Anti-Semitism is prejudice against Jews. However, the term is misleading because the root word Semites properly refers to all people who speak Semitic languages, including Arabs and some other non-Jewish peoples (see Semites).
Since ancient times, the Jews have lived as a minority group in many countries. Both Christian and Muslim nations often persecuted Jews for not accepting the religion of the majority. When economic or other conditions were bad, Jews were blamed for causing the troubles of society.
During the Middle Ages, Jews in many European countries were forced to pay special taxes and to live in segregated areas called ghettos. Jews also were denied the right to own land and to enter certain occupations. Some countries even expelled many Jews. In 1492, for example, the Jews were driven out of Spain.
Wilhelm Marr, a German author, coined the term anti-Semitism in an anti-Jewish pamphlet called “The Victory of Jewry Over Germandom” (1879). The new word indicated that many people had begun to discriminate against Jews on ethnic rather than religious grounds. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, many Jews in Poland and Russia were killed in organized massacres called pogroms. A Jewish movement called Zionism developed partly in response to such persecution. The Zionists hoped to establish an independent Jewish nation in Palestine, where Jews could escape anti-Semitism. See Zionism .
In 1933, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and made anti-Semitism an official government policy. The German government stripped the Jews of their citizenship, seized their property, and sent thousands to concentration camps. By the end of World War II in 1945, the Nazis had killed about 6 million Jews in a campaign of mass murder known as the Holocaust.
Anti-Semitism still exists in many countries. In some countries, it affects government policies.
