Antisemitism in Europe

The first years of the twenty-first century have seen an upsurge of antisemitism . Several authors argue that this is antisemitism of a new type, which they call new antisemitism.

In 2004 the UK Parliament 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." It found a reversal of this progress since 2000. It aimed to investigate the problem, identify the sources of contemporary antisemitism and make recommendations to improve the situation.

The summary of a 2004 poll by the "Pew Global Attitudes Project" noted, "Despite concerns about rising antisemitism in Europe, there are no indications that anti-Jewish sentiment has increased over the past decade. Favorable ratings of Jews are actually higher now in France, Germany and Russia than they were in 1991. Nonetheless, Jews are better liked in the U.S. than in Germany and Russia." However, according to 2005 survey results by the ADL, antisemitic attitudes remain common in Europe. Over 30% of those surveyed indicated that Jews have too much power in business, with responses ranging from lows of 11% in Denmark and 14% in England to highs of 66% in Hungary, and over 40% in Poland and Spain. The results of religious antisemitism also linger and over 20% of European respondents agreed that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, with France having the lowest percentage at 13% and Poland having the highest number of those agreeing, at 39%.

A 2006 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that although almost no respondents in countries of the European Union regarded themselves as antisemitic, antisemitic attitudes correlated with anti-Israel opinions. Looking at populations in 10 European countries, Small and Kaplan surveyed 5,000 respondents, asking them about Israeli actions and classical anti-Semitic stereotypes. "There were questions about whether the IDF purposely targets children, whether Israel poisons the Palestinians' water supply - these sorts of extreme mythologies," Small says. "The people who believed the anti-Israel mythologies also tended to believe that Jews are not honest in business, have dual loyalties, control government and the economy, and the like," Small says. According to this study, anti-Israel respondents were 56% more likely to be anti-Semitic than the average European. "This is extraordinary. It's off the charts." says Small. The study also found that popular levels of both antisemitism and anti-Israel opinion were lower than expected, and did not equate antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

The Vienna-based European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC), for 2002 and 2003, identified France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands as EU member countries with notable increases in incidents. Many of these incidents can be linked to immigrant communities in these countries and result from heightened tensions in the Middle East. As these nations keep reliable and comprehensive statistics on antisemitic acts, and are engaged in combating antisemitism, their data was readily available to the EUMC.

In western Europe, traditional far-right groups still account for a significant proportion of the attacks against Jews and Jewish properties; disadvantaged and disaffected Muslim youths increasingly were responsible for most of the other incidents. In Eastern Europe, with a much smaller Muslim population, neo-Nazis and others members of the radical political fringe were responsible for most antisemitic incidents. Antisemitism remained a serious problem in Russia and Belarus, and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, with most incidents carried out by ultra-nationalist and other far-right elements. The stereotype of Jews as manipulators of the global economy continues to provide fertile ground for antisemitic aggression.

Denmark

Further information: History of the Jews in Denmark

Anti-semitism in Denmark has not been as widespread as in other countries. Initially Jews were banned as in other countries in Europe, but beginning in the 17th century, Jews were allowed to live in Denmark freely, unlike in other European countries where they were forced to live in ghettos.

In 1813, Denmark had gone bankrupt and people were looking for a scapegoat. A German anti-Semitic book, translated into Danish, provoked a flood of polemical articles both for and against the Jews.

In 1819 a series of anti-Jewish riots in Germany spread to several neighboring countries including Denmark, resulting in mob attacks on Jews in Copenhagen and many provincial towns. These riots were known as Hep! Hep! Riots, from the derogatory rallying cry against the Jews in Germany. Riots lasted for five months during which time shop windows were smashed, stores looted, homes attacked, and Jews physically abused.

However, during World War II, Denmark was very uncooperative with the Nazi occupation on Jewish matters. Danish officials repeatedly insisted to the German occupation authorities that there was no "Jewish problem" in Denmark. As a result, even ideologically committed Nazis such as Reich Commissioner Werner Best followed a strategy of avoiding and deferring discussion of Denmark's Jews. When Denmark's German occupiers began planning the deportation of the 8,000 or so Jews in Denmark to Nazi concentration camps, many Danes and Swedes took part in a collective effort to evacuate the roughly 8,000 Jews of Denmark by sea to nearby Sweden (see also Rescue of the Danish Jews).

Estonia

Further information: History of the Jews in Estonia

In March 1996 the Russian-language newspaper Estoniya reported that antisemitic literature was being distributed by local Russian-speaking organizations; the literature was to be found mainly at the Narva centre of the Union of Russian Citizens in Estonia. The Estoniya reporter said he had asked Yuri Mishin, the chairman of the Union, whether such literature reflected the views of his organization; Mishin had replied that Estonia was a free country and people could read whatever they wished.

In April 1996 Estonian-language leaflets were found in Tallinn. The leaflets contained an illustration of a monster from a children's book to which the authors of the leaflets had added anti-Jewish slogans. The leaflets were signed by the Estonian National Working Party-New Estonian Legion. Also in April, German-language leaflets with anti-Jewish overtones calling for the deaths of top officials of Tartu University were found on the walls of student dormitories at the university.

In September the Jewish cemetery in Tallinn was vandalized; fourteen gravestones were damaged.

France

Further information: History of the Jews in France

File:DrancyConcentrationCamp.jpg

The concentration camp at Drancy, near Paris, where Jews were confined until they were deported to the death camps.

Antisemitism was particularly virulent in Vichy France during WWII. The Vichy government openly collaborated with the Nazi occupiers to identify Jews for deportation and transportation to the death camps (about 75.000 were killed).

Today, despite a steady trend of decreasing antisemitism among the indigenous population, acts of antisemitism are a serious cause for concern, as is tension between the Jewish and Muslim populations of France, both the largest in Western Europe. However, according to a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 71% of French Muslims had positive views of Jews, the highest percentage in the world . According to the National Advisory Committee on Human Rights, antisemitic acts account for a majority— 72% in all in 2003— of racist acts in France.

In July, 2005 the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 82% of French people questioned had favorable attitudes towards Jews, the second highest percentage of the countries questioned. The Netherlands was highest at 85%.

Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic speech are prohibited under the 1990 Gayssot Act.

Over the last several years, anti-Jewish violence, property destruction, and racist language has been wildly increasing and French-Jews are worried more every month that it will spiral even higher. France is home to Western Europe's largest population of Muslims (about 4 million) as well as the continent’s largest community of Jews, about 600,000. Jewish leaders perceive an intensifying anti-Semitism in France, mainly among Muslims of Arab or African heritage, but also growing among Caribbean islanders from former colonies.

The Masada Action and Defense Movement was a far right false flag terrorist group, which attacked Muslims in France and attempted to frame Jews for the crimes.

Ilan Halimi (1982 - 13 February 2006) was a young French Jew (of Moroccan parentage) kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a gang called the "Barbarians" and subsequently tortured to death over a period of three weeks. The murder, amongst whose motives authorities include anti-Semitism, incited a public outcry in a France already marked by intense public controversy about the role of children of immigrants in its society.

With the start of the Second Intifada in Israel, anti-semitic incidents increased in France. In 2002, the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (Human Rights Commission) reported six times more anti-semitic incidents than in 2001 (193 incidents in 2002). The commission's statistics showed that anti-semitic acts constituted 62% of all racist acts in the country (compared to 45% in 2001 and 80% in 2000). The report documented 313 violent acts against people or property, including 38 injuries and the murder of someone with Maghrebin origins by far right skinheads.

Germany

An American soldier stands near a wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp.

Further information: History of the Jews in Germany

See also: Holocaust

From the early Middle Ages to the 18th century, the Jews in Germany were subject to many persecutions as well as brief times of tolerance. Though the 19th century began with a series of riots and pogroms against the Jews, emancipation followed in 1848, so that, by the early 20th century, the Jews of Germany were the most integrated in Europe. The situation changed in the early 1930s with the rise of the Nazis and their explicitly anti-Semitic program. Hate speech which referred to Jewish citizens as "dirty Jews" became common in anti-Semitic pamphlets and newspapers such as the Völkischer Beobachter and Der Stürmer. Additionally, blame was laid on German Jews for having caused Germany's defeat in World War I (see Dolchstosslegende).

Anti-Jewish propaganda expanded rapidly. Nazi cartoons depicting "dirty Jews" frequently portrayed a dirty, physically unattractive and badly dressed "talmudic" Jew in traditional religious garments similar to those worn by Hasidic Jews. Articles attacking Jewish Germans, while concentrating on commercial and political activities of prominent Jewish individuals, also frequently attacked them based on religious dogmas, such as blood libel.

The Nazi antisemitic program quickly expanded beyond mere speech. Starting in 1933, repressive laws were passed against Jews, culminating in the Nuremberg Laws which removed most of the rights of citizenship from Jews, using a racial definition based on descent, rather than any religious definition of who was a Jew. Sporadic violence against the Jews became widespread with the Kristallnacht riots, which targeted Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship, killing hundreds across Germany and Austria.

The antisemitic agenda culminated in the genocide of the Jews of Europe, known as the Holocaust.

Hungary

Further information: History of the Jews in Hungary

In June 1944, Hungarian police deported nearly 440,000 Jews in more than 145 trains, mostly to Auschwitz. Ultimately, over 400,000 Jews in Hungary were killed during the Holocaust. Although Jews were on both sides of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, there was a perceptible antisemitic backlash against Jewish members of the former government led by Mátyás Rákosi.

Today, hatred towards Judaism and Israel can be observed from many prominent Hungarian politicians. The most famous example is the MIÉP party and its Chairman, István Csurka.

Antisemitism in Hungary was manifested mainly in far right publications and demonstrations. MIÉP supporters continued their tradition of shouting antisemitic slogans and tearing the US flag to shreds at their annual rallies in Budapest in March 2003 and 2004, commemorating the 1848–49 revolution. Further, during the anniversary demonstrations of both right and left marking the 1956 uprising, antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans were heard from the right, such as accusing Israel of war crimes. The center-right traditionally keeps its distance from the right-wing demonstration, which was led by Csurka.

Norway

Further information: History of the Jews in Norway

Jews were prohibited from living or entering Norway by paragraph 2 (known as the Jewish Paragraph in Norway) of the 1814 Constitution, which originally read, "The evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those inhabitants, who confess thereto, are bound to raise their children to the same. Jesuits and monkish orders are not permitted. Jews are still prohibited from entry to the Realm." In 1851 the last sentence was struck out. Monks were permitted in 1897; Jesuits not before 1956.

The "Jewish Paragraph" was reinstated March 13th 1942 by Vidkun Quisling during Germany's occupation of Norway. The change was reversed when Norway was liberated in May 1945. Quisling was after the following legal purge deemed guilty of unlawful change of the Constitution and shot.

Poland

Further information: History of the Jews in Poland

In 1264, Duke Boleslaus the Pious from Greater Poland legislated a Statute of Kalisz, a charter for Jewish residence and protection, which encouraged money-lending, hoping that Jewish settlement would contribute to the development of the Polish economy. By the sixteenth century, Poland had become the center of European Jewry and the most tolerant of all European countries regarding the matters of faith, although occasionally also Poland witnessed violent antisemitic incidents.

At the onset of the seventeenth century, tolerance began to give way to increased anti-Semitism. Elected to the Polish throne King Sigismund III of the Swedish House of Vasa, a strong supporter of the counter-reformation, began to undermine the principles of the Warsaw Confederation and the religious tolerance in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, revoking and limiting privileges of all non-Catholic faiths. In 1628 he banned publication of Hebrew books, including the Talmud. Acclaimed twentieth century historian Simon Dubnow, in his magnum opus History of the Jews in Poland and Russia, detailed:

"At the end of the 16th century and thereafter, not one year passed without a blood libel trial against Jews in Poland, trials which always ended with the execution of Jewish victims in a heinous manner..." (ibid., volume 6, chapter 4).

In the 1650s the Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth (The Deluge) and the Chmielnicki Uprising of the Cossacks resulted in vast depopulation of the Commonwealth, as over 30% of the ~10 million population has perished or emigrated. In the related 1648-55 pogroms led by the Ukrainian uprising against Polish nobility (szlachta), during which approximately 100,000 Jews were slaughtered, Polish and Ruthenian peasants often participated in killing Jews (The Jews in Poland, Ken Spiro, 2001). The besieged szlachta, who were also decimated in the territories where the uprising happened, typically abandoned the loyal peasantry, townsfolk, and the Jews renting their land, in violation of "rental" contracts.

In the aftermath of the Deluge and Chmielnicki Uprising, many Jews fled to the less turbulent Netherlands, which had granted the Jews a protective charter in 1619. From then until the Nazi deportations in 1942, the Netherlands remained a remarkably tolerant haven for Jews in Europe, exceeding the tolerance extant in all other European countries at the time, and becoming one of the few Jewish havens until nineteenth century social and political reforms throughout much of Europe. Many Jews also fled to England, open to Jews since the mid-seventeenth century, in which Jews were fundamentally ignored and not typically persecuted. Historian Berel Wein notes:

"In a reversal of roles that is common in Jewish history, the victorious Poles now vented their wrath upon the hapless Jews of the area, accusing them of collaborating with the Cossack invader!... The Jews, reeling from almost five years of constant hell, abandoned their Polish communities and institutions..." (Triumph of Survival, 1990).

Throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth century, many of the szlachta mistreated peasantry, townsfolk and Jews. Threat of mob violence was a specter over the Jewish communities in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time. On one occasion in 1696, a mob threatened to massacre the Jewish community of Posin, Vitebsk. The mob accused the Jews of murdering a Pole. At the last moment, a peasant woman emerged with the victim's clothes and confessed to the murder. One notable example of actualized riots against Polish Jews is the rioting of 1716, during which many Jews lost their lives. Later, in 1723, the Bishop of Gdańsk instigated the massacre of hundreds of Jews.

On the other hand, it should be noted that despite the mentioned incidents, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a relative haven for Jews when compared to the period of the partitions of Poland and the PLC's destruction in 1795 (see Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, below).

Anti-Jewish sentiments continued to be present in Poland, even after the country regained its independence. One notable manifestation of these attitudes includes numerus clausus rules imposed, by almost all Polish universities in the 1937. William W. Hagen in his Before the "Final Solution": Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland article in Journal of Modern History (July, 1996): 1-31, details:

"In Poland, the semidictatorial government of Piłsudski and his successors, pressured by an increasingly vocal opposition on the radical and fascist right, implemented many anti-Semitic policies tending in a similar direction, while still others were on the official and semiofficial agenda when war descended in 1939.... In the 1930s the realm of official and semiofficial discrimination expanded to encompass limits on Jewish export firms... and, increasingly, on university admission itself. In 1921-22 some 25 percent of Polish university students were Jewish, but in 1938-39 their proportion had fallen to 8 percent."

While there are many examples of Polish support and help for the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, there are also numerous examples of anti-Semitic incidents, and the Jewish population was certain of the indifference towards their fate from the Christian Poles. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance identified twenty-four pogroms against Jews during World War II, the most notable occurring at the village of Jedwabne in 1941 (see massacre in Jedwabne).

After the end of World War II the remaining anti-Jewish sentiments were skillfully used at certain moments by Communist party or individual politicians in order to achieve their assumed political goals, which pinnacled in the March 1968 events. These sentiments started to diminish only with the collapse of the communist rule in Poland in 1989, which has resulted in a re-examination of events between Jewish and Christian Poles, with a number of incidents, like the massacre at Jedwabne, being discussed openly for the first time. Violent anti-semitism in Poland in 21st century is marginal compared to elsewhere, but there are very few Jews remaining in Poland. Still, according to recent (June 7, 2005) results of research by B'nai Briths Anti-Defamation League, Poland remains among the European countries (with others being Italy, Spain and Germany) with the largest percentages of people holding anti-Semitic views.

Russia and the Soviet Union

File:Iudaism bez prikras 63-7.gif

"Judaism Without Embellishments" by Trofim Kichko, published by the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in 1963: "It is in the teachings of Judaism, in the Old Testament, and in the Talmud, that the Israeli militarists find inspiration for their inhuman deeds, racist theories, and expansionist designs..."

Further information: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union

See also: Pogrom

The Pale of Settlement was the Western region of Imperial Russia to which Jews were restricted by the Tsarist Ukase of 1792. It consisted of the territories of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexed with the existing numerous Jewish population, and the Crimea (which was later cut out from the Pale).

During 1881-1884, 1903-1906 and 1914-1921, waves of antisemitic pogroms swept Russian Jewish communities. At least some pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Russian Okhrana. Although there is no hard evidence for this, the Russian police and army generally displayed indifference to the pogroms, for instance during the three-day First Kishinev pogrom of 1903.

During this period the May Laws policy was also put into effect, banning Jews from rural areas and towns, and placing strict quotas on the number of Jews allowed into higher education and many professions. The combination of the repressive legislation and pogroms propelled mass Jewish emigration, and by 1920 more than two million Russian Jews had emigrated, most to the United States while some made aliya to the Land of Israel.

One of the most infamous antisemitic tractates was the Russian Okhrana literary hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, created in order to blame the Jews for Russia's problems during the period of revolutionary activity.

Even though many Old Bolsheviks were ethnically Jewish, they sought to uproot Judaism and Zionism and established the Yevsektsiya to achieve this goal. By the end of the 1940s the Communist leadership of the former USSR had liquidated almost all Jewish organizations, including Yevsektsiya.

Stalin's antisemitic campaign of 1948-1953 against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the fabrication of the "Doctors' plot," the rise of "Zionology" and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were officially carried out under the banner of "anti-Zionism," but the use of this term could not obscure the anti-Semitic content of these campaigns, and by the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West and domestically. See also: Jackson-Vanik amendment, Refusenik, Pamyat.

Stalin sought to segregate Russian Jews into "Soviet Zion", with the help of Komzet and OZET in 1928. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast with the center in Birobidzhan in the Russian Far East attracted only limited settlement, and never achieved Stalin's goal of an internal exile for the Jewish people.

A demonstration in Russia. The antisemitic slogans cite Henry Ford and Empress Elizabeth

Today, anti-Semitic pronouncements, speeches and articles are common in Russia, and there are a number of anti-Semitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, leading Pravda to declare in 2002 that "Anti-semitism is booming in Russia." Over the past few years there have also been bombs attached to anti-Semitic signs, apparently aimed at Jews, and other violent incidents, including stabbings, have been recorded.

Though the government of Vladimir Putin takes an official stand against anti-semitism, some political parties and groups are explicitly anti-Semitic, in spite of a Russian law (Art. 282) against fomenting racial, ethnic or religious hatred. In 2005, a group of 15 Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia. In June, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism — the investigation was actually launched, but halted amid international outcry.

Ukraine

Antisemitic graffiti in the main street of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev

"The kikes will not reside in Lviv." A graffiti in medieval Jewish ghetto in Lviv, Ukraine

Ukraine experienced brutal antisemitism during the WW2. Ukrainian nationalists of OUN (b) organized an assembly in Nazi occupied Cracow in April 1940 and the assembly proclaimed: "The kikes in the USSR are the most faithful basement of the Bolshevic regime and the vanguard of the Moscow imperialism in Ukraine... The Organization of Ukrainian nationalists fights against the kikes as the basement of the Moscow Bolshevik regime with the understanding that Moscow is the main enemy".. The Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed the independent Ukrainian state in the first days of Nazi occupation of Western Ukraine and the nationalist Yaroslav Stecko, the leader of the newly-created state, proclaimed: "Moscow and the kikes are the most dangerous enemies of Ukraine. I think that the key enemy is Moscow that took Ukraine into slavery. Nevertheless I estimate the hostile and pest will of the kikes who assisted Moscow to enslave Ukraine. Therefore I hold my position to exterminate the kikes and consider the German methods of extermination of the kikes be advisable excluding the any possibility of assimilation". .

Spain

Further information: History of the Jews in Spain

The first major persecution of Jews in Spain occurred on Dec. 30, 1066 when the Jews were expelled from Granada and nearly 3,000 Jews were killed during the Granada massacre when they did not leave. This was the first persecution of Jews by the Muslims on the Peninsula under Islamic rule.

Manuscript page by Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of Al Andalus, born in Córdoba. Arabic language in Hebrew letters

A possible date of the end of the Golden Age might be in 1090 with the invasion of the Almoravids, a puritan Muslim sect from Morocco. Even under the Almoravids, some Jews prospered (although far more so under Ali III, than under his father Yusuf ibn Tashfin). Among those who held the title of "vizier" or "nasi" in Almoravid times were the poet and physician Abu Ayyub Solomon ibn al-Mu'allam, Abraham ibn Meïr ibn Kamnial, Abu Isaac ibn Muhajar, and Solomon ibn Farusal (although Solomon was murdered May 2, 1108). However, the Almoravids were ousted in 1148, to be replaced by the even more puritanical Almohades. Under the reign of the Almohades, the Jews were forced to accept the Islamic faith; the conquerors confiscated their property and took their wives and children, many of whom were sold as slaves. The most famous Jewish educational institutions were closed, and synagogues everywhere destroyed.

Most Muslims and Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity or leave Spain and Portugal and have their assets seized during the Reconquista . Many Muslims and Jews moved to North Africa rather than submit to forced conversion. During the Islamic administration, Christians and Jews were allowed to convert or retain their religions with many reduced rights and a token tax, which if not paid the penalty was death, although during the time of the Almoravids and especially the Almohads they were also treated badly, in contrast to the policies of the earlier Umayyad rulers.

Sweden

Further information: History of the Jews in Sweden

Sweden has a relatively small Jewish community of around 20,000.

Jews have been permitted to immigrate to Sweden since the late 18th century, at first only to Stockholm, Göteborg and Norrköping, but this restriction was removed in 1854. In 1870 Jews received full citizens' rights and the first Jewish members of parliament (riksdagen), Aron Philipson and Moritz Rubenson, were elected in 1873. However Swedish non-protestants, most of which were Catholics and Jews, were still not allowed to teach the subject of Christianity in public schools or to be government ministers (statsråd); these restrictions were removed in 1951. Yiddish has legal status as one of the country's official minority languages.

There have, however, been a number of antisemitic incidents in recent years, and after Germany and Austria, Sweden has the highest rate of antisemitic incidents in Europe. Though the Netherlands reports a higher rate of antisemitism in some years. A government study in 2006 estimated that 15% of Swedes agree with the statement: "The Jews have too much influence in the world today". Five percent of the entire adult population, and 39% of the Muslim population, harbor strong and consistent antisemitic views. Former Prime Minister Göran Persson described these results as "surprising and terrifying". However, the Rabbi of Stockholm's Orthodox Jewish community, Meir Horden claimed that "It's not true to say that the Swedes are anti-Semitic. Some of them are hostile to Israel because they support the weak side, which they perceive the Palestinians to be."