UNDERSTANDING THE MIDDLE EAST:
History, Religion, and the Clash of Cultures
400 pages
Copyright © 2007 by Beechmont Crest Publishing
First edition, 2007
0-9748330-6-1
C H A P T E R 6:
Zionism and the Modern State of Israel
Anti-Semitism in Europe
Events in Europe would soon trigger new waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Anti-Semitism had been a recurrent theme in Europe since the Crusades, when departing Crusaders had used the crucifixion as a pretext to murder the Jews as “Christ-killers.” During the centuries following the Crusades, the situation for Europe’s Jews varied according to the particular country and era. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century broke down many religious prejudices in Europe. In Britain in particular, many Jews successfully integrated into economic and social life. Britain even had a Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, during the 1800s.
Anti-Semitism was more persistent in Continental Europe. For Russian Jews, the reign of Czar Alexander III was especially disastrous. Alexander III’s father, Alexander II, had been a comparative liberal until his assassination in 1881. The dead czar’s son and heir responded to his father’s death by clamping down on Russian society. Alexander III developed a feared network of secret police that terrorized real and perceived enemies of the regime. He also embarked on a campaign of radical Russification, at a time when only 40% of the Russian Empire’s residents were ethnic Russians. All languages except Russian were banned from schools. Alexander’s tentacles extended to religion; he persecuted anyone who was not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church---including the Jews.
In Austria and Germany, a number of anti-Semitic political parties arose in the late 1800s. Karl Lueger’s Christian Socialist Party dominated politics in Vienna. The Christian Socialist Party created a hostile environment in Vienna by using its control of government institutions to promote anti-Semitic ideas. In this environment, a young artist named Adolf Hitler would become a devoted anti-Semite during the early 1900s.
Germany’s Christian Social Workers’ Party was led by Adolf Stocker. Stocker developed the notion of Judaism as a set of racial characteristics that separated Jews from Europeans. This was an important distinction that would have dire implications in the twentieth century. Medieval Jews could often escape persecution by converting to Christianity; but Stocker’s racial concept of Judaism eliminated this escape route.
Copyright 2005 Beechmont Crest Publishing
