Toward a Narrative of Anti-Semitism

Recently I have been engaging in a private e-mail conversation with a person, who wishes to remain anonymous, as to the history of anti-Semitism. This conversation came out of a comment I made a few months ago when posted on Yaacov Deutsch and his presentation at the AJS. I take a fairly traditional position in terms of anti-Semitism, dividing anti Semitism between the medieval model and the modern model. My friend wishes to view early modern anti-Semitism as part of its own category, noting, in particular, the increase in Christian literature on Jews and an awareness of Jews as an ethnic group. While my friend does not wish to be named, he has agreed to allow me to post the relevant parts of our conversation.

Nicholas Donin and the medieval examples that are parallel to him are marginal in comparison to the number of early modern works that reveal anti-Christian hostility.
Anonymous

As to the issue of Christian attitudes toward Jews in the early modern period. I acknowledge that there is a lot more literature at this time. Also that there is a lot more about Jewish life. That being said I still see the major downturn in Jewish-Christian relations as happening during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For example, we have Nicholas Donin pointing out that present-day Jews are not simply some museum piece preserved from Biblical times. Our converted Jews in the sixteenth century are pushing a more sophisticated version of this thesis. If I understood you correctly you want to argue that the big shift happens in the early modern period. I am open to being convinced of the matter, but for the moment I am still sticking to the standard view. Why this shift happens and what it consists of is, of course, a hotly debated matter between R. I. Moore, Jeremy Cohen, and Robert Chazan.
Benzion

As for the change in the early modern period, I am not arguing that there was no change in the twelfth or thirteenth century, but that the early modern period marks another change. I would see it as a shift from writing about Judaism to writing about Jews and from writing about theology to writing about ethnicity. Prior to the sixteenth century there is almost no interest in the way Jews actually live. There are almost no descriptions of their rituals, almost nothing about their anti-Christian rituals and relatively little about their anti-Christian texts. This is the shift I am pointing to.
Anonymous

In terms of our understanding of anti-Semitism, I suspect that this is more a matter of what we would emphasis as opposed to a genuine disagreement. If I were to craft a narrative of anti-Semitism, for a course or for a book, I would hang it around the two poles of medieval anti-Judaism, with its origins in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and modern anti-Semitism, with its origins in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and culminating in the Holocaust. So you have medieval anti-Judaism with its belief that Jews were usurious Christ-killers who murdered Christian children for their blood and tortured hosts and you have modern anti-Semitism where Jews are a race of degenerates plotting to take over the world through the simultaneous uses of both Capitalism and Communism. For this, I would emphasis Gavin Langmuir's notion of chimerical anti-Semitism. We are not interested in other groups simply not liking Jews and saying nasty things. How do Jews go from being heretics and blasphemers to sorcerers plotting with Satan to take over the world? Our opening would cover anti-Judaism in the ancient world and the early Church with our big question being how do we get to medieval anti-Judaism. The first big part of the book would deal with medieval anti Judaism. Once we have explored medieval anti-Judaism our next big issue would be modern anti-Semitism. The sixteenth-century is useful in that it serves as a transition were, out of the issues generated by medieval anti-Judaism we begin to get issues of ethnicity. For example, the blood laws in fifteenth-century Spain, which Benzion Netanyahu makes such a big deal out of, or the works on Jewish practices written by converted Jews in Germany. From here we move to modern anti-Semitism, where race issues supplant religion, culminating in the Holocaust. Then we would finish with a word about anti-Semitism in the world today, particularly opposition to the state of Israel in the Arab world and on the hard left. You would make the early modern period equal or even more important than the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. I agree that there are interesting things going on in the period and that anti-Judaism is not something static as Trachtenberg portrayed it. I agree that a lot of what we associate with modern anti-Semitism comes into play in the early modern period. That being said I would still see the early modern period as a mutated version of medieval anti-Judaism that eventually turns into modern anti-Semitism. I freely admit that this may have to do more with my taste in narrative than hard fact. My challenge to you would be what does my narrative fail to take into account that your narrative does.
Benzion

Regarding your outline for a narrative of anti-Semitism and the two poles you suggest. I don’t disagree that if you have to chose only two, or even to focus on the two major poles, the 12-13 century attitudes toward Jews and the modern anti Semitism would be the two poles that should be chosen. However I feel that without underlying the changes in the early modern period our understanding of modern anti Semitism is not complete. I think that the early modern period should not be seen only as a transitional period, but also as a time when important changes in Christian attitude toward Jews occurred, and without them it is hard to understand modern anti Semitism. As I said I agree with you that if we to choose only two poles they would be 12-13 century attitudes toward Jews and the modern anti Semitism, but since I don’t think we need to choose only two I think that the early modern period should get more attention when studying anti Semitism. It seems to me that the main difference between the book you suggest and the one I would suggest would be the room given to the early modern period which in my opinion should be greater than what I believe you would suggest. Another difference is the emphasis on changes that appear in the early modern period in my account as oppose to your view, that as I understand it, will focus on the early modern period as a transition period while underlying the continuation of the medieval approaches. I don’t think that the two narratives are in real disagreement rather they reflect different ideas about the importance of the early modern period and differences regarding the emphasis the early modern period should get.
Anonymous

AJS Conference Day One Session Two (Interreligious Hostility in Medieval and Early Modern Times Part II)

(Part I)

Flora Cassen (University of Vermont)
“The Jewish Badge in Renaissance Italy: The Iconic O, the Yellow Hat, and the Paradoxes of Distinctive Sign Legislation”

This is an analysis of the use of Jewish badges from the perspective of semiotics. We have many different examples of Jewish badges from the Middle Ages, a blue strip, tablet of law, red badge and the O. A Jewish badge could serve as an icon or a symbol. An icon resembles the thing it is meant to be related to while a symbol has an arbitrary relationship to its object. We have the example of a transition in various states in Northern Italy at the end of the fifteenth century from an O badge to yellow hats. The O can be seen as an icon. Either it can refer to the Jewish cry of suffering, him being counted as a zero within the community of men or it can refer to the zero productivity of his usury. The color yellow is a symbol. It was meant to show cowardice and shame, but this is something fairly arbitrary. The advantage of yellow hats was that it could easily be seen as opposed to the O badge, which was quite small and could easily escape notice. In both cases these objects were meant to create boundaries between Jew and gentile. What we have here is a tension between theory and practice. The O badge was something more theoretical while the yellow hat had little theory but was effective in practice.



Emily Rose (Johns Hopkins University)
“Distinctions without Much Difference? Ritual Murder, Blood Libel, and the Need to Classify”

This presentation was an attack on the late Gavin Langmuir for his distinctions between ritual murder and blood libel and anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. In truth, these distinctions have nothing to do with the way medieval people thought and merely serve modern needs.
Langmuir’s distinctions have become commonplace within academic literature.

According to Langmuir the early ritual murder charges, such as the case of William of Norwich, were different than the blood libel, which we first see only in Fulda in 1235. In the case of ritual murder, the charge is that the Jews murder a Christian child in order to reenact the crucifixion of Jesus. This has nothing to do with the Jews needing blood or of them using blood for the Passover matzot. The blood libel only came later and it is something different; Jews are charged with being demonic creatures that drink blood. This leads to the distinction between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Christian anti-Judaism simply pegs Jews as blasphemers, heretics and even as Christ-killers. This is different from the darker anti Semitism which places Jews as demonic beings outside the pale of the human race; thus Jews are not human beings and are, by their very nature, evil. (Langmuir talked about “chimerical” anti Semitism; Jews being accused of committing crimes that no one could have seen them commit and go beyond reason.)

Langmuir’s work came out of Cecil Roth, who in the 1930s, argued for the distinction between English anti-Semitism and German anti-Semitism. This had to do with Nazi-era apologetics and not the Middle Ages. Roth was trying to distinguish English culture, with its more “gentlemanly” anti-Semitism, from the murderous anti-Semitism of German culture. This was perfectly okay with English anti-Semites who wanted to distinguish their social anti-Semitism from Nazi anti-Semitism.

Langmuir had his own apologetic interests. As a Christian, he wished to distinguish the Church and Christianity from anti-Semitism. The most extreme acts of violence against Jews become the product simply of popular medieval culture and had nothing intrinsically to do with Christianity. In truth there one medieval culture, Christianity, that covered all of Western Europe. Anti-Semitism comes out of this culture and it leads to the persecution of Jews.

(This was a well-done presentation, but I would strongly disagree with it. At times historians have to make distinctions that may not have been readily apparent to those living during the time period. There is nothing wrong with this just as long as one willing to keep these distinctions as theoretical models and recognizes that the reality on the ground might have been more complex. It is important to talk about ritual murder as something different from a blood libel. It is also important to distinguish between hatred of Judaism as a religion and hatred of Jews as a race. It is for this reason that most historians are not comfortable using the term anti Semitism outside of the context of modern race-based anti-Semitism. For everything else, anti-Judaism is really a far more useful term.

I am sorry about this but there is not one medieval culture. England is not France. Northern France is not Provence, which is not Germany. These places were different with different social and political realities on the ground. The fact that Jews were newcomers to England, who came with the Norman conquest, is relevant. The expansion of the French monarchy is relevant. The political collapse of the Holy Roman Empire at the end of the thirteenth century is relevant. You cannot do medieval history without recognizing these issues.)