A Short History of Anti-Semitism

Peter Schäfer describes clearly and concisely how anti-Semitic stereotypes have spread since antiquity, led to persecution and annihilation and are still virulent after the Shoah. One doesn’t have to understand anti-Semitism, but has to know it in order to fight it off.

Already in pre-Christian antiquity there was hatred against Jews, there were ghettos and pogroms, but it was only the New Testament writings, with their opposition to Judaism which created the conditions for ritual murder and persecution of Jewish people in the Middle Ages.

Luther called for the extermination of the "devil's children", the Enlightenment philosophers found Judaism unreasonable, scientists justified the hatred of Jews on racist grounds and all too many were prepared to participate in the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" or preferred to look away. One might have thought that the shock of the mass murder was salutary, but anti-Zionism and right-wing ideologies have been penetrating into the middle of society with anti-Semitic baggage for years, preparing the ground for new violence. Peter Schäfer's enlightening book is a must-read for all those who want to understand why anti-Semitism is so old and at the same time so topical and what it means for Jews in the neighbourhood, in Israel and all over the world.