Muhammad moved to Medina in 622 CE, he made peace treaties with the Jewish tribes of Arabia and other tribes. However, the relationship between the followers of the new religion and the Jews of Medina later became bitter. At this point the Quran instructs Muhammad to change the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca, and from this point on, the tone of the verses of the Quran become increasingly hostile towards Jewry.[29]
In 627 CE, Jewish tribe Banu Qurayza of Medina violated a treaty with Muhammad by allying with the attacking tribes.[30] Subsequently, the tribe was charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by Muhammad himself.[31][32] The Banu Qurayza were forced to surrender and the men were beheaded, while all the women and children were taken captive and enslaved.[31][32][33][34][35][excessive citations] Several scholars have challenged the veracity of this incident, arguing that it was exaggerated or invented.[36][37][38] Later, several conflicts arose between Jews of Arabia and Muhammad and his followers, the most notable of which was in Khaybar, in which many Jews were killed and their properties seized and distributed amongst the Muslims.[39]
When Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, Jews became the victims of religious intolerance and political oppression. Christian literature began to display extreme hostility towards Jews, which occasionally resulted in attacks against them and the burning of their synagogues. The hostility against Jews was reflected in the edicts which were imposed upon them by church councils and state laws. In the early 4th century, intermarriage between unconverted Jews and Christians was prohibited by the provisions of the Synod of Elvira. The Council of Antioch (341) prohibited Christians from celebrating Passover with the Jews while the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians from keeping the Jewish Sabbath.[40] The Roman Emperor Constantine I instituted several laws concerning the Jews: they were forbidden to own Christian slaves and they were also forbidden to circumcise their slaves. The conversion of Christians to Judaism was also outlawed. Religious services were regulated, congregations were restricted, but Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem on Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple.
Discrimination against Jews became worse in the 5th century. The edicts of the Codex Theodosianus (438) barred Jews from the civil service, the army and the legal profession.[41] The Jewish Patriarchate was abolished and the scope of Jewish courts was restricted. Synagogues were confiscated and old synagogues could only be repaired if they were in danger of collapsing. Synagogues fell into ruin or they were converted to churches. Synagogues were destroyed in Tortona (350), Rome (388 and 500), Raqqa (388), Menorca (418), Daphne (near Antioch, 489 and 507), Genoa (500), Ravenna (495), Tours (585) and in Orlans (590). Other synagogues were confiscated: Urfa in 411, several in Judea between 419 and 422, Constantinople in 442 and 569, Antioch in 423, Vannes in 465, Diyarbakir in 500 Terracina in 590, Cagliari in 590 and Palermo in 590.[42]
Deicide is the killing of a god. In the context of Christianity, deicide refers to the responsibility for the death of Jesus. The accusation that the Jews committed deicide has been the most powerful warrant for antisemitism by Christians.[43] The earliest recorded instance of an accusation of deicide against the Jewish people as a whole that they were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus occurs in a sermon of 167 CE attributed to Melito of Sardis entitled Peri Pascha, On the Passover. This text blames the Jews for allowing King Herod and Caiaphas to execute Jesus. Melito does not attribute particular blame to Pontius Pilate, he only mentions that Pilate washed his hands of guilt.[44] The sermon is written in Greek, but it may have been an appeal to Rome to spare Christians at a time when Christians were widely being persecuted.[citation needed] The Latin word deicida (slayer of god), from which the word deicide is derived, was used in the 4th century by Peter Chrystologus in his sermon number 172.[45] Though not part of Roman Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the clergy, once held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.[46] According to this interpretation, both the Jews who were present at Jesus' death and the Jewish people collectively and for all time had committed the sin of deicide, or God-killing.[47]
There was continuing hostility to Judaism from the late Roman period into medieval times. During the Middle Ages in Europe there was a full-scale persecution of Jews in many places, with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and killings. In the 12th century, there were Christians who believed that some, or possibly all, of the Jews possessed magical powers and had gained these powers from making a pact with the devil. Judensau images began to appear in Germany.
Although the Catholicised Visigothic kingdom in Spain issued a series of anti-Jewish edicts already in the 7th century,[48] persecution of Jews in Europe reached a climax during the Crusades. Anti-Jewish rhetoric such as the Goad of Love began to appear and affect public consciousness.[49] At the time of the First Crusade, in 1096, a German Crusade destroyed flourishing Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube. In the Second Crusade in 1147, the Jews in France were the victims of frequent killings and atrocities. Following the coronation of Richard the Lionheart in 1189, Jews were attacked in London. When king Richard left to join the Third Crusade in 1190, anti-Jewish riots broke out again in York and throughout England.[50][51] In the first large-scale persecution in Germany after the First Crusade, 100,000 Jews were killed by Rintfleisch knights in 1298.[52] The Jews were also subjected to attacks during the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. In the 1330s Jews were assaulted by the Armleder, led by Arnold von Uissigheim, starting in 1336 in Franconia and subsequently by John Zimberlin during 13389 in Alsace who attacked more than one hundred Jewish communities.[53][54] Following these crusades, Jews were subject to expulsions, including, in 1290, the banishing of all English Jews. In 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France and in 1421, thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of those expelled fled to Poland.[55]
As the Black Death plague swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating more than half of the population, Jews often became the scapegoats. Rumors spread that they had caused this epidemic by deliberately poisoning wells, an accusation that appeared before in the 1321 leper scare. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by the ensuing hatred and violence. Pope Clement VI tried to protect Jews by a papal bull dated July 6, 1348, and by an additional bull soon afterwards, but several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg, where the plague had not yet affected the city.[56] The Jews of Prague were attacked on Easter of 1389.[57] The massacres of 1391 marked a decline in the Golden Age for Spanish Jewry.[58]
From the 9th century onwards, the medieval Islamic world imposed dhimmi status on Christian and Jewish minorities. Nevertheless, Jews were granted more freedom to practise their religion in the Muslim world than they were in Christian Europe.[59] Jewish communities in Spain thrived under tolerant Muslim rule during the Spanish Golden Age and Cordova became a centre of Jewish culture.[60]
However, the entrance of the Almoravides from North Africa in the 11th century saw harsh measures taken against both Christians and Jews.[60] As part of this repression there were pogroms against Jews in Cordova in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[61][62][63] The Almohads, who by 1147 had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories,[64] took a less tolerant view still and treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians took a third option if they could, and fled.[65][66][67] Some, such as the family of Maimonides, went east to more tolerant Muslim lands,[65] while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[68][69] At certain times in the Middle Ages, in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted. Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in parts of Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad.[70] 6,000 Jews were killed by a Muslim mob during the 1033 Fez massacre. There were further massacres in Fez in 1276 and 1465,[71][72][73] and in Marrakesh in 1146 and 1232.[73]
Restrictions upon Jewish occupations were imposed by Christian authorities. Local rulers and church officials closed many professions to Jews, pushing them into marginal roles which were considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending, occupations which were only tolerated as a "necessary evil". At that time, Catholic doctrine taught the view that lending money for interest was a sin, and an occupation which Christians were forbidden to engage in. Not being subject to this restriction, insofar as loans to non-Jews were concerned, Jews made this business their own, despite possible criticism of usury in the Torah and later sections of the Hebrew Bible. Unfortunately, this led to many negative stereotypes of Jews as insolent, greedy usurers and the understandable tensions between creditors (typically Jews) and debtors (typically Christians) added to social, political, religious, and economic strains. Peasants who were forced to pay their taxes to Jews could see them as personally taking their money while unaware of those on whose behalf these Jews worked.[citation needed]
Jews were subject to a wide range of legal disabilities and restrictions throughout the Middle Ages, some of which lasted until the end of the 19th century. Even moneylending and peddling were at times forbidden to them. The number of Jews permitted to reside in different places was limited; they were concentrated in ghettos and were not allowed to own land; they were subject to discriminatory taxes on entering cities or districts other than their own and were forced to swear special Jewish Oaths, and they suffered a variety of other measures. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed that Jews and Muslims must wear distinguishing clothing.[74] The most common such clothing was the Jewish hat, which was already worn by many Jews as a self-identifying mark, but was now often made compulsory.[75]
The Jewish badge was introduced in some places; it could be a coloured piece of cloth in the shape of a circle, strip, or the tablets of the law (in England), and was sewn onto the clothes.[76] Elsewhere special colours of robe were specified. Implementation was in the hands of local rulers but by the following century laws had been enacted covering most of Europe. In many localities, members of Medieval society wore badges to distinguish their social status. Some badges (such as those worn by guild members) were prestigious, while others were worn by ostracised outcasts such as lepers, reformed heretics and prostitutes. As with all sumptuary laws, the degree to which these laws were followed and enforced varied greatly. Sometimes, Jews sought to evade the badges by paying what amounted to bribes in the form of temporary "exemptions" to kings, which were revoked and re-paid for whenever the king needed to raise funds.[citation needed] By the end of the Middle Ages, the hat seems to have become rare, but the badge lasted longer and remained in some places until the 18th century.
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy in Rome, which took place from the end of the 11th century until the 13th century. They began as endeavors to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars.
The People's Crusade that accompanied the First Crusade attacked Jewish communities in Germany, France, and England, and killed many Jews. Entire communities, like those of Treves, Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were murdered by armed mobs. About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Rhineland cities alone between May and July 1096. Before the Crusades, Jews had practically a monopoly on the trade in Eastern products, but the closer connection between Europe and the East brought about by the Crusades raised up a class of Christian merchant traders, and from this time onwards, restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent.[citation needed] The religious zeal fomented by the Crusades at times burned as fiercely against Jews as against Muslims, although attempts were made by bishops during the first Crusade and by the papacy during the Second Crusade to stop Jews from being attacked. Both economically and socially, the Crusades were disastrous for European Jews. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III.
The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem retreated to their synagogue to "prepare for death" once the Crusaders had breached the outer walls of the city during the siege of 1099.[77][78] The chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi states that the building was set on fire whilst the Jews were still inside.[79] The Crusaders were supposedly reported as hoisting up their shields and singing "Christ We Adore Thee!" while they encircled the burning building."[80] Following the siege, Jews captured from the Dome of the Rock, along with native Christians, were made to clean the city of the slain.[81] Numerous Jews and their holy books (including the Aleppo Codex) were held ransom by Raymond of Toulouse.[82] The Karaite Jewish community of Ashkelon (Ascalon) reached out to their coreligionists in Alexandria to first pay for the holy books and then rescued pockets of Jews over several months.[81] All that could be ransomed were liberated by the summer of 1100. The few who could not be rescued were either converted to Christianity or murdered.[83]
In the County of Toulouse, in southern France, toleration and favour shown to Jews was one of the main complaints of the Roman Church against the Counts of Toulouse at the beginning of the 13th century. Organised and official persecution of the Jews became a normal feature of life in southern France only after the Albigensian Crusade, because it was only then that the Church became powerful enough to insist that measures of discrimination be applied.[84] In 1209, stripped to the waist and barefoot, Raymond VI of Toulouse was obliged to swear that he would no longer allow Jews to hold public office. In 1229 his son Raymond VII underwent a similar ceremony.[85] In 1236, Crusaders attacked the Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou, killing 3,000 and baptizing 500.[86] Two years after the 1240 disputation of Paris, twenty-four wagons piled with hand-written Talmudic manuscripts were burned in the streets.[87] Other disputations occurred in Spain, followed by accusations against the Talmud.
On many occasions, Jews were accused of drinking the blood of Christian children in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. According to the authors of these so-called blood libels, the 'procedure' for the alleged sacrifice was something like this: a child who had not yet reached puberty was kidnapped and taken to a hidden place. The child would be tortured by Jews, and a crowd would gather at the place of execution (in some accounts the synagogue itself) and engage in a mock tribunal to try the child. The child would be presented to the tribunal naked and tied and eventually be condemned to death. In the end, the child would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross. The cross would be raised, and the blood dripping from the child's wounds would be caught in bowls or glasses and then drunk. Finally, the child would be killed with a thrust through the heart from a spear, sword, or dagger. Its dead body would be removed from the cross and concealed or disposed of, but in some instances rituals of black magic would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the alleged Christian descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.
The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is often cited as the first known accusation of ritual murder against Jews. The Jews of Norwich, England were accused of murder after a Christian boy, William, was found dead. It was claimed that the Jews had tortured and crucified him. The legend of William of Norwich became a cult, and the child acquired the status of a holy martyr.[88] Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255), in the 13th century, reputedly had his belly cut open and his entrails removed for some occult purpose, such as a divination ritual, after being taken from a cross. Simon of Trent (d. 1475), in the fifteenth century, was held over a large bowl so that all of his blood could be collected, it was alleged.
During the Middle Ages, such blood libels were directed against Jews in many parts of Europe. The believers in these false accusations reasoned that the Jews, having crucified Jesus, continued to thirst for pure and innocent blood, at the expense of innocent Christian children.[89] Jews were also sometimes falsely accused of desecrating consecrated hosts in a reenactment of the Crucifixion; this crime was known as host desecration and it carried the death penalty.
The practice of expelling Jews, the confiscation of their property and further ransom for their return was utilized to enrich the French crown during the 13th and 14th centuries. The most notable such expulsions were from Paris by Philip Augustus in 1182, from the whole of France by Louis IX in 1254, by Philip IV in 1306, by Charles IV in 1322 and by Charles VI in 1394.[90]
Jewish expulsions inside England took place in Bury St. Edmunds in 1190, Newcastle in 1234, Wycombe in 1235, Southampton in 1236, Berkhamsted in 1242 and Newbury in 1244.[91] Simon de Montfort banished the Jews of Leicester in 1231.[92] During the Second Barons' War in the 1260s, Simon de Montfort's followers ravaged the Jewries of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Winchester, Cambridge, Worcester and Lincoln in an effort to destroy the records of their debts to moneylenders.[91] To finance his war against Wales in 1276, Edward I of England taxed Jewish moneylenders. When the moneylenders could no longer pay the tax, they were accused of disloyalty. Already restricted to a limited number of occupations, Edward abolished their "privilege" to lend money, restricted their movements and activities and forced Jews to wear a yellow patch. The heads of Jewish households were then arrested with over 300 being taken to the Tower of London and executed. Others were killed in their homes. All Jews were banished from the country in 1290,[93] where it was possible that hundreds were killed or drowned while trying to leave the country.[94] All the money and property of these dispossessed Jews was confiscated. No Jews were known to be in England thereafter until 1655, when Oliver Cromwell reversed the policy.
In Germany, part of the Holy Roman Empire, persecutions and formal expulsions of the Jews were liable to occur at intervals, although it should be said that this was also the case for other minority communities, whether religious or ethnic. There were particular outbursts of riotous persecution in the Rhineland massacres of 1096 accompanying the lead-up to the First Crusade, many involving the crusaders as they travelled to the East. There were many local expulsions from cities by local rulers and city councils. The Holy Roman Emperor generally tried to restrain persecution, if only for economic reasons, but he was often unable to exert much influence. As late as 1519, the Imperial city of Regensburg took advantage of the recent death of Emperor Maximilian I to expel its 500 Jews.[95] At this period the rulers of the eastern edges of Europe, in Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, were often receptive to Jewish settlement, and many Jews moved to these regions.[96]
Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence during the ravages of the Black Death, particularly in the Iberian peninsula and in the Germanic Empire. In Provence, 40 Jews were burnt in Toulon as quickly after the outbreak as April 1348.[56] "Never mind that Jews were not immune from the ravages of the plague; they were tortured until they 'confessed' to crimes that they could not possibly have committed. In one such case, a man named Agimet was ... coerced to say that Rabbi Peyret of Chambry (near Geneva) had ordered him to poison the wells in Venice, Toulouse, and elsewhere. In the aftermath of Agimet's 'confession', the Jews of Strasbourg were burned alive on February 14, 1349."[97]
In the Catholic kingdoms of late medieval and early modern Spain, oppressive policies and attitudes led many Jews to embrace Christianity.[98] Such Jews were known as conversos or Marranos.[98] Suspicions that they might still secretly be adherents of Judaism led Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile to institute the Spanish Inquisition.[98] The Inquisition used torture to elicit confessions and delivered judgment at public ceremonials known as autos de fe before they gave their victims over to the secular authorities for punishment.[99] Under this dispensation, some 30,000 were condemned to death and executed by being burnt alive.[100] In 1492, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile issued an edict of expulsion of Jews from Spain, giving Jews four months to either convert to Christianity or leave the country.[101] Some 165,000 emigrated and some 50,000 converted to Christianity.[102] The same year the order of expulsion arrived in Sicily and Sardinia, belonging to Spain.[103]
Portugal followed suit in December 1496. However, those expelled could only leave the country in ships specified by the King. When those who chose to leave the country arrived at the port in Lisbon, they were met by clerics and soldiers who used force, coercion and promises to baptize them and prevent them from leaving the country. This episode technically ended the presence of Jews in Portugal. Afterwards, all converted Jews and their descendants would be referred to as New Christians or Conversos, and those were rumoured to practice crypto-Judaism were pejoratively labelled as Marranos. They were given a grace period of thirty years during which no inquiry into their faith would be allowed. This period was later extended until 1534. However, a popular riot in 1506 resulted in the deaths of up to four or five thousand Jews, and the execution of the leaders of the riot by King Manuel. Those labeled as New Christians were under the surveillance of the Portuguese Inquisition from 1536 until 1821.
Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, known as Sephardi Jews from the Hebrew word for Spain, fled to North Africa, Turkey and Palestine within the Ottoman Empire, and to Holland, France and Italy.[104] Within the Ottoman Empire, Jews could openly practise their religion. Amsterdam in Holland also became a focus for settlement by the persecuted Jews from many lands in succeeding centuries.[105] In the Papal states, Jews were forced to live in ghettos and subjected to several restrictions as part of the Cum nimis absurdum of 1555.[106]
Martin Luther, a Lutheran Augustinian friar excommunicated by the Papacy for heresy,[107] and an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired the Reformation, wrote antagonistically about Jews in his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies, written in 1543. He portrays the Jews in extremely harsh terms, excoriates them and provides detailed recommendations for a pogrom against them, calling for their permanent oppression and expulsion. At one point he writes: "...we are at fault in not slaying them..." a passage that "may be termed the first work of modern antisemitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust."[108]
Luther's harsh comments about the Jews are seen by many as a continuation of medieval Christian antisemitism. Muslow and Popkin assert that, "the antisemitism of the early modern period was even worse than that of the Middle Ages; and nowhere was this more obvious than in those areas which roughly encompass modern-day Germany, especially among Lutherans."[109] In his final sermon shortly before his death, however, Luther preached: "We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord."[110]
Simon of Trent was a boy from the city of Trento, Italy, who was found dead at the age of two in 1475, having allegedly been kidnapped, mutilated, and drained of blood. His disappearance was blamed on the leaders of the city's Jewish community, based on confessions extracted under torture, in a case that fueled the rampant antisemitism of the time. Simon was regarded as a saint, and was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588.
During the 1614 Fettmilch uprising, mobs led by Vincenz Fettmilch looted the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, expelling Jews from the city. Two years later emperor Matthias executed Fettmilch and made the Jews return to the city under protection by imperial soldiers.[111]
In the mid-17th century, Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Amsterdam, later New York City, sought to bolster the position of the Dutch Reformed Church by trying to stem the religious influence of Jews, Lutherans, Catholics and Quakers. He stated that Jews were "deceitful", "very repugnant", and "hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ". However, religious plurality was already a cultural tradition and a legal obligation in New Amsterdam and in the Netherlands, and his superiors at the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam overruled him.
During the mid-to-late-17th century the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its population (over 3 million people). The decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, including emigration, deaths from diseases and captivity in the Ottoman Empire.[112][113] These conflicts began in 1648 when Bohdan Khmelnytsky instigated the Khmelnytsky Uprising against the Polish aristocracy and the Jews who administered their estates.[114] Khmelnytsky's Cossacks massacred tens of thousands of Jews in the eastern and southern areas that he controlled (now Ukraine). This persecution led many Jews to pin their hopes on a man called Shabbatai Zevi who emerged in the Ottoman Empire at this time and proclaimed himself Messiah in 1665. However his later conversion to Islam dashed these hopes and led many Jews to discredit the traditional belief in the coming of the Messiah as the hope of salvation.[115]
In the Zaydi imamate of Yemen, Jews were also singled out for discrimination in the 17th century, which culminated in the general expulsion of all Jews from places in Yemen to the arid coastal plain of Tihamah and which became known as the Mawza Exile.[116]
In many European countries the 18th century "Age of Enlightenment" saw the dismantling of archaic corporate, hierarchical forms of society in favour of individual equality of citizens before the law. How this new state of affairs would affect previously autonomous, though subordinated, Jewish communities became known as the Jewish question. In many countries, enhanced civil rights were gradually extended to the Jews, though often only in a partial form and on condition that the Jews abandon many aspects of their previous identity in favour of integration and assimilation with the dominant society.[117]
According to Arnold Ages, Voltaire's "Lettres philosophiques, Dictionnaire philosophique, and Candide, to name but a few of his better known works, are saturated with comments on Jews and Judaism and the vast majority are negative".[118] Paul H. Meyer adds: "There is no question but that Voltaire, particularly in his later years, nursed a violent hatred of the Jews and it is equally certain that his animosity...did have a considerable impact on public opinion in France."[119] Thirty of the 118 articles in Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique concerned Jews and described them in consistently negative ways.[120]
In 1744, Frederick II of Prussia limited the number of Jews allowed to live in Breslau to only ten so-called "protected" Jewish families and encouraged a similar practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750 he issued the Revidiertes General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft: forcing these "protected" Jews to "either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin."[121] In the same year, Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa ordered Jews out of Bohemia but soon reversed her position, on condition that they pay for their readmission every ten years. This was known among the Jews as malke-geld (queen's money).[122] In 1752 she introduced a law limiting each Jewish family to one son. In 1782, Joseph II abolished most of these practices in his Toleranzpatent, on the condition that Yiddish and Hebrew were eliminated from public records and that judicial autonomy was annulled.[122] In 1768, thousands of Jews were killed by Cossack Haidamaks during the massacre of Uman in the Kingdom of Poland.[123]
Jews in Switzerland were greatly restricted in their freedom of work, movement and settlement, and in the 17th century, Aargau was the only federal condominium where they were tolerated. In 1774, the Jews were restricted to just two towns, Endingen and Lengnau. While the rural upper class pressed incessantly for their expulsion, the financial interests of the authorities prevented it. They imposed special taxes on peddling and cattle trading, the primary Jewish professions. The Jews were directly subordinate to the governor; from 1696, they were compelled to renew a (costly) letter of protection every 16 years.[124]
During this period, Jews and Christians were not allowed to live under the same roof, nor were Jews allowed to own land or houses. They were taxed at a much higher rate than others and, in 1712, a pogrom took place in Lengnau, resulting in considerable property destruction.[125] In 1760, they were further restricted regarding marriages and procreation. An exorbitant tax was levied on marriage licenses; oftentimes, they were outright refused. This remained the case until the 19th century.[124]
In accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox Church,[126] Russia's discriminatory policies towards Jews intensified when the partition of Poland in the 18th century resulted, for the first time in Russian history, in the possession of land with a large population of Jews.[127] This land was designated as the Pale of Settlement from which Jews were forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia.[127] In 1772, the empress of Russia Catherine II forced the Jews of the Pale of Settlement to stay in their shtetls and forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the partition of Poland.[128]
Following legislation supporting the equality of French Jews with other citizens during the French Revolution, similar laws promoting Jewish emancipation were enacted in the early 19th century in those parts of Europe over which France had influence.[129][130] The old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that limited their property rights, rights of worship and occupation, were rescinded.
Despite laws granting legal and political equality to Jews in a number of countries, traditional cultural discrimination and hostility to Jews on religious grounds persisted and was supplemented by racial antisemitism.
Despite this, traditional discrimination and hostility to Jews on religious grounds persisted and was supplemented by racial antisemitism, encouraged by the work of racial theorists such as the royalist Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and particularly his Essay on the Inequality of the Human Race of 185355. Nationalist agendas based on ethnicity, known as ethnonationalism, usually excluded the Jews from the national community as an alien race.[131] Allied to this were theories of Social Darwinism, which stressed a putative conflict between higher and lower races of human beings. Such theories, usually posited by white Europeans, advocated the superiority of white Aryans to Semitic Jews.[132]
The counter-revolutionary Catholic royalist Louis de Bonald stands out among the earliest figures to explicitly call for the reversal of Jewish emancipation in the wake of the French Revolution.[133][134] Bonald's attacks on the Jews are likely to have influenced Napoleon's decision to limit the civil rights of Alsatian Jews.[135][136][137][138] Bonald's article Sur les juifs (1806) was one of the most venomous screeds of its era and furnished a paradigm which combined anti-liberalism, traditional Christian antisemitism, and the identification of Jews with bankers and finance capital, which would in turn influence many subsequent right-wing reactionaries such as Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux, Charles Maurras, and douard Drumont, nationalists such as Maurice Barrs and Paolo Orano, and antisemitic socialists such as Alphonse Toussenel and Henry Hyndman.[133][139][140] Bonald furthermore declared that the Jews were an "alien" people, a "state within a state", and should be forced to wear a distinctive mark to more easily identify and discriminate against them.[133][141]
In the 1840s, the popular counter-revolutionary Catholic journalist Louis Veuillot propagated Bonald's arguments against the Jewish "financial aristocracy" along with vicious attacks against the Talmud and the Jews as a "deicidal people" driven by hatred to "enslave" Christians.[142][141] Gougenot des Mousseaux's Le Juif, le judasme et la judasation des peuples chrtiens (1869) has been called a "Bible of modern antisemitism" and was translated into German by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.[141] In Italy, the Jesuit priest Antonio Bresciani's highly popular novel 1850 novel L'Ebreo di Verona (The Jew of Verona) shaped religious antisemitism for decades, as did his work for La Civilt Cattolica, which he helped launch.[143][144] In the Papal States, Jews were baptized involuntarily, and, even when such baptisms were illegal, forced to practice the Christian religion. In some cases, the state separated them from their families, of which the Edgardo Mortara account is one of the most widely publicized instances of acrimony between Catholics and Jews in the second half of the 19th century.[145]
Civil rights granted to Jews in Germany, following the occupation of that country by the French under Napoleon, were rescinded after his defeat. Pleas to retain them by diplomats at the Congress of Vienna peace conference (18145) were unsuccessful.[146] In 1819, German Jews were attacked in the Hep-Hep riots.[147] Full Jewish emancipation was not granted in Germany until 1871, when the country was united under the Hohenzollern dynasty.[148]
In his 1843 essay On the Jewish Question, Karl Marx said the god of Judaism is money and accused the Jews of corrupting Christians.[149] In 1850, German composer Richard Wagner published Das Judenthum in der Musik ("Jewishness in Music") under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik. The essay began as an attack on Jewish composers, particularly Wagner's contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but expanded to accuse Jewish influences more widely of being a harmful and alien element in German culture.
The term "antisemitism" was coined by the German agitator and publicist, Wilhelm Marr in 1879. In that year, Marr founded the Antisemites League and published a book called Victory of Jewry over Germandom.[150] The late 1870s saw the growth of antisemitic political parties in Germany. These included the Christian Social Party, founded in 1878 by Adolf Stoecker, the Lutheran chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, as well as the German Social Antisemitic Party and the Antisemitic People's Party. However, they did not enjoy mass electoral support and at their peak in 1907, had only 16 deputies out of a total of 397 in the parliament.[151]
The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (187071) was blamed by some on the Jews. Jews were accused of weakening the national spirit through association with republicanism, capitalism and anti-clericalism, particularly by authoritarian, right wing, clerical and royalist groups. These accusations were spread in antisemitic journals such as La Libre Parole, founded by Edouard Drumont and La Croix, the organ of the Catholic order of the Assumptionists. Between 1882 and 1886 alone, French priests published twenty antisemitic books blaming France's ills on the Jews and urging the government to consign them back to the ghettos, expel them, or hang them from the gallows.[141]
Financial scandals such as the collapse of the Union Generale Bank and the collapse of the French Panama Canal operation were also blamed on the Jews. The Dreyfus affair saw a Jewish military officer named Captain Alfred Dreyfus falsely accused of treason in 1895 by his army superiors and sent to Devil's Island after being convicted. Dreyfus was acquitted in 1906, but the case polarised French opinion between antisemitic authoritarian nationalists and philosemitic anti-clerical republicans, with consequences which were to resonate into the 20th century.[152]
Having been restricted in their rights of work and movement since the Middle Ages, on 5 May 1809, Jews were finally declared Swiss citizens and given limited rights regarding trade and farming. They were still restricted to Endingen and Lengnau until 7 May 1846, when their right to move and reside freely within the canton of Aargau was granted. On 24 September 1856, the Swiss Federal Council granted them full political rights within Aargau, as well as broad business rights; however, the majority Christian population did not fully abide by these new liberal laws. The time of 1860 saw the canton government voting to grant suffrage in all local rights and to give their communities autonomy. Before the law was enacted however, it was repealed due to vocal opposition led by Johann Nepomuk Schleuniger and the Ultramonte Party.[125] In 1866, a referendum granted all Jews full citizenship rights in Switzerland.[124] However, they did not receive all of the rights in Endingen and Lengnau until a resolution of the Grand Council, on 15 May 1877, when Jewish citizens were given charters under the names of New Endingen and New Lengnau, finally granting them full citizenship.[125]
Between 1881 and 1920, approximately three million Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe migrated to America, many of them fleeing pogroms and the difficult economic conditions which were widespread in much of Eastern Europe during this time. Pogroms in Eastern Europe, particularly Russia, prompted waves of Jewish immigrants after 1881. Jews, along with many Eastern and Southern European immigrants, came to work the country's growing mines and factories. Many Americans distrusted these Jewish immigrants.[153] The earlier wave of Jewish immigration from Germany, the latter (post 1880) came from "the Pale" the region of Eastern Poland, Russia and the Ukraine where Jews had suffered under the Czars. Along with Italians, Irish and other Eastern and Southern Europeans, Jews faced discrimination in the United States in employment, education and social advancement. American groups like the Immigration Restriction League, criticized these new arrivals along with immigrants from Asia and southern and eastern Europe, as culturally, intellectually, morally, and biologically inferior. Despite these attacks, very few Eastern European Jews returned to Europe for whatever privations they faced, their situation in the U.S. was still improved.
Beginning in the early 1880s, declining farm prices also prompted elements of the Populist movement to blame the perceived evils of capitalism and industrialism on Jews because of their alleged racial/religious inclination for financial exploitation and, more specifically, because of the alleged financial manipulations of Jewish financiers such as the Rothschilds.[154] Although Jews played only a minor role in the nation's commercial banking system, the prominence of Jewish investment bankers such as the Rothschilds in Europe, and Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York City, made the claims of antisemites believable to some. The Morgan Bonds scandal injected populist antisemitism into the 1896 presidential campaign. It was disclosed that President Grover Cleveland had sold bonds to a syndicate which included J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds house, bonds which that syndicate was now selling for a profit. The Populists used it as an opportunity to uphold their view of history, and prove to the nation that Washington and Wall Street were in the hands of the international Jewish banking houses. Another focus of antisemitic feeling was the allegation that Jews were at the center of an international conspiracy to fix the currency and thus the economy to a single gold standard.[155]
Since 1827, Jewish minors were conscripted into the cantonist schools for a 25-year military service.[156] Policy towards Jews was liberalised somewhat under Tsar Alexander II,[157] but antisemitic attitudes and long-standing repressive policies against Jews were intensified after Alexander II was assassinated on 13 March 1881, culminating in widespread anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire which lasted for three years.[158] A hardening of official attitudes under Tsar Alexander III and his ministers, resulted in the May Laws of 1882, which severely restricted the civil rights of Jews within the Russian Empire. The Tsar's minister Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev stated that the aim of the government with regard to the Jews was that: "One third will die out, one third will leave the country and one third will be completely dissolved [into] the surrounding population".[158] In the event, a mix of pogroms and repressive legislation did indeed result in the mass emigration of Jews to western Europe and America. Between 1881 and the outbreak of the First World War, an estimated two and half million Jews left Russia one of the largest mass migrations in recorded history.[150][159]
Historian Martin Gilbert writes that it was in the 19th century that the position of Jews worsened in Muslim countries.[160][161] According to Mark Cohen in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, most scholars conclude that Arab antisemitism in the modern world arose in the 19th century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalisms, and it was primarily imported into the Arab world by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized").[162]
Hundreds of Algerian Jews were killed in 1805.[163] There was a massacre of Iraqi Jews in Baghdad in 1828.[164] In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter, burned the synagogue and destroyed the Torah scrolls, and it was only by forced conversion that a massacre was averted.[160] There was a massacre of Jews in Barfurush in 1867.[164] In 1840, in the Damascus affair, the Jews of Damascus were falsely accused of having ritually murdered a Christian monk and his Muslim servant and of having used their blood to bake Passover bread. In 1859, some 400 Jews in Morocco were killed in Mogador. In 1864, around 500 Jews were killed in Marrakech and Fez in Morocco. In 1869, 18 Jews were killed in Tunis, and an Arab mob looted Jewish homes and stores, and burned synagogues, on Jerba Island.
Concerning the life of Persian Jews in the middle of the 19th century, a contemporary author wrote:
...they are obliged to live in a separate part of town... for they are considered as unclean creatures... Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt... For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans... If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him... unmercifully... If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods... Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them.[165]
One symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. A 19th-century traveler observed: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine. To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."[164] In 1891, the leading Muslims in Jerusalem asked the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople to prohibit the entry of Jews arriving from Russia.[160]
In the 20th century, antisemitism and Social Darwinism culminated in a systematic campaign of genocide, called the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were exterminated in German-occupied Europe between 1942 and 1945 under the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler.[166]
In Russia, under the Tsarist regime, antisemitism intensified in the early years of the 20th century and was given official favour when the secret police forged the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document purported to be a transcription of a plan by Jewish elders to achieve global domination.[167] Violence against the Jews in the Kishinev pogrom in 1903 was continued after the 1905 revolution by the activities of the Black Hundreds.[168] The Beilis Trial of 1913 showed that it was possible to revive the blood libel accusation in Russia.
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution ended official discrimination against the Jews but was followed, however, by massive anti-Jewish violence by the anti-Bolshevik White Army and the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the Russian Civil War. From 1918 to 1921, between 100,000 and 150,000 Jews were slaughtered during the White Terror.[169] White emigres from revolutionary Russia fostered the idea that the Bolshevik regime, with its many Jewish members, was a front for the global Jewish conspiracy, outlined in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had by now achieved wide circulation in the west.[170] The pogroms were committed not only by White forces, but also by Red forces, local warlords, and ordinary Ukrainian and Polish citizens.[171]
In France, antisemitic agitation was promoted by right-wing groups such as Action Franaise, founded by Charles Maurras. These groups were critical of the whole political establishment of the Third Republic. Following the Stavisky Affair, in which a Jewish man named Serge Alexandre Stavisky was revealed to be involved in high-level political corruption, these groups encouraged serious rioting which almost toppled the government in the 6 February 1934 crisis.[172] The rise to prominence of the Jewish socialist Lon Blum, who became prime minister of the Popular Front Government in 1936, further polarised opinion within France. Action Franaise and other right-wing groups launched a vicious antisemitic press campaign against Blum which culminated in an attack in which he was dragged from his car and kicked and beaten whilst a mob screamed 'Death to the Jew!'[173] Catholic writers such as Ernest Jouin, who published the Protocols in French, seamlessly blended racial and religious antisemitism, as in his statement that "from the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity."[174] Pope Pius XI praised Jouin for "combating our mortal [Jewish] enemy" and appointed him to high papal office as a protonotary apostolic.[175][174]
Antisemitism was particularly virulent in Vichy France during World War II. The Vichy government openly collaborated with the Nazi occupiers to identify Jews for deportation. The antisemitic demands of right-wing groups were implemented under the collaborating Vichy regime of Marshal Philippe Ptain, following the defeat of the French by the German army in 1940. A law on the status of Jews of that year, followed by another in 1941, purged Jews from employment in administrative, civil service and judicial posts, from most professions and even from the entertainment industry restricting them, mostly, to menial jobs. Vichy officials detained some 75,000 Jews who were then handed over to the Germans; approximated 72,500 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust in France.[176]
In Germany, following World War I, Nazism arose as a political movement incorporating racially antisemitic ideas, expressed by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf (German: My Struggle). After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime sought the systematic exclusion of Jews from national life. Jews were demonized as the driving force of both international Marxism and capitalism. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 outlawed marriage or sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews.[177] Antisemitic propaganda by or on behalf of the Nazi Party began to pervade society. Especially virulent in this regard was Julius Streicher's publication Der Strmer, which published the alleged sexual misdemeanors of Jews for popular consumption.[178] Mass violence against the Jews was encouraged by the Nazi regime, and on the night of 910 November 1938, dubbed Kristallnacht, the regime sanctioned the killing of Jews, the destruction of property and the torching of synagogues.[179] Already prior to the new European war, German authorities started rounding up thousands of Jews for their first concentration camps while many other German Jews fled the country or were forced to emigrate.
As Nazi control extended in the course of World War II, antisemitic laws, agitation and propaganda were brought to occupied Europe,[180] often building on local antisemitic traditions. In the German-occupied Poland, where over three million Jews had lived before the war in the largest Jewish population in Europe, Polish Jews were forced into newly established prison ghettos in 1940, including the Warsaw Ghetto for almost half million Jews.[181] Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, a systematic campaign of mass murder in that country was conducted against Soviet Jews (including former Polish Jews from Soviet-annexed territories) by Nazi death squads called the Einsatzgruppen, murdering over one million Jews and marking a turn from persecution to extermination.[182] In all, some six million Jews, about half of them from Poland, were murdered outright or indirectly through starvation, disease and overwork in German and collaborationist captivity between 1941 and 1945 in the genocide known as the Holocaust.[183][184][185]
On 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, deputed to find a "final solution to the Jewish question", chaired the Wannsee Conference at which all the ethnic Jews and many of part-Jews resident in Europe and North Africa were marked to be exterminated.[186] To implement this plan, the Jews from Poland, Germany, and various other countries would be transported to purpose-built extermination camps set up by Nazis in the occupied Poland and in Germany-annexed territories, where they were mostly murdered in gas chambers immediately upon their arrival. These camps, located at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chemno, Beec, Majdanek, Sobibr and Treblinka, accounted for about half of the total number of Jewish victims of Nazism.[187]
Between 1900 and 1924, approximately 1.75 million Jews migrated to America's shores, the bulk of them were from Eastern Europe. Where before 1900, American Jews never amounted to even 1 percent of America's total population, by 1930 Jews formed about 3 percent of America's total population. This dramatic increase in the size of America's Jewish community and the upward mobility of some Jews was accompanied by a resurgence of antisemitism.
In the first half of the 20th century, Jews in the United States faced discrimination in employment, in access to residential and resort areas, in membership in clubs and organizations and in tightened quotas on Jewish enrollment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. Some sources state that the conviction (and later the lynching) of Leo Frank, which turned a spotlight on antisemitism in the United States, also led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League in October 1913. However, Abraham H. Foxman, the organization's National Director, disputes this claim, stating that American Jews simply needed to found an institution that would combat antisemitism. The social tensions which existed during this period also led to renewed support for the Ku Klux Klan, which had been inactive since 1870.[188][189][190][191]
Antisemitism in the United States reached its peak during the 1920s and 1930s. The pioneering automobile manufacturer Henry Ford propagated antisemitic ideas in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent. The pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh and many other prominent Americans led the America First Committee in opposing any American involvement in the new war in Europe. However, America First's leaders avoided saying or doing anything that would make them and their organization appear to be antisemitic and for this reason, they voted to drop Henry Ford as an America First member. Lindbergh gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa in which he expressed the decidedly Ford-like view that: "The three most important groups which have been pressing this country towards war are the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt Administration."[192] In his diary Lindbergh wrote: "We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence... Whenever the Jewish percentage of the total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country."[193]
In the late 1930s, The German American Bund held parades which featured Nazi uniforms and flags with swastikas alongside American flags. At Madison Square Garden in 1939, some 20,000 people listened to the Bund leader Fritz Julius Kuhn as he criticized President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and calling his New Deal the "Jew Deal". Because he espoused a belief in the existence of a BolshevikJewish conspiracy in America, Kuhn and his activities were scrutinized by the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and when the United States entered World War II most of the Bund's members were placed in internment camps, and some of them were deported at the end of the war. Meanwhile, the United States government did not allow the MS St. Louis to enter the United States in 1939 because it was full of Jewish refugees.[194] During race riot in Detroit in 1943, Jewish businesses were targeted for looting and burning.
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union reached a peak in 19481953 and culminated in the so-called Doctors' Plot that could have been a precursor to a general purge and a mass deportation of the Soviet Jews as nation. The country's leading Yiddish-writing poets and writers were tortured and executed in a campaign against the so-called rootless cosmopolitans. The excesses largely ended with the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. However, the discrimination against Jews had continued, leading to a mass emigration once it was allowed in the 1970s, followed by another during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union, mostly to Israel.
The Kielce pogrom and the Krakw pogrom in communist Poland were examples further incidents of antisemitic attitudes and violence in the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. A common theme behind the anti-Jewish violence in the immediate post-war period in Poland were blood libel rumours.[196][197] Poland's later "March events" of 19671968 was a state anti-Jewish (officially anti-Zionist) political campaign involving the suppression of the dissident movement and a power struggle within the Polish communist party against the background of the Six-Day War and the Soviet Union's and the Eastern Bloc's new radically anti-Israeli policy in support of socialist Arab countries. Both of these waves of antisemitism in Poland resulted in the emigration of most of the country's Holocaust survivors during the late 1940s and in 1968, mostly to either Israel or the United States.
During the early 1980s, isolationists on the far right made overtures to anti-war activists on the left in the United States to join forces against government policies in areas where they shared concerns.[198] This was mainly in the area of civil liberties, opposition to United States military intervention overseas and opposition to U.S. support for Israel.[199][200] As they interacted, some of the classic right-wing antisemitic scapegoating conspiracy theories began to seep into progressive circles,[199] including stories about how a "New World Order", also called the "Shadow Government" or "The Octopus",[198] was manipulating world governments. Antisemitic conspiracism was "peddled aggressively" by right-wing groups.[199] Some on the left adopted the rhetoric, which it has been argued, was made possible by their lack of knowledge of the history of fascism and its use of "scapegoating, reductionist and simplistic solutions, demagoguery, and a conspiracy theory of history."[199] The Crown Heights riots of 1991 were a violent expression of tensions within a very poor urban community, pitting African American residents against followers of Hassidic Judaism.
Towards the end of 1990, as the movement against the Gulf War began to build, a number of far-right and antisemitic groups sought out alliances with left-wing anti-war coalitions, who began to speak openly about a "Jewish lobby" that was encouraging the United States to invade the Middle East. This idea evolved into conspiracy theories about a "Zionist-occupied government" (ZOG), which has been seen as equivalent to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[198]
While Islamic antisemitism has increased in the wake of the ArabIsraeli conflict, there were riots against Jews in Middle Eastern countries prior to the foundation of Israel, including unrest in Casablanca,[201] Shiraz and Fez in the 1910s, massacres in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron in the 1920s, pogroms in Algeria, Turkey and Palestine in the 1930s, as well as attacks on the Jews of Iraq and Tunisia in the 1940s. As Palestinian Arab leader Amin al-Husseini decided to make an alliance with Hitler's Germany during World War II, 180 Jews were killed and 700 Jews were injured in the Nazi-inspired riots of 1941 which are known as the Farhud.[202] Jews in the Middle East were also affected by the Holocaust. Most of North Africa came under Nazi control and many Jews were discriminated against and used as slaves until the Axis defeat.[203] In 1945, hundreds of Jews were injured during violent demonstrations in Egypt and Jewish property was vandalized and looted. In November 1945, 130 Jews were killed during a pogrom in Tripoli.[204] In December 1947, shortly after the UN Partition Plan, Arab rioting resulted in hundreds of Jewish casualties in Aleppo, including 75 dead.[205] In Aden, 87 Jews were killed and 120 injured.[206] A mob of Muslim sailors looted Jewish homes and shops in Manama. During 1948 there were further riots against Jews in Tripoli, Cairo, Oujda and Jerada. As the first ArabIsraeli War came to an end in 1949, a grenade attack against the Menarsha Synagogue of Damascus claimed a dozen lives and thirty injured. The 1967 Six-Day War led to further persecution against Jews in the Arab world, prompting an increase in the Jewish exodus that began after Israel was established.[207][208] Over the following years, Jewish population in Arab countries decreased from 856,000 in 1948 to 25,870 in 2009 as a result of emigration, mostly to Israel.[209]
The first years of the 21st century have seen an upsurge of antisemitism. Several authors such as Robert S. Wistrich, Phyllis Chesler, and Jonathan Sacks argue that this is antisemitism of a new type stemming from Islamists, which they call new antisemitism.[210][211][212] Blood libel stories have appeared numerous times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, on Arab television shows, and on websites.[213][214][215]
In 2004, the United Kingdom set up an all-Parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, which published its findings in 2006. The inquiry stated that: "Until recently, the prevailing opinion both within the Jewish community and beyond [had been] that antisemitism had receded to the point that it existed only on the margins of society." However, it found a reversal of this progress since 2000 and aimed to investigate the problem, identify the sources of contemporary antisemitism and make recommendations to improve the situation.[216] A 2008 report by the U.S. State Department found that there was an increase in antisemitism across the world, and that both old and new expressions of antisemitism persist.[217] A 2012 report by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor also noted a continued global increase in antisemitism, and found that Holocaust denial and opposition to Israeli policy at times was used to promote or justify antisemitism.[218]
William D. Rubenstein, a respected author and historian, outlines the presence of antisemitism in the English-speaking world in one of his essays with the same title. In the essay, he explains that there are relatively low levels of antisemitism in the English-speaking world, particularly in Britain and the United States, because of the values associated with Protestantism, the rise of capitalism, and the establishment of constitutional governments that protect civil liberties. Rubenstein does not argue that the treatment of Jews was ideal in these countries, rather he argues that there has been less overt antisemitism in the English-speaking world due to political, ideological, and social structures. Essentially, English-speaking nations experienced lower levels of antisemitism because their liberal and constitutional frameworks limited the organized, violent expression of antisemitism. In his essay, Rubinstein tries to contextualize the reduction of the Jewish population that led to a period of reduced antisemitism: "All Jews were expelled from England in 1290, the first time Jews had been expelled en masse from a European country".[219]
As mentioned above, Protestantism was a major factor that curbed antisemitism in England beginning in the sixteenth century. This assertion is supported by the fact that the number of reported instances in which Jews were killed in England was significantly higher prior to the birth of Protestantism albeit this was also affected by the number of resident Jews. Protestants were comparatively more understanding of Jews relative to Catholics and other religious groups. One possible reason as to why Protestant groups were more accepting of Jews was the fact that they preferred the Old Testament rather than the New Testament, so their doctrines shared both content and narrative with Jewish teachings. Rubenstein attests that another reason as to why "most of these [Protestants] were predisposed to be sympathetic to the Jews" was because they often "view[ed] themselves, like the biblical Hebrews, as a chosen group that had entered into a direct covenant with God."[219] Lastly, Protestantism's anti-Catholic bend contributed to lower levels of antisemitism: "All of these groups were profoundly hostile to Catholicism. Anti-Catholicism, at both the elite and mass levels, became a key theme in Britain, tending to push antisemitism aside."[219] Overall, the emergence of Protestantism lessened the severity of antisemitism through its use of the Old Testament and its anti-Catholic sentiment.
In post-Napoleonic England, when there was a notable absence of Jews, Britain removed bans on "usury and moneylending,"[219] and Rubenstein attests that London and Liverpool became economic trading hubs which bolstered England's status as an economic powerhouse. Jews were often associated with being the moneymakers and financial bodies in continental Europe, so it is significant that the English were able to claim responsibility for the country's financial growth and not attribute it to Jews. It is also significant that because Jews were not in the spotlight financially, it took a lot of the anger away from them, and as such, antisemitism was somewhat muted in England. It is said that Jews did not rank among the "economic elite of many British cities" in the 19th century.[219] Again, the significance in this is that British Protestants and non-Jews felt less threatened by Jews because they were not imposing on their prosperity and were not responsible for the economic achievements of their nation. Albert Lindemann also proposes in the introduction to his book Antisemitism: A History that Jews "assumed social positions, such as moneylending, that were inherently precarious and tension creating."[220] Lindemann believes that moneylending is inevitably riddled with tension, so as long as Jews were moneylenders, they would always be at the center of the problem and synonymous with fraught financial affairs.
The third major factor which contributed to the lessening of antisemitism in Britain was the establishment of a constitutional government, something that was later adopted and bolstered in the United States. A constitutional government is one which has a written document that outlines the powers of government in an attempt to balance and protect civil rights. After the English Civil War, the Protectorate (164060) and the Glorious Revolution (1688), parliament was established in order to make laws that protected the rights of British citizens.[221] The Bill of Rights specifically outlined laws to protect British civil liberties as well. Thus, it is not surprising that having a constitutional government with liberal principles minimized, to some extent, antisemitism in Britain.
In further attempts to minimize antisemitism within government, the United States' Declaration of Independence embraced the liberal principles that were previously put forth in England and inspired the formation of a republic that had executive, judicial, and legislative powers and even a law that served to "forbid the establishment of any religion or any official religious test for office holding."[222] Having a government that respected and protected civil liberties, especially those pertaining to religious liberties, reduced blatant antisemitism by constitutionally protecting the right to practice different faiths. These sentiments go back to the first President of the United States, George Washington, who asserted his belief in religious inclusion. Rubinstein believes that though instances of antisemitism definitely existed in Britain and America, the moderation of antisemitism was limited in English-Speaking countries largely because of political and social ideologies that come with a constitutional government.
In addition to being low in the United States and Britain, antisemitism was also low in other English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Australia has had a historically positive attitude towards Jews and as a result, it had "remarkably little overt antisemitism at any point."[223] Similarly, Ireland and New Zealand also experienced a lower presence of antisemitism. This is not to say that English-speaking countries have less antisemitic sentiment because their populations speak English, instead, the ideologies that often exist in English-speaking countries affect their acceptance of Jews.
While antisemitism tended to be low in English-speaking regions of Canada, it was higher in Quebec where the native language is French. Quebec has a "long history of blaring antisemitism, enunciated by French-speaking nationalists steeped in the most extreme forms of Catholic hostility towards Jews."[224] This is important because other English-speaking parts of Canada were more tolerant of Jews than its non-English speaking parts were, which suggests a correlation between lingual diversity and the level of Jewish hate. Additionally, it seems that Quebec's firm Catholic hostility towards Jews contributed to local antisemitic behavior.
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Far-right Noam MK submits fresh bill to remove grandchild clause from Law of Return The Times of Israel
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Far-right Noam MK submits fresh bill to remove grandchild clause from Law of Return - The Times of Israel
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