Anti-Semitism and Modern Form
Anti-Semitism is aggression formed against the Jews due to their past behaviors. An individual that practices anti-Semitism is referred to as an anti-Semite. Therefore, it is featured as a form of racism that politicians use to discriminate those that are not from their group, and they tend to favor those from their group. For instance, “the Jewish were required to listen without tumult, contention, or blasphemy,” (Julius 139). The Jews community experience anti-Semitism through many ways: one way is through animosity on an individual Jews by the mob and also through an attack by the police or military. In the past anti-Semitism was not a term known to all. But up to 19th century when Rhineland butcheries of the Jews forced them to hold the first crusade in 1096, the second incident was announcement that the Jews should vacate England in 1290, followed by the mass killing of Spanish Jews in 1391 then harassments of the Spanish inquiry and the kicking out of Jews from Spain in 1492. The other incident that occurred was Cossack slaughters in Ukraine from 1648-1657 and many devastations in Russia from 1821-1906, the France Dreyfus affair between 1894-1906, then followed by the mass slaughter of Jews during World War II and their expulsion from both Arab and Muslims states.
Nonetheless, the term Semite does not mean hatred and the prejudgments to all the Semitic groups such as Arabs and Assyrians since the term anti-Semite became common in Germany by 1879 which means Jew-hatred. Therefore, the term Semite can only bring meaning when it is in particular word as anti-Semite to mean hatred to Jews. This paper will examine the historical existence of anti-Semitism as well as its modern existence, and then compare it to one of the contemporary likeness called the Racial Othering in San Francisco.
The historical part of the anti-Semitism: Since 1688, modern anti-Semitism has developed and is far much different from classical or Christian anti-Semitism because it majorly handles racial discrimination, not religion. However many people got enlightened, anti-Semitism did not fall, but they continued to criticize the Jews. Elders of Zion and anti-Semitic thinkers were the people who endorsed the discrimination of the Jews that acted as an introduction to the ideas by Nazi about the Jews. This was a result of the Jews having different culture and language as opposed to theirs. The Jews were criticized merely because they were the inferior race. Anti-Semites took the advantage that the Jews were sent away since they lack a clear origin. They grouped Jews by the blood but not the religion he or she originates. The anti-Semitism existed earlier on even before the enlightenment period since the Jews were experiencing torture before people received education.
The European history of 17th-18th clearly defines enlightenment as the period when human beings began their arguments with the ideas that required reasoning. Such questions asked by man were trying to make them understand why certain things are the way they are. They tried to analyze certain scientific theories put in place by scientists and thinkers like Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, and Descartes. These scientists and philosophers also targeted the Jews trying to condemn their spiritual and religious beliefs. They added that the Jews are the main cause of the problems in Western Europe. Assumptions made in the eighteenth century included: the whole universe is clear and is being controlled by conventional forces, not mystical forces. Secondly, questions can be answered by scientifically. Lastly, human beings can be cultured to avoid racism.
Modern and racial anti-Semitism: In addition to the already existing anti-Semitism based on the inferiority of the Jews, the discrimination of Jews based on their skin color also began to flourish at the end of 19th century which opted for the white race as superior. This was advocated the mostly Darwinian theory of social relations. Joseph Arthur in his racial theory suggests that Jews are very different and small groups in entire Europe. The Jews, therefore, are not originated from Europe since their skin color is not white as the Europeans. The Jews culture and religion also created hatred and as a result their discrimination. According to elders of Zion, the Jews were also discriminated by their economic power in the world as determined by the European banking system. This made them be at danger with other European countries as this was an economic power threat. The modern anti-Semitism was boosted by the nationalism to deny the Jews their rights to become citizens like others, and therefore the Barva Jews demonstrated in Germany to help them win their civil rights.
The commonly known occurrence enthused Theodor Herzl was the Dreyfus affair in the 19th century that made the accused, Alfred Dreyfus scot-free in France. Though Eastern Europe still held the hatred with the claiming the industrial revolution didn’t change their ideas. Rifts built up due to the killings in Russia since they accused the Jews of killing Christian children. Even though he was accused of killing Christian children, the Beilis Trial of Kiev in 1903 proved that Jews are innocent of accusation to have killed a Christian boy. Most Jews about one million moved to America as refugees from Russia due to a resolution made in 1905 that destroyed most of the Jews and also the decision of 1917 and the war led to massive death of ten thousand innocent Jews.
Jerome Hanes presents six stages that highlight the origin and development of anti-Semitism: the first step is the ethnic pre- Christian anti- Judaism in Greece and Rome followed by the religious Christian anti-Semitism and middle ages. The third step is traditional Muslim rebellion that they claimed that supernatural powers protect the Jews, “It has been suggested that this unreasoning, or chimerical, hatred of Jewish derives from centuries-old Christian perceptions of the Jews as evil and con-aspirational people,” (Perry et al. 74). Forth was based on the socioeconomic and political classes and origin that led to racial anti-Semite and the last step that led to the hostility of Jews community in Europe is the current discrimination presented by new anti-Semitism. He merges the six stages into three classes: ancient, Christian and racial.
Another form of the modern anti-Semitism was Anti-Judaism and the Reformation of Martin Luther in his pamphlet, 1543, describes the Jews aggressively and demands that they should be kicked off from Europe. Several activists just like Martin Luther advocated for the end of racial discriminations and even in politics, “ the election of an African American to the U.S presidency in 2008 prompted Americans to reflect on the changing roles of race and color in the United States,” (Sicher 35). He claims that the Europeans have a burden if they don’t kill the Jews. Luther’s comments are links to current discrimination against the Jews community as a whole. But when he was about to die, he preached that the Jews should be treated with the Christian love to receive the lord.
The new racial othering in San Francisco: San Francisco is Bay area in the United States of America is among the regions with racial segregation (Miller, Vincent and John 6). The bay region is concentrated with the racial segregation as from the county, metropolitan, neighboring cities and counties as well as the municipality levels. San-Francisco has nine provinces and the urban statistical zone is highly concentrated with the racial discrimination. The divergence index, which is used to measure the extent of racial discrimination, indicated that the Bay is mostly affected by the challenges that arise from the racial segregation.
The San Francisco Bay is typically the most affected racial, geographical and economically with regards to the local diversions with more than seven million population. San Francisco also has 100 incorporated municipalities in the nine countries. The demographical profiles, as well as the extents of the racial diversities, vary in each of every nine counties of San Francisco as a whole especially the ones that do not border each other. Moreover, racial discrimination is widespread on the parts of the municipality regions, as much as the extent of the racial discrimination is also dominant in the Bay Areas. Additionally, there are two forms of the San Francisco racial othering includes inter-municipal and intra-municipal.
Additionally, the racial discriminations have been evident is related to the color discrimination; where the displacement of these people is very rampant from the white families. Moreover, cities such as Clayton, Moraga, Orinda, Danville, and Pleasant Hill are among the most affected zones of racial discrimination where Asia, Negros, and the Philippines form the significant victims. Thus, San Francisco is diverse with some of the most racially segregated non-white population.
From the examination of anti-Semitism across Asia, Europe and other parts of the world with dominant racial discrimination concerning their historical and modern perception, it can be deduced that there are elements of comparison to the racial othering in San Francisco. First, some similarities exist between the Jewish anti-Semitism and the Othering of San-Francisco; in that, both of them involve the segregation of specific community or people based on the color. The Jewish are not white, unlike the Germans and the rest of the European population at large; similarly, in othering of San-Francisco, the people who are currently being discriminated are not typical whites in that most of them are Negro and other non-white races. Additionally, the anti-Semitists valued themselves against the Jewish as they believed that their religion and thoughts were superior compared to the ones of the Jewish and therefore it can be deduced that the notion of us against them existed in the anti-Semitism. Similarly, the idea of whites against them lives in the San-Francisco othering such that the whites believe that they are superior to the rest of the races.
Conversely, there are notable differences that exist between the Jewish anti-Semitism and the San Francisco othering. The first notable is that in the anti-Semitism of the Jewish was based on religion, where the Christians are being persecuted with the anti-Christ, while the othering of San-Francisco portrays color discrimination dominantly than any other form of segregations; in this case the white value themselves than other regions. Another notable difference is that anti-Semitism is concentrated on one type of tribe or community which is the Jewish while othering of San Francisco is based on several communities because it majorly bases its segregation on the racial discrimination with regards to sharing of the social amenities. Therefore, othering is just similar to the anti-Semitism, the approaches they take, and the victims form the differences.