Religious antisemitism

Some scholars have argued that modern antisemitism is primarily based on nonreligious factors, John Higham is emblematic of this school of thought.

In 1966, Charles Glock and Rodney Stark first published public opinion polling data which showed that most Americans based their stereotypes of Jews on religion.

Hecataetus of Abdera, a Greek historian of the early third century BCE, wrote that Moses "in remembrance of the exile of his people, instituted for them a misanthropic and inhospitable way of life."

Agatharchides of Cnidus wrote about the "ridiculous practices" of the Jews and of the "absurdity of their Law", and how Ptolemy Lagus was able to invade Jerusalem in 320 BCE because its inhabitants were observing the Sabbath.

[5] Frederick Schweitzer and Marvin Perry write that the authors of the gospel accounts sought to place responsibility for the Crucifixion of Jesus and his death on Jews, rather than the Roman emperor or Pontius Pilate.

Described by Hyam Maccoby as "the most explicit outburst against Jews in Paul's Epistles",[10] these verses have repeatedly been employed for antisemitic purposes.

[15] According to this interpretation, some Christian traditions historically attributed responsibility for Jesus’ death to the Jewish people present at the time, as well as collectively over generations, labeling it as the sin of deicide, or God-killing.

Although not part of Roman Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the clergy, held the Jewish people collectively responsible for the death of Jesus, a practice originated by Melito of Sardis.

Local rulers and church officials closed the doors for many professions to the Jews, pushing them into occupations considered socially inferior such as accounting, rent-collecting and moneylending, which was tolerated then as a "necessary evil".

The Jews, typically portrayed in obscene contact with unclean animals such as pigs or owls or representing a devil, appeared on cathedral or church ceilings, pillars, utensils, etchings, etc.

[26] During the Middle Ages, the story of Jephonias,[27] the Jew who tried to overturn Mary's funeral bier, changed from his converting to Christianity into his simply having his hands cut off by an angel.

Additionally, official organizations such as the Jesuits banned candidates "who are descended from the Jewish race unless it is clear that their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have belonged to the Catholic Church" until 1946.

"[30] The dissident Catholic priest Hans Küng has written in his book On Being a Christian that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals.

For example, in Studying the Jew Alan Steinweis notes that, "Old-fashioned antisemitism, Hitler argued, was insufficient, and would lead only to pogroms, which contribute little to a permanent solution.

"[34] The Second Vatican Council, the Nostra aetate document, and the efforts of Pope John Paul II helped reconcile Jews and Catholicism in recent decades, however.

According to Catholic Holocaust scholar Michael Phayer, the Church as a whole recognized its failings during the council, when it corrected the traditional beliefs of the Jews having committed deicide and affirmed that they remained God's chosen people.

While most anti-Jewish polemicists saw those qualities as inherently Jewish, Ibn Khaldun attributed them to the mistreatment of Jews at the hands of the dominant nations.

[47] Following his defeat in the Battle of Uhud, Muhammad said he received a divine revelation that the Jewish tribe of the Banu Nadir wanted to assassinate him.

Gerber maintains that this situation was especially pronounced in the latter centuries in the Ottoman Empire, where Christian communities enjoyed protection from the European countries, which was unavailable to the Jews.

[53] Leon Poliakov,[54] Walter Laqueur,[55] and Jane Gerber,[56] suggest that later passages in the Quran contain very sharp attacks on Jews for their refusal to recognize Muhammad as a prophet of God.

[61] The most degrading one was the requirement of distinctive clothing, not found in the Quran or the hadith but invented in early medieval Baghdad; its enforcement was highly erratic.

This was also the chief motivation behind the 1066 Granada massacre, when "[m]ore than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day",[64] and in Fez in 1033, when 6,000 Jews were killed.

Gerber maintains that this situation was especially pronounced in the latter centuries, when Christian communities enjoyed protection, unavailable to the Jews, under the provisions of Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire.

[citation needed] There was a massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1828[50] and in 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Mashhad, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter, burned the synagogue, and destroyed the Torah scrolls.

[50] In 1840, the Jews of Damascus were falsely accused of having murdered a Christian monk and his Muslim servant and of having used their blood to bake Passover bread or Matza.

In 1891, the leading Muslims in Jerusalem asked the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople to prohibit the entry of Jews arriving en masse from Russia.

Morris quotes a 19th-century traveler: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, played a key role in stoking violent opposition to Zionism and he closely allied himself with the Nazi regime.

[81][82] Arabic and Turkish editions of Hitler's Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have found an audience in the region[83] with limited critical response by local intellectuals and media.

According to Robert Satloff, both as rescuers and perpetrators, Muslims and Arabs were involved in the Holocaust during the pro-Nazi rule of Vichy in French North Africa, as well as during the Italian and German Nazi occupations of Tunisia and Libya.