The Diabolization of Jews Ch.3

1. YankoRadenkov The Diabolization of JewsCh.3

2. Outline • Anti-semitism as a unique form of hatred • Pagan societies and the Jews • Jews and Christianity • The Myth of The Jew In The Middle Ages • Jews During the Reformation • Jews in the 19th century • Volkish Thought and its ideology • Racist Thinkers • Jews as Conspirators • The Communist Period • Nowadays

3. Anti-semitism as a unique form of hatred • Factors • Its seeming indestructibility • The willingness of people to believe myths about Jews

4. Pagan societies and the Jews • One of the many Mediterranean nations • Sometimes respected for their monotheism, history and ethic principles • Accused of disloyalty • Disapproved, because of circumcision and their dietary laws • Difficult to govern and rebellious • => wicked, but not diabolized nation

5. Jews and Christianity • The theological support – murder of Christ, eternally cursed for denying Christ; legend of the Wandering Jew (“The Eternal Jew”) • Religious texts and figures

6. The Myth of The Jew In The Middle Ages • Fully developed ideology • Included in various types of arts – theater etc – where Jews are identified with the Devil • Dangerous and fearful murderers: the myth that they obtain blood of children for rituals; the plot to destroy Christendom • The legend of Antichrist and its identification with the one of the messiah – the conquest of the world - “The Duke of Burgundy” - 1495

7. The Myth of The Jew In The Middle Ages • The First Crusade & Peter the Venerable • France, 1321 – the first allegation that Jews conspire to destroy Christendom • The Black Death and the Jewish conspiracy to use poison • At the end of the period – dehumanized, allies of Satan, hatred of Jews – display of virtue; Erasmus of Rotterdam

8. Jews During the Reformation • Martin Luther – “Concerning the Jews and Their Lies” and his final solution “First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn…” “Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed”

9. Jews During the Reformation • Usage of his ideas by German nationalist in 19th c. and later by national-socialists • Theological, not racial! • Spain – Old vs. New Christians – the racial component appears

10. Jews in the 19th century • Gained legal equality and became highly successful– aroused resentment • EdouardDrumont – racially inferior, believe in a primitive religion, plot to dominate Europe; contrasts Jewish Semites with French Aryans • French churchmen & “La Croix”

11. Jews in the 19th century • Nationalist ideas: cult of ancestors and a mystique of blood, soil and a sacred national past => prerequisite for the anti-Semitism of Nazis • Social Darwinism & its impact on nationalism

12. Volkish Thought and its ideology • Tacitus’ “Germania” – Urvolk & Ursprache • Liberalism and democracy – vulgar materialism, anarchic individualism – made by the Jews • Repudiated the humanist and cosmopolitan outlook of liberalism & professed a militant nationalism • German clerics – bring back the theological support • The blame for everything falls on Jews

13. Volkish Thought and its ideology • Georg von Schoenerer about Jews and anti-Semitism • Anti-Semitism as a course in universities and schools • Wagner’s “Judaism in Music”- lack of creative imagination, concerned with selfish materialist pursuits, destructive influence on German culture

14. Racist Thinkers • Race as a decisive factor in history – physical and moral is one • Importance of preserving race’s purity • The Aryan myth & the dichotomy • Chamberlain – races differ physically and intellectually; Germans are superior ; Jesus is Aryan; Jews are “agents of a spiritually empty capitalism and divisive liberalism”

15. Racist Thinkers • Goebbels – “Pathbreaker” and “pioneer” • National Socialist movement – Wagnerism in politics • “Germany in its hour of need has given birth to a Hitler” • Jews are eternally condemned by their race

16. Racist Thinkers • Mein Kampf – “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning…”

17. Racist Thinkers

18. Racist Thinkers

20. Jews as Conspirators • The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion – a plot to take over the world and turn non-Jews into slaves • Undermine religion, assassinate monarchs, weaken aristocracy, manipulate economics • Have superhuman powers • Antichrist

21. Communist period • A Jewish conspiracy • After 1870 – persecutions of Jews started • 1881 – official policy of anti-Semitism and the Black Hundreds • “Russia bathes in Jewish blood” • => Jews started supporting the Bolsheviks • Whites – used the Protocols – the Bolshevik revolution – “an attempt by Jews, agents of the Antichrist, to subjugate Christian Russia”

22. Communist period • Yet, Jews were not all Bolsheviks • “Jews in Russia are the bourgeoisie not the Bolsheviki” • 1928 – 1953 – Stalin brought back the Jewish persecutions and purges

23. Nowadays • Not as much racial and theological; seen mostly as conspirators • 9/11 ; Obama’s presidency, the Federal reserve..

25. Bibliography • Perry, Marvin, and Frederick M. Schweitzer. Anti-semitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present. N.p.: n.p., 2002. Print.