Antisemitism in Europe
[1] Antisemitism in Europe in the Middle Ages was largely influenced by the Christian belief that the Jewish people were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus through the so-called blood curse of Pontius Pilate in the Gospels.
[14] In the later Middle Ages, Jews were expelled from smaller and larger regions across western Europe as well as the German lands, including monarchy-wide expulsions from England, in 1290, and France, in 1306 and 1394.
[citation needed] The Renaissance, Enlightenment and imperialist eras led to a series of increasingly xenophobic and non-religious expressions of antisemitic phobias and outrages, even as much of the continent had experienced significant political reformation.
Between 1648 and 1656, tens of thousands of Jews—given the lack of reliable data, it is impossible to establish more accurate figures—were killed by the rebels, and to this day the Khmelnytsky uprising is considered by Jews to be one of the most traumatic events in their history.
[citation needed] Sporadic violence against Jews became widespread during the Kristallnacht riots in 1938, which targeted Jewish homes, businesses, and places of worship, killing 91 across Germany and Austria.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the instability of the new states has brought the rise of nationalist movements and accusations against Jews of responsibility for the economic crisis, controlling local businesses and bribing the government, alongside traditional and religious motives for antisemitism (blood libels for example).
[65] 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.
He accused Jews of inciting ethnic conflicts, including the dispute over Nagorno-Karabagh and demonstrated concern for Armenia's safety in light of Israel's good relations with Turkey.
[82] In 2004, Armen Avetissian expressed extremist remarks against Jews in several issues of the AAO run The Armeno-Aryan newspaper, as well as during a number of meetings and press conferences, leading to his party's exclusion from the Armenian Nationalist Front.
[84] Shortly after, during a prime time talk show, the leader of the People's Party and the owner of ALM television channel, Tigran Karapetyan, accused Jews of assisting Ottoman authorities in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
Several prominent academic figures, such as Levon Ananyan (the head of the Writers union of Armenia) and composer Ruben Hakhverdian supported Avetissian and called upon the authorities to release him.
[109] UNIA, Belgium's federal equality agency, reported a 1,000% increase in antisemitic incidents in the two months following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, compared with similar periods in previous years.
[110] In the wake of these staggering statistics, the International Movement for Peace and Coexistence (IMPAC) raised concerns about issues of bias regarding how the Palestinian-Israel conflict is presented in Belgian schools.
[122][better source needed] 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.
The Middle East Media Research Institute translated parts of his speech, warning the Jewish community in Denmark, who reported the imam to Danish police officials.
[128] Jonatan Cohn, leader of AKVAH (Department of Mapping and Knowledge-sharing of Antisemitic Events, a department of Jødisk Samfund [da]), describes the proposal as the main thing that "destroys the night sleep of Jewish Danes", more so than antisemitism among "young Muslim men", and goes on to say that[129] Apart from the troubling aspect of the many half-truths, the misinformation and the often rather hostile tone that characterizes the circumcision debate, it raises a series of unpleasant questions for many Danish Jews: If a criminalization of so central a part of Jewish religion and culture were to actually be passed, for how long can one then continue one's existence in Denmark?
(...) Arabic bullies have so far not managed to create among the Danish Jews so lasting and general an uneasiness that one might need to leave one's fatherland because one intends to continue to practise one's religion.
[131] Despite the fact that a large majority of French people have favorable attitudes towards Jews,[132] acts of anti-Jewish violence, property destruction, and racist language are a serious cause for concern.
Hungarian Justice and Life Party 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 1848–1849 revolution.
[164] A two-year boycott of Limerick's Jewish community was instigated by Catholic priest John Creagh in 1904, who claimed that Jews "came to our land to fasten themselves on us like leeches and to draw our blood".
[176] In 2010, Raphaël Evers, an orthodox rabbi in Amsterdam, told the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that Jews can no longer be safe in the city anymore due to the risk of violent assaults.
[179][180][181] It was revealed in April 2012 that Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist who pioneered the discipline of peace studies and conflict resolution, made antisemitic comments during public speeches and lectures.
[187] On the other hand, 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).
[citation needed] In 1903 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic tractate, was fabricated by the Russian Okhrana, a literary hoax, meant to blame the Jews for Russia's problems during the period of revolutionary activity.
[citation needed] Joseph 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 antisemitic 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.
[204][201] The first noticeable antisemitic movement dates back to 1496 when the entire Jewish community in the territory of Carinthia and Styria was expelled due to the decree issued by Emperor Maximilian I.
[citation needed] According to the 1931 census, the Jewish community in the Drava Banovina (the administrative unit corresponding to the Yugoslav part of Slovenia) had less than 1,000 members, mostly concentrated in the easternmost Slovenian region of Prekmurje.
In 1492, via the Alhambra Decree, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered the expulsion of an estimated 800,000 Jews from the country, and thus put an end to the largest and most distinguished Jewish community in Europe.
"[221] Pablo Iglesias, the founder of the Spanish political party Unidas Podemos, has a history of antisemitic remarks including: "the Holocaust was a mere bureaucratic problem," "the great Wall Street companies are practically all in the hands of Jews," and "the Jewish lobby supports initiatives against the peoples of the world," among others.
Per Gudmundson, the chief editorial writer for Svenska Dagbladet, has sharply criticized politicians whom he claims offer "weak excuses" for Muslims accused of antisemitic crimes.
