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Modern Antisemitism and Jewish Humanitarianism

Antisemitism, old and new

1144First ritual murder accusation in Norwich, England

1475Ritual murder accusation in Trent

1478Host desecration accusation in Passau 1860Damascus affair 1900Ritual murder accusation in Konitz, Prussia 1911Beilis trial: ritual murder accusation in Kiev, Russia

The invention of modern antisemitism

Fichte (p. 283), Wagner (p. 302), Marr (p. 307)

What are some key terms used by the author to describe the Jews? Why does the author see the Jews or Judaism as a problem? What does Judaism mean in the view of the author? Can Jews as individuals or as a group ever be integrated into the German nation? How does the anti-Jewish attitude expressed here differ from a religious anti-Judaism as one would have found it in pre-modern times?

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1793)

A powerful, hostilely disposed nation is infiltrating almost every country in Europe. This nation is in a state of perpetual war with all these countries. Does this not recall to you the notion of a state within a state?

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Let the Jews never believe in Jesus Christ. If only they did not believe in a misanthropic God and in a double ethical standard.
They must have human rights Still, I see absolutely no way of giving them civic rights; except perhaps, if one night we chop off all of their heads and replace them with new ones, in which there would not be one single Jewish idea.

Richard Wagner (1850)

the involuntary repellence possessed for us by the nature and personality of the Jews
to understand a repugnance still abiding with us in spite of all our Liberal bedazzlements. we perceive that in our Liberal battles we have been floating in the air and fighting clouds The Jew strikes us primarily by his outward appearance, which, no matter to what European nationality we belong, has something disagreeably foreign to that nationality

Richard Wagner

The cultured Jew has taken the most inducible pains to strip off all the obvious tokens of his lower co-religionists: in many a case he has even held it wise to make a Christian baptism wash away the traces of his origin. This zeal, however, has never got so far as to let him reap the hoped-for fruits. Alien and apathetic stands the educated Jew in midst of a society he does not understand.
To become a Man at once with us, however, means firstly for the Jew as much as ceasing to be a Jew. Without once looking back, take ye your part in this regenerative work of deliverance through self-annulment; then are we one and undissevered!

Richard Wagner

it is much rather we who are shifted into the necessity of fighting for emancipation from the Jews. According to the present constitution of this world, the Jew in truth is already more than emancipated: he rules, and will rule, so long as Money remains the power before which all our doings and our dealings lose their force.

Wilhelm Marr (1879)

Regarded from a Non-Denominational Point of View

Coins the term anti-Semitism

Semitism vs. Germandom

Wilhelm Marr

we cannot count on the help of the Christian state. The Jews are the best citizens of this modern, Christian state
the Jewish nation fought against the western world for 1800 years, and finally conquered and subjugated it. German culture has proved itself ineffective and powerless against this foreign power. [The Jews] became the leading social-political superpower in the nineteenth century

Not individual Jews, but the Jewish spirit and Jewish consciousness have overpowered the world.

Jews, Antisemites, and Modernity

Antisemitism

as a cultural code (Shulamit Volkov)

Antisemitism in nineteenth century France

1840:

Damascus

affair
Intervention

of Moses Montefiore of England and Adolphe Crmieux of France 1860: Establishment of the Alliance Isralite Universelle

Antisemitism in nineteenth century France

1840:

Damascus Drumont
France

affair
Edouard
Jewish

(1886)
1890s:

Dreyfus

affair

Antisemitism and violence in the nineteenth century

1819: Hep-Hep Riots in Germany

1881-1884: Two-year wave of pogroms throughout Russian Empire after assassination of Czar Alexander II

I am glad in my heart when they beat the Jews, but it cannot be permitted. (Alexander III)

Anti-Jewish violence outside Europe

1839: Mashhad, Persia 1867: Barfurush, Persia