Die Wurzeln und Konsequenzen des Antisemitismus

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MEHR ÜBERSETZUNG FOLGT BALD

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It was John Chrysostom (345-407), known as the Preacher with the 'Golden Mouth,' who used that very mouth to spread hatred of Jews as the 'Christ killers.' It is a sad reality that many of the Church Fathers (the early leaders of the Christian Church) advocated some form of anti-Semitic sentiment. The ideology that the Jews were cursed by God for killing the Messiah took root in the Church. Jesus' disciples and original apostles did not speak of such evil. Note how Peter in his opening speeches in the Book of Acts addresses Jewish involvement by the leaders to hand over Jesus to the Romans to be crucified, but there is no notion of condemnation or call of persecution of Jews for it, rather an offer of salvation because of the Messiah's death that brought salvation offered to all of humankind! Paul's heart of love for his fellow Jews never changed, although he had suffered because of some fanatical Jews, just as he had been one. 

 

It was a brutal awakening to me during my theological studies to find out that the roots of anti-Semitism in Europe came partly from theologians! The very preachers who were supposed to teach love and peace in Christ, were among those who spewed hatred and violence against the Jews in the name of Christ! According to the first evangelists and apostles of the Church (expect for Mark and Luke all were Jewish), Christ is 'our peace' who brought down dividing walls to united hostile peoples in love and unity (Ephesians 2:11-18). Paul the apostle was in chains 'for the sake of the hope of Israel' (Acts 28:20), his people. When accused, Paul stood 'trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers' (Acts 26:6), the patriarchs of the Jewish people. God had not rejected His people (Romans 11:1), and His promises were for them and their descendants (Acts 2:39; 3:25-26). The Gospel they preached was a message of God's love for all of humanity (John 3:16). The anti-Jewish theology was not the biblical way of the disciples, eye-witnesses and apostles of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. How fast the Church had departed from this important truth!

 

As the 'Christian' Crusaders were marching through Europe 'to save the Holy Land' from the Muslim invaders, they also persecuted, robbed and killed Jews along the way. They even burned some of them in their synagogues, holding up big wooden crosses and singing psalms from the Jewish Prayer Book - the Book of Psalms! It is little wonder that Jews see the symbol of the Cross not as a sign of salvation, but one of persecution. But we find no biblical commandment for Christians to conquer the Holy Land, nor were these Crusaders honourable soldiers. Most of them were criminals, who were offered forgiveness of sins and who were greedy for bounty on the way to the ancient Jewish homeland. There was nothing Christian in the biblical sense of the word in what they did and who they were. 

 

During the Middle Ages ghettos were established for Jews. They were discriminated against and expelled from powerful countries of Western Europe, including France (1181), England (1290), most of Germany, and Portugal and Spain (1492/97). In totality, Jews had been expelled from over 80 countries/kingdoms during their history. No other people had suffered such a fate. Eastern Europe was more friendly towards Jews and they found refuge there, yet not without occasional pogroms, notably in Russia (the worst were in 1881 and 1903). Interestingly, those mainly poor Jews fleeing Russia found safe haven in North America, as did other Jews fleeing persecution elsewhere, where they grew into a largely prosperous and influential force. What is further interesting about the USA as a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and expulsion in Europe, is that North America was discovered by a man commissioned by the very rulers who had expelled the Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492. Columbus set out to discover what would later become a safe haven for Jews while they were being expelled from that very kingdom! One might see the hand of Providence in such an event. But the suffering of Jews continued, and it was terrible and widespread. 

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In 1141, the body of William, a Christian boy of Norwich, England, was found dead on Good Friday. Jews were accused of stealing and killing the boy and drinking his blood in the Passover celebration as a ritual murder. There was no evidence linking Jews to the dead boy, yet anti-Jewish accusations found support and 'the cult of William...flourished for several centuries' (Anguish, 99). This case was the first blood libel accusation in England and among the worst of false accusations against which defenceless non-citizens were helpless at the mercy of the mob. The Jew was the scapegoat. Ironically and sadly, blood libels against Jews would result in the shedding of Jewish blood. The 'charge of ritual murder against Jews... found an echo in every century thereafter and left a stream of blood in its wake.' The Greeks of antiquity had already used such accusations against Jews, as did the Romans against early Christians (Anguish, 99). In Germany there was an accusation that Jews stole the host (bread) of Communion (which in Catholic theology is the physical body of Christ) with the absurd claim that Jews intended to somehow torture Christ. Sadly, one such incident lead to Jews being burned and in other cases these accusations were often 'prelude to massacre' of Jews. Such 'accusations of ritual murder multiplied in England, France, and Germany,' leading to persecution and death until Emperor Frederick II 'prohibited the accusation' and Pope Innocent IV 'exonerated Judaism of the charge' (Anguish, 99-100).

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In 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, Jews were ordered to wear a badge to distinguish them from others. They had to live separately from Christians. England adopted this practice and issued several anti-Jewish laws. Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and not allowed to return until 1656. The Yellow Star or the Judenstern (the Jewish Star) was a practice enforced by Nazi Germany in its occupied territories. Jews were marked, isolated and eventually placed in Jewish ghettos for containment.

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The Black Death (1347-50), wiping out one third of Europe's population, was blamed on the Jews poisoning the wells across Christendom in Europe. 'It [well poisoning] was first believed in Southern France, where the entire Jewish population of a town was burned.' Edward Flannery calls this type of holocaust 'systematic' and the 'pattern was almost always the same: accusation, trial, torture, confession, and consignment to the flames.' Some members of the higher classes and Emperor Charles IV and even Pope Clement VI (r. 1342-52) sought to defend and protect Jews, as they, too, were victims of the plague! Yet their efforts had little or no effect. The perpetrators often benefited from the confiscations of Jewish assets, hence 'economic motive was seldom absent in the ubiquitous trials and massacres.' Religious motives also played a role. At least 200 Jewish communities were destroyed (Anguish, 109-111). The Jew was the scapegoat, irrationally so, as this case shows in terms of the false accusation of well poisoning, yet in terms of scapegoating the politically vulnerable and taking advantage financially of the Jews was 'rational' for the exploiting powers, but thoroughly immoral. The Jew was the scapegoat.

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German Reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) turned on the Jews towards the end of his life, calling to ban their books, confiscate their assets and expel them if possible. Nazi ideology would later build on such important figures of historical influence to 'justify' anti-Semitic policies and actions. Jews were persecuted throughout the Middle Ages. They were also forced to 'convert' to Christianity, or else they were excluded from most of the trade. Jews were not only highly educated, but also excellent craftsmen. Sadly, at times, Europeans would envy them, but not expel them until they learned their quality of craft and then eliminate Jewish competition by expulsion. The Jew was the scapegoat. Luther had consulted Jewish scholars in his translation of the Bible and thought Jews would eagerly accept his Gospel that emphasised faith. But Jewish insistence on their God-given religion angered him and changed his attitude toward them. The Protestant reformer who contributed so much to the development of the Church took a wrong turn towards the end of his life with this sad change of attitude and its dramatic consequences. 

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The pogroms of 1881 and 1903 in Russia were another watershed moment in Jewish history. These brutal anti-Jewish 'riots,' with law-enforcement passively standing by and the press even praising the massacres, showed yet again that Jews were not safe. When some revolutionaries assassinated Czar Alexander II (13 March 1881), his son and successor, Alexander III, blamed it on the Jews. Although a few Jews were among these revolutionaries, blaming it on the Jews (as a whole) was, of course, exposing the century-old scapegoating of the Jews and blaming all the ills of society on them. The May Laws that followed forced Jews out of their homes and into small living quarters elsewhere, a full 40% of Jews surviving only on charity. The discrimination against Jews was partly blamed on the oldest blood libel: the murder of Jesus by Jews, with the ideological implication that Jewish suffering was somehow justified. Under Nicolas II cruelty against Jews continued and the new czar refused Jews equal rights, although many fought heroically to defend Russia in the war against Japan as loyal subjects. The belief among Jews that assimilation (adjusting to the society they lived in) would bring them protection was shattered in yet another vicious pogrom. The Kishinev pogrom (1903) 'shocked the Jewish people' especially because of their defencelessness. What were they to do? Jewish self-defence units emerged, yet most sought to leave Russia for America. However, a proper solution would be of a different nature: 'a permanent home for Jews in the land of Israel' (My People, 118-121).

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Jews were also used if they somehow benefited their Christian or Muslim overlords. The high level of education among Jews, notably in medicine and finance, made some Jews 'useful,' and therefore important and influential. Their education and skill was often their survival. But the wealth of those few Jews who had it, was also envied. They were often looked down upon as an inferior race or treated with suspicion for being a peculiar people. The Jew was different. As long as Jews were useful, however, they were tolerated and treated humanly. Jews died in both Russian and German uniforms to defend their countries, but were not rewarded with equal rights and protection. Jews eventually experienced some measure of emancipation with the changes ushered in by the Enlightenment and French Revolution (1789). Notably, Napoleon contributed to their emancipation. But this changed quickly during the Nazi era, first in Germany and then across Europe. The Jews were, as Nathan Feinberg put it, 'a persecuted people without a country' (Holocaust, 39). They remained vulnerable and defenceless as non-citizens and second-class citizens, being at the mercy of their overlords.

 

In short, during the early Middle Ages, the 'good Jew' was a 'converted Jew'; during the later Middle Ages, the 'good Jew' was a 'useful Jew'; but during the Holocaust, a 'good Jew' was a 'dead Jew.' Throughout this time, every misfortune was blamed on the Jew.  The Jew was the scapegoat - for everything! The century-long scapegoating of the Jews led to history's most horrific genocide: The Holocaust—the systematic killing and murder of 6 million Jews. A genocide of such proportions becomes possible once that group of people is demonised and dehumanised to such an extent that there is general agreement that extermination is right and necessary. Such are the dangerous of radical propaganda, and it is evil propaganda that lays the groundwork for evil action. 

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