General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20269 min read

Antisemitism

Antisemitism is prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people, expressed through stereotypes, conspiracy theories, discrimination, and violence. It is a form of bigotry and racism, and it has existed for thousands of years, though the word itself is much newer: it was coined in German as "Antisemitismus" in the late 1800s. In English it is sometimes spelled "anti-semitism," "anti-Semitism," or "anti semitism."¹

Key fact	Detail
Definition	Prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people; a form of bigotry and racism¹
Origin of the term	Coined in German as "Antisemitismus" in the late 1800s, though anti-Jewish hatred dates to ancient times¹^•²
Historical roots	The anti-Judaism of ancient times and early Christianity; over many centuries Christianity played a central role in the development and spread of antisemitism in Europe¹
Worst culmination	The Holocaust (1933–1945), the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators¹
Common forms	Scapegoating and conspiracy theories that falsely portray Jews as dangerous to society or the world¹
Contemporary definition efforts	The IHRA working definition (2016), a non-legally binding definition with 11 illustrative examples, and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism drafted by scholars in response³^•⁴

Christian roots

Antisemitism has its roots in the anti-Judaism of ancient times and early Christianity. Early Christians taught that Christianity had replaced Judaism and that Jews were no longer God's chosen people, an idea known as supersessionism or replacement theology. They claimed Jews were stubborn and blind to truth because they did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.¹

Several Christian beliefs gave rise to the earliest anti-Jewish prejudices: the false charge that Jews killed Jesus, reinforced in official Christian teachings; the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, himself Jewish, treated as symbolic of alleged Jewish treachery and greed; accusations that Jews worked with or were the devil; and the false accusation of "ritual murder" of Christian children, a lie known as blood libel.¹ In the first millennium of the Christian era, leaders of the European Christian hierarchy developed or solidified as doctrine the ideas that all Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ and that the destruction of the Temple and the scattering of the Jewish people were punishment for past transgressions and for refusing to accept Christianity.⁵ Most historians today recognize that Jesus was executed by the Roman government because officials viewed him as a political threat.⁵

The accusation that Jews murdered Christ was not renounced until the 1960s, when the Second Vatican Council officially repudiated it; the Roman Catholic Church repudiated these teachings as part of the Council in 1965.⁶^•¹ In the aftermath of the Holocaust, some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, re-examined their teachings on Jews and Judaism.⁶

Secular forms

Alongside religious prejudice, secular (non-religious) prejudices about Jews developed in Europe over many centuries, arising from Jews' position as a minority in overwhelmingly Christian societies.¹

Economic antisemitism rests on stereotypes that Jews are inherently greedy, stingy, or good with money. It has historical roots in medieval and early modern Europe, where many authorities forbade Jews to own land, engage in agriculture, or work in most crafts or trades, leaving many Jews little choice but to work in commerce, moneylending, or currency exchange, usually on a small scale such as peddling. A very few families became wealthy lending to courts or kingdoms, and these outliers gave rise to lies about Jewish wealth and to conspiracy theories about Jews wielding power through it.¹

Nationalist antisemitism stereotypes Jews as suspicious "alien" outsiders or disloyal citizens with dangerous international connections; "cosmopolitan" and "globalist" are commonly used as coded terms for Jewish people. It dates to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when nationalist intellectuals defined the nation through shared history, language, religion, and culture and questioned whether Jews could belong. By the late 19th century, ethno-nationalism defined national membership by heredity and ethnicity, and some of its movements called for excluding Jews from economic, social, and political life or forcing their emigration.¹

Racial antisemitism is based on the false idea that Jews are a biologically separate, inferior, or parasitic race. It dates to the late 19th century, when theories of scientific race, eugenics, and Social Darwinism became popular and antisemites used them to give their hatred a veneer of scientific credibility. Research on DNA and the human genome shows these ideas were incorrect; there is no scientific evidence for distinct biological races of any kind. Racial antisemitism was a key component of Nazi ideology.¹

Scapegoating and conspiracy theories

Antisemites have repeatedly and wrongly blamed Jews for broader problems in society: starting plagues and epidemics such as the Black Death; causing military losses such as Germany's defeat in World War I; spreading Communism and other radical movements; orchestrating European imperialism, colonialism, and the slave trade; and causing financial crises such as the Great Depression. None of these accusations are true.¹ In the Middle Ages, Jews were wrongly accused of spreading the bubonic plague by poisoning wells, and the blood libel lie led to massacres of Jews between the 12th and 16th centuries.⁷

Conspiracy theories portray Jews as sinister "puppet masters" secretly controlling world events. The most infamous example arose around 1900 in the publication The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; others include fabricated claims that a cabal of Jews controls the media, Hollywood, or the world. These theories resurface and transform in times of major social, economic, and political upheaval, and antisemitic political groups such as the Nazis drew on and spread them to win followers.¹

Discrimination and violence in practice

For centuries, governments, religious authorities, and private institutions have restricted Jewish life. Common official measures have included expelling Jews from territories (England in 1290, France in 1394, and Spain in 1492); visibly marking Jews with hats, badges, or symbols including the Star of David; prohibiting land ownership; levying additional taxes; limiting jobs and education, such as Hungary's numerus clausus law of 1920; forced conversion under threat of death; and confining where Jews could live, as in ghettos or the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire.¹ In the Middle Ages and early modern era, religious antagonism toward Europe's Jews resulted in anti-Jewish legislation, expulsions, and violence.²

Antisemitism has often culminated in mass violence. Notorious examples before the Holocaust include massacres of entire Jewish communities by Christian soldiers during the Crusades; torture and execution of Jews by Catholic Spanish officials during the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834); riots by mobs responding to blood libel accusations, often linked to Easter and Passover; and pogroms, often deadly anti-Jewish riots, perpetrated by soldiers, police, and mobs in eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.¹

The Holocaust

The Holocaust (1933–1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators, and it is history's most extreme example of antisemitism.¹^•⁸ The Nazis incited genocide by drawing on centuries of antisemitic prejudices and hatreds. The Nazi Party gained popularity in 1930s Germany in part by presenting Jewish people as the source of Germany's political, social, economic, and ethical problems, and after taking power in 1933 it enacted laws targeting the freedoms of Jewish people.⁹^•⁷ Although Nazi racial antisemitism escalated hostility toward Jews into attempted genocide, the Holocaust originated in speech and thought: hostile stereotypes, menacing caricatures, and the slow diffusion of bigotry.⁵

Contemporary antisemitism and definitions

Antisemitism did not end with the Holocaust. Today, antisemitic ideas and stereotypes are held by people of many religious, ethnic, and social backgrounds and from across the political spectrum, including both the left and the right.¹ In the United States, antisemitic incidents are at the highest levels in 40 years and have more than doubled in the past ten.⁷

Newer forms include Holocaust denial, any attempt to negate the established facts of the Nazi German genocide of European Jews, and Holocaust distortion, any statement that misrepresents those facts. Some antisemites misuse the documented history of the Holocaust by using Nazi symbols such as the swastika to intimidate Jewish people, threatening references to gas chambers or ovens, drawing analogies between the State of Israel and Nazi Germany, and making comparisons that distort, downplay, or trivialize the Holocaust's documented crimes.¹

Defining the term today. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a non-legally binding working definition in 2016: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." It is accompanied by contemporary examples, which, taking overall context into account, include calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology; accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than to their own nations; denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor; and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. The definition also states that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.³ The definition has been adopted or endorsed by a number of countries and governmental bodies, including the U.S. Department of State, and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance welcomed it as aiding understanding of antisemitism.¹⁰^•¹¹

The definition's treatment of Israel has drawn debate. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, drafted by international scholars working in antisemitism studies and related fields including Jewish, Holocaust, Israel, Palestine, and Middle East studies, responds to the IHRA definition and addresses its implications for academic freedom and freedom of expression, reflecting a widely felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine.⁴^•¹² Legislative uses of the definition have also been contested: in Indiana, a 2024 bill using the full IHRA definition with its Israel-related examples was amended by the state senate to remove the alliance's name and those examples, and Governor Eric Holcomb vetoed the final version while signing a proclamation condemning antisemitism.¹³^•¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Social life and human behavior › Relationships and social issues › Social movements and social issues › Racism, ethnic prejudice, and racial discrimination

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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