Anti-Semitism

This a series of posts explores anti-Semitism, its origins, the motivations behind it, its various manifestations, its consequences, and its possible future. The series also proposes a method for determining when an act or statement is anti-Semitic and concludes with some suggestions for remedying the consequences of anti-Semitism. A series of discussion questions is also included.

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 19 of 33, was the eighth post in a series of eight posts discussing other causes of anti-Semitism and focused on Muslim teaching.

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 20 of 33, discusses the effect of Haskalah and Jewish Emancipation on anti-Semitism.

VII. Haskalah and Emancipation

Even when there was a concerted effort to integrate, such as during the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, where Jews tried to define themselves as individuals of a country who were also Jewish and to state that politically (though not theologically) Jews were separate from the Jewish community and were, in fact, part of the overall secular community. As proposed in1781^[1] by Christian Wilhelm Dohm at the behest of Moses Mendelssohn, “the Jew is more a man than a Jew^[2].” While this movement established some foothold, it was soon dissipated such as when equal treatment of Jews with other people under Napoleon I’s notion of equality (also known as Emancipation during which Napoleon and some other rules introduced legislation intended to repeal old restrictions on Jews) was equated with Napoleon so that hatred of Napoleon was transferred to hatred of Jews by the people who were conquered by Napoleon and with the rise of Nationalism (see the essay “Judaism and Nationalism”) As history demonstrates, even if there was a short respite, anti-Semitism was far from dead and returned with a fury.

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 21 of 33, is the first of two posts discussing possible remedies for the consequences of anti-Semitism.

^[1] On the Civic Improvement of the Jews.

^[2] Also, thinkers, such as Schleiermacher in On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, (Trans. Richard Crouter. Cambridge University Press, 1988) advocated that it is wrong to mix religion and politics and the essence of religion constitutes a unique and separate dimension of experience. Religion and politics are separate from each other and separate from all other spheres of life.