Jerome A. Chanes

We can identify at least six stages in antisemitism. Antisemitism is easily classified historically as pointing to at least half-a-dozen varieties. (1) The pre-Christian anti-Jewish activity in the ancient Greco-Roman world, most of which was not what we would call “antisemitism,” was primarily ethnic in nature. (2) There is the classic Christian antisemitism of antiquity and the Middle Ages, which was religious in nature and which extended into modern times. (3) Traditional Muslim antisemitism is—at least in its classical form—highly nuanced in that Jews are Dhimmi, members of a protected class. (4) There is the political, social, and economic antisemitism of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe, which laid the groundwork for racialist antisemitism. (5) There is the racial antisemitism that arose in the nineteenth century out of Enlightenment thinking and that culminated in Nazism. (6) Finally, the contemporary antisemitism of Israelophobia and “Zionism Equals Racism,” a relatively new phenomenon, is what many characterize as the New Antisemitism.

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  1. shinichi Post author

    Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook

    by Jerome A. Chanes

    **

    The Stages of Antisemitism

    The categorization of anti-Jewish behavior is an important part of defining antisemitism. Historically, there are no specific social or political periods or conditions that especially favor the rise or dissemination of antisemitism; antisemitism has been a factor in many different societies, under different political, religious, social, and economic conditions. Although unrest or distress of any kind, arising from any source, favors antisemitism, there is no social dynamic that is peculiar to any period that obliges antisemitism. No specific accusations characterize antisemitism, even though certain myths tend to recur: the “blood libel” (an accusation that Jews murder non-Jewish children and use their blood in the preparation of matza for the Passover holiday), Jews and money, and Jewish domination are examples. Each succeeding era of antisemites took the anti-Jewish mythology of the preceding and carried the ball themselves. As psychologist Mortimer Ostow has observed: “Even after the subsidence of Church influence [with attendant Christian anti-Jewish activity], that is, even among the deists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and certainly among the Nazis, Christian demonization of the Jews was accepted, exploited, and elaborated” (Ostow 1996, 176).

    We can identify at least six stages in antisemitism. Antisemitism is easily classified historically as pointing to at least half-a-dozen varieties. (1) The pre-Christian anti-Jewish activity in the ancient Greco-Roman world, most of which was not what we would call “antisemitism,” was primarily ethnic in nature. (2) There is the classic Christian antisemitism of antiquity and the Middle Ages, which was religious in nature and which extended into modern times. (3) Traditional Muslim antisemitism is—at least in its classical form—highly nuanced in that Jews are Dhimmi, members of a protected class. (4) There is the political, social, and economic antisemitism of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe, which laid the groundwork for racialist antisemitism. (5) There is the racial antisemitism that arose in the nineteenth century out of Enlightenment thinking and that culminated in Nazism. (6) Finally, the contemporary antisemitism of Israelophobia and “Zionism Equals Racism,” a relatively new phenomenon, is what many characterize as the New Antisemitism.

    (We may note an important case study in antisemitism, that of Nazi Germany. The antisemitism that arose in Nazi Germany developed out of three sources: [1] a political party whose platform was that of destruction and extermination of Jews as individuals and as a people; [2] a powerful war machine, that enabled the Nazi regime to impose its will—and prosecute its policy of destruction of the Jews—throughout Europe; and [3] the lack of significant opposition to—and in many cases complicity with—the Nazi agenda.)

    We may telescope these six categories to three: ancient antisemitism, which was primarily ethnic in nature; Christian antisemitism, which was religious; and the racial antisemitism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.2 If there is indeed any such thing as a New Antisemitism (a fourth category), it is “new” in the sense that it does not fit the pattern of these three categories.

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  2. shinichi Post author

    反ユダヤ主義

    ウィキペディア

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/反ユダヤ主義

    **

    反ユダヤ主義の歴史的発展については、ジェローム・チェーンズによる次のような整理がある。

    1. キリスト教以前の古代ギリシャや古代ローマにおける反ユダヤ教。これは民族意識的な性格であった。
    2. 古代・中世におけるキリスト教的反ユダヤ主義。これは宗教的・神学的な性格を持ち、近代まで拡大していった。
    3. イスラームにおける反ユダヤ主義。ただし、イスラム教ではユダヤ教徒はキリスト教文化圏よりも厚遇された。
    4. 啓蒙時代の政治的経済的反ユダヤ主義。これは後の人種的反ユダヤ主義(反セム主義)の基盤をなした。
    5. 19世紀以降の人種的反セム主義。これはナチズムにおいて最高潮に達した。
    6. 現代の反ユダヤ主義(新しい反セム主義ともいう)。

    チェーンズは、さらに反ユダヤ主義を大きく以下の3つのカテゴリに分けることができるとする。

    1. 民族的な性格の強かった古代の反ユダヤ主義
    2. 宗教的な理由によるキリスト教的反ユダヤ主義
    3. 19世紀以降の人種的反セム主義

    実際には、古代ローマ以前で民族間の一般的な虐待や酷使と後世の意味での反ユダヤ主義を識別することは難しい。ヨーロッパ諸国家がキリスト教を受け入れてからは、明確に反ユダヤ主義と呼ぶべき事態が生じていった。イスラム教世界ではユダヤ人はアウトサイダーと見なされてきた。科学革命と産業革命以後の近代社会では人種に基づく反ユダヤ主義(反セム主義)が唱えられ、第二次世界大戦中のナチス・ドイツによるユダヤ人大量虐殺をもたらした。1948年のイスラエル建国以後は中東においても反ユダヤ主義がはびこるようになった。

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