Jews sometimes demanded to live in separate quarters
Jews were mainly traders and financiers
In medieval times Jews constituted the main economic link between the Islamic and Christian worlds, operating as far as China
After the Crusades the Knights Templar of Jerusalem become the first Christian bankers and make the Jews less relevant for Europe
Jews banned from universities (create their own schools)
Jews persecuted (continuous emigrations, mainly towards Eastern Europe)
Persecutions led by Franciscan and Dominican friars (the most educated Christians)
Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 are welcome in the Ottoman Empire and help the Ottomans wage war against the Christian powers
Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 move to Italy
Poland becomes the safest country for Jews (150,000 Jews out of seven million people in 1575)
Jews move into the underdeveloped lands of Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine) and develop them
Food-supply chain of Eastern Europe: andowners were (Polish) Christians, port managers were (German) Protestants, ship owners were (Dutch) Calvinists, Jews funded and ran the food-producing estates
Legend of the "Wandering Jew" (first published in 1223 in Italy but boom of books in the 16th c)
Jews accepted oppression and discrimination as long as it came with stable, definite rules
Jews welcomed segregation (meant to protect Christians from Jewish influence) when it protected them from persecution (and from un-Jewish secular lifestyles)
The Reformation eliminates the friars (the Jews' main enemies) from Protestant countries
After the Reformation Jews are welcome based on their usefulness
Jews help fund the big European wars (Thirty Year War, Austro-Turkish wars) supplying all the powers
Vienna saved from the Ottomans (1683) by Samuel Oppenheimer who equips the Austrian troops
William of Orange invades Britain (1688) with money from Lopez Suasso
Jewish loans finance the great projects of the new nation states
Christians think Jews crucified the son of god
Muslims think Jews sin for rejecting Mohammed (but did not crucify him)
Christians and Jews have different traditions (circumcision, diet, etc)
Arabs and Jews have similar traditions (circumcision, diet, etc
The 1492 expulsion from Spain seen as the prodrome to the coming of the Messiah
Between 1500 and 1530 several false Messiahs
Legend of the Golem (that comes to life when God’s secret name is pronounced)
The greater the tragedies affecting the Jews, the greater the belief in the imminent coming of the Messiah
Excitement peaks after the 1648 pogroms
1665: Shabbetai Zevi announced as the Messiah in Gaza (forced to convert to Islam by the Ottomans!)
1648: Following the massacres in Poland-Ukraine, Jews resettle in the West
1649: Puritans (filo-Jewish) seize power in England
1655: England de facto readmits Jews
1688: Most stock brokers are Jewish
1664: New Amsterdam falls to the British (New York) that grants freedom of worship
The USA is the first country in which Jews achieve full integration with the other religious groups
1776: The USA is the first (non-Israeli) country in which Jews are not vulnerable (they are protected by the constitution)
1792: Jews help set up the New York Stock Exchange
Jewish bankers benefit from the financial needs of the wars of the Napoleonic age
1806: Napoleon recognizes Jews as French citizens
1812: Prussia emancipates the Jews
1815: Jewish bankers well positioned to take advantage of the peace (e.g. Rothschilds)
Demise of the ghetto
Jews criticized for their financial innovations, but slowly society accepts them
Jews pioneer advertising and marketing
Jews specialize in low-quality low-price products for the masses
Jews open general stores that sell everything
Jews de facto pioneer the economy of scale
Jews dedicated to education (printing presses and libraries in every ghetto)
Many Jews convert to Christianity in order to be accepted in society
1827: Britain protects Jews who settle in Palestine
1848-70: Emancipation of Jews in various regions of Italy
1858: Jews are admitted to the British parliament
1866: Jews outnumber Muslims in Jerusalem
1868: Benjamin Disraeli (a Jew converted to Christianity) becomes prime minister of Britain
1910: Edwin-Samuel Montagu is appointed undersecretary of state for India and champions India’s independence
Pseudo-scientific theories of Jewish racial inferiority
Joseph de Rabineau’s “Essai sur l’Inegalite des Races Humaines” (1853)
Ernst Renan’s “Vie de Jesus” (1863)
Jews are successful despite being inferior because there is a “Jewish conspiracy”
“Panama scandal” in France (1892) exposes a financial network of Jews
Alfred Dreyfus affair (1894-1906), won by the Dreyfusard (pro and anti Dreyfus salons in
Boom of Jewish population in France (120,000 refugees from Russia after 1881)
French Jews at the vanguard of ballet (Ballets Russes), painting (Chagall, Modigliani, Pissarro), philosophy (Bergson)
The European population of Jews increases from two million to seven million between 1800-80
Largest Jewish communities in 1880: Warszaw (150,000), Odessa (100,000), Vienna (50,000), Budapest (50,000), Berlin (50,000)
Notable exception: Russia scientifically persecutes Jews (especially in 1881)
1881-1906: More than one million Jews leave Russia
1881-1914: More than two million Jews emigrate to the USA
German Jews are the best assimilated in Europe
Converted Jews: Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx (anti-Semitic), Gustav Mahler
Boom of Yiddish
German Jews at the vanguard of science (Einstein, Freud), of music (Schoenberg), literature (Kafka, Broch, Doeblin, Zweig), theater (Schnitzler), cinema
Germany is the cultural center of Jewish intellectual life
German is the official language of Zionist congresses
Richard Wagner: “The Jewish race is the born enemy of humanity”
Wilhelm Marr founds the Anti-Semitic League (1879)
First International Anti-Jewish Congress (1882)
1881: First exodus (“aliyah”) of Russian Jews towards Palestine
1881: Eliezer ben Yehuda migrates to Palestine and adopts Hebrew as his family’s language (first Hebrew-speaking household since antiquity)
1896: Theodor Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat”
Jews can end their exile by themselves
An independent Jewish state in Palestine is the best protection against Christian anti-semitism
1897: Zionism: the Jewish goal shifts from assimilation in the Christian world to establishment of a Jewish homeland
Theodor Herzl’ “Der Judenstaat” (1896)
Herzl views Britain as the sponsor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine
The Rothschilds run the Jewish colonies in Palestine
1904: Second exodus (“aliyah”) of Russian Jews towards Palestine
1909: First kibbutz in Palestine
1911: To counter British influence, France supports the creation of Al Fatah in Paris
World War I
Jews fight in the German army against Russia (their mortal enemy) and in Poland hail German troops as liberators
Defeat of the Ottomans and victory of the British opens opportunity for a Jewish state in Palestine
After 1917 (collapse of Russia and British conquest of Palestine), Jews turn to the British as their protectors (“Balfour Declaration”)
1914: 5.5 million Jews live in Russia, 2.5 in Austria-Hungary, 4 million in the USA
1917: 100,000 Jews live in Palestine (out of a total of 600,000 people)
1920: 1.6 million Jews live in New York
1922: Jews are 11% of Palestine's 750,000 inhabitants (British census). More than 300,000 Jews arrive in the next 15 years.
1925: 4.5 million Jews live in the USA
Jews associated with Bolsheviks:
Dreyfusards in France
Karl Marx in Germany
Leon Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Radek in Russia (1917)
Bela Kun in Hungary (1919)
Kurt Eisner in Bavaria (1918)
Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin (1919)
Leon Blum in France (1936)
Jews organize the communist parties in Germany, Poland and Romania
The anti-Semitic reprisals for the activities of politicized Jews hit the non-political Jews
“Red Scare” of 1919 in the USA targets Jews as Bolsheviks
Jews create modern entertainment in the USA:
Broadway, radio and tv shows
Amusement arcades
Nickelodeons
Hollywood (six of the big eight were Jewish)
German cinema and theater
1920: British mandate over Palestine
1921: Mohammed Amin al-Husseini’s campaign against Jews and Arab moderates
Anti-Semitism in Germany
Between 1870 and 1933 Germany was the best educated nation in the world
First country to achieve universal adult literacy
Best universities in the world in most disciplines
Berlin is the cultural capital of the world until 1933, followed by Vienna
Until 1933 Germany won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation (about one third to Jews)
German ascent as a power paralleled Jewish ascent as a powerful class within Germany
Germany, 1930s: Jews represent 16% of lawyers, 11% of doctors, 2.6% of teachers
Greatest success of anti-Semitic theories is among German students
Jews are viewed as Bolsheviks
Biggest crime the Jews are accused of: kidnapping German culture (“Kulturbolschewismus”)
Jewish philosophers (Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm) are Leftists
Great Depression blamed on Jews (1929)
Adolf Hitler (1933) blames all German problems on Jews
Dual policy of persecution: lawless gang violence and discriminatory state laws
As the German economy recovers, the Jewish economic power is scientifically destroyed
Business collaborates with Hitler, profiting from the persecution of Jews (especially banks)
Ordinary people silent
World War II (1939) blamed on the Jews
German war operations paralleled by giant bureaucracy to kill Jews, as if the latter helped winning the former
Invasion of the Soviet Union (1941) justified to destroy the center of Jewish-Bolshevik aggression
Hitler’s regime kills six million of the nine million Jews living in German-occupied territories (3.3 million in Poland alone)
Killing the Jews becomes detrimental to winning the war
Massive waste of resources to carry out the deportations, jailing and killings
Loss of highly-skilled Jewish workers
Highly educated Jews join the enemy
Mobilization of world Jews to fight Hitler
Jews oppose minimal resistance
Century-old experience that resistance is more likely to increase rather than decrease the number of deaths
Militant Jews were more interested in emigrating to Palestine than fighting Hitler
Germans devised elaborate deceptions in order not to alarm Jews
Devout Jews believed that it was God’s design, that it was martyrdom to fulfil God’s plan
Austria contributed disproportionately to the SS and to the deportations
Romania was more brutal than Germany in the extermination campaign (they also tortured and raped)
France (preexisting anti-Semitism, eg Celine’s “Bagatelle pour un massacre” of 1937, plus Vichy regime’s collaboration)
Britain and the USA tolerated the extermination campaign
Fear of mass Jewish emigration to Anglo-saxon countries
Anti-Semitic sentiment of USA leaders (president Franklin Roosevelt even justified German grievances against the Jews, general George Patton called them “lower than animals”)
Agreement with Jewish leaders that defeating Hitler was the best way to help the Jews
Notable exception: Italy
Jews widespread in the government (two prime ministers in 1906 and 1910), army (first Jewish general in 1888) and even in the Fascist Party
Ordinary Italians frustrate German raids to arrest Jews despite retaliations against civilians
Reasons for Jewish persecutions over the centuries
Indifference towards national borders
Indifference towards the plights of gentiles
Higher learning, thus preeminence in business, technology, science, arts
Gospels accused Jews of killing God
Between the two world wars Jews are considered responsible for both communist and capitalist conspiracies (most of the communist leaders in Europe are Jews, many bankers and businessmen are Jews)
The massacres of 1492 led Jews to colonize Eastern Europe and amass huge fortunes
The massacres of 1648 led to the return of Jews to Britain and to America
The massacres of 1881 and 1906 led to Zionist migration to Palestine
The massacres of World War II led to the creation of Israel
Jews in Palestine
Three Zionist strategies
Chaim Weizmann: obtain Palestine from Britain through diplomacy
Ben Gurion (the Haganah): win the war against Hitler first
Menachem Begin (the Irgun): use terrorism to drive Britain out of Palestine
Terror campaign works: Britain leaves, but it also leaves the Jews unprotected against the Arab armies
Creation of Israel
Jews are a minority used to be conquered and ruled
Arabs are a majority used to conquer and rule
Arabs refuse to negotiate
Israel goes from 20% of Palestine (1937 partition plan) to 50% (1947 partition plan)
The anti-Semitic Roosevelt dies and is succeeded by filo-Semitic Truman who pushes for the United Nations to recognize Israel and an Arab Palestine
USA oil companies oppose the creation of Israel
The Soviet Union supports the creation of Israel in order to weaken Britain (first country to recognize Israel, and Czechoslovakia arms Israel)
First Arab-Israeli war
“This will be a war of extermination” (Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League)
Israel obtains 80% of Palestine
650,000 Arabs leave Palestine
567,000 Jews are expelled from Arab countries (1948-57)
Arabs again refuse to negotiate
Permanent threat from the Arabs transforms Israel from a pacifist, socialist utopia into a militaristic state
1953: Nasser allies with the Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict becomes part of the Cold War
1956: Second Arab-Israeli war: Israel conquers Sinai and Gaza
1967: Third Arab-Israeli war: Israel conquers Jerusalem, West Bank and Golan Heights
1973: Fourth war: status quo
The Arabs can afford to lose many wars, Israel cannot afford to lose one
Growing economic importance of oil-producing Arab countries isolates Israel on the world scene
Population of Israel grows from 650,000 in 1947 to 3 million in 1972 (685,000 immigrants only in the first three years)
Melting pot: Russians, Eastern Europeans, Western Europeans, Arabs, Ethiopians, Indians...
Hebrew is the unifying force
Largest Jewish communities: USA (almost six million), Soviet Union (almost two million)
For the first time 50% of Jews live in the Americas (6.6 million out of 13.5 million)
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See also:
Ancient (biblical) Hebrews
Persecution of the Jews
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