ISLAM. That a sovereign Jewish nation
should exist in the heart of the Islamic Middle East presents a problem
for Islamic theology. In Muslim thought it is inconceivable that the
Jews should rise beyond their dhimmi (second-class) status and so long
as Israel exists as a self-governing nation on land once owned by Arab
landlords it serves to negate Islam.
JUDAEOPHOBIA.
Literally,
"the fear of Jews", which is frequently expressed in hatred toward Jews.
KRISTALLNACHT.
The
"Night of Broken Glass" saw the organised destruction of synagogues,
Jewish houses and shops, accompanied by mass arrests of Jews, which
took place in Germany and Austria on the night of 9th November 1938.
LUTHER.
As a
young Reformer Martin Luther was favourably disposed towards the Jews
of Germany and urged Christians to deal kindly with them. In later life
he published The Jews and their Lies in which he urged the German
authorities to, among other things, burn their synagogues and expel
them.
MARR. Wilhelm Marr is credited with
coining the term "anti-Semitism" in his book The Victory of Judaism
over Germanism published in 1879. Marr was an atheistic radical
who
wished to provide a fresh basis for the traditional hatred of the Jews.
NEO-NAZISM.
Recent
years have seen the proliferation of Neo-Nazi political organisations
around the world. Characterised by an admiration for Adolph Hitler and
Nazism, such groups find support among the poor and unemployed
pandering to prejudice and "patriotism". Belief in white supremacy and
hostility to the Jewish, black and Asian communities are hallmarks of
such groups.
ORGANISATIONS.
A
number of anti-Semitic organisations exist, many of them with a
presence on the Internet. Jew Watch, for example, keeps "a Close Watch
on Jewish Communities & Organisations Worldwide". In the USA
primitive, old-fashioned anti-Semitism flourishes among the Ku Klux
Klan and the Christian Crusader movements, while the John Birch society
exhibits a more sophisticated veneer. In this country the National
Front was formed in 1967 by the amalgamation of the British National
Party, the Empire Loyalists and the violent Racial Preservation Society.
PROTOCOLS
OF ZION. Purporting
to be the plans of a secret conference of the leaders of world Jewry,
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion first appeared in Russia in
1905. The protocols "reveal" nothing less than a plot to dominate the
world through the process of modern democracy. Though long since
exposed as a fraud, the document is still available in many languages.
QUR’AN.
Though
recognising Jews and Christians as "Peoples of the Book" and
"possessing Scriptures", the Qur’an (Koran) regards them as "infidels"
because they do not recognise Muhammad as the final Prophet. Thus the
seeds were sown for Islamic hatred of Jews.
RACIAL
THEORIES. The
idea that the Jewish people are a "race" inferior to the Aryan races
was notoriously exploited by Adolph Hitler’s Nazi propaganda machine.
Among the more bizarre elements of this pseudo-science is the belief
that Jesus and the apostles were not Jews but fair skinned, blue-eyed
Indo Europeans.
STEREOTYPING.
The
idea that Jews are characterised by racial, physical and social traits,
as expressed in the ideas that: all Jews have big noses; that all Jews
are avaricious; that the Jews "control everything".
TALMUD.
Judaism’s
body of tradition which has usurped the authority of Scripture. Several
anti-Semitic writers have capitalised on the Talmud’s anti-Gentile,
anti-Christian and often grossly superstitious elements to foment
anti-Jewish feeling.
USURY. The medieval Church regarded
the practice of usury, lending money at interest, as a danger to one’s
salvation and was the domain of "foreigners". Because the Jews were
lost in any case they were allowed to practise money lending thus
making them in the popular consciousness not only infidels and
Christ-killers but also dangerous outsiders.
VATICAN.
Most
"Christian" anti-Semitism has been of the Catholic variety. Relations
between the Vatican and Hitler were cordial and until the papacy of
John XXIII the Good Friday liturgy contained anti-Jewish references.
Since the second Vatican Council, however, there have been significant
changes in Catholic-Jewish relations.
WANDERING
JEW. The myth of
Ahasuerus, a Jewish shoemaker doomed to wander the earth forever as a
punishment for cursing Christ on his way to Golgotha. Ahasuerus is thus
seen as the personification of the nation suffering eternally for its
rejection of the Messiah.
XENOPHOBIA.
The
fear and suspicion of foreigners in general, which also expresses
itself in Judeophobia.
YELLOW
BADGE. Under the
Nazis, Jews were forced by law to wear a yellow Star of David sewn onto
their clothes in order to identify them.
ZIONIST
CONSPIRACY. Type
"conspiracy" into your Internet search engine and be confronted at once
with a bewildering assortment of web sites "exposing" the worldwide
Jewish/Zionist conspiracy. According to the conspiracy theorists the
Jews are behind every secret society, revolutionary movement and
subversive group that has ever existed.
This article appeared in the Autumn 1999 issue
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