Why are Jews Targeted? The Origins of Antisemitism | Flashback with Palki Sharma

[Music] The year was 1939, the month January. We're still some months away from the Second World War, but tensions are on the rise. Hitler and Nazi Germany were looking to expand; they set their eyes on Poland.

Amid all this, Hitler decided to address his Parliament, the Reichstag. His propaganda Minister helped write his speech, the notorious Joseph Goebbels, and this is what he said: Hitler warned of annihilating European Jews, and he very nearly did that. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Yet Hitler did not start this hatred; hatred for Jews is often called the most ancient hatred, the oldest form of discrimination. Today, we call it anti-Semitism. In each period of history, it took different forms.

Hitler being the most hateful one, he converted anti-Semitism into genocide. Which makes you wonder, how did it all begin? Why have Jews been historically targeted, and why does it prevail today?

Time for a [Music] flashback. Let's start with the early Roman Empire, and this was before Christianity. So, the Roman subjects were pagans; they believed in a number of gods and forces.

But Jews did not. Like today, they were monotheistic; they believed in just one God. So, the Romans were suspicious.

Everything about the Jews seemed like a red flag to them. They wouldn't intermarry, they observed Sabbath, and they circumcised their young. Today, if you don't understand something, you learn about it, but this was the first century BC.

If you did not understand something, you villainized it, and that's what happened to the Jews. You can find examples in many Roman writings. The poet, Hinal, said Jews are drunken and rowdy.

The laer Cicero talked about how Jews always stick together, how they had power in assemblies. All classic anti-semitic tropes. Things became worse after the death of Jesus Christ.

Now we know who crucified Jesus, it was the Romans, but Christian propaganda hid that for a long time. Now I'm throwing some dates at you, so listen closely. Jesus was crucified in the year 33 AD.

Like I said the Romans did it, years later in 70 AD, the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem. It was like a watershed moment. Christians and Jews saw it as Divine punishment.

The New Testament reflected that, instead of the Romans, it now blamed the Jews. Jews were depicted as killers of Jesus. It's a myth, an absolute falsehood, but back then, people believed it.

In fact, why back then, even today, many people believe it. Such sentiments led to a religious rivalry, Christians versus Jews, and the church played a key role in this. They taught all kinds of anti-Semitic things, like Jews had no reason to exist anymore.

Their whole job was to prepare for Jesus Christ's arrival, and since that was done, Jews had nothing more to do. Their existence was seen as an anomaly. Many of them were forced to flee.

We covered the Jewish dispersion in our last episode; you can watch it here, but fleeing did not mean a life of freedom. Anti-Semitism followed them. In 312, Rome moved closer to Christianity; their Emperor Constantine converted, and pretty soon, the Roman Empire became Christian.

So, the church now had more powers; it could influence the Emperor. As a result, new laws were created. Jews were shunned to the margins of society; they were also denied basic rights and freedoms.

In some places, Jews had to wear markers, like a yellow badge or a hat called 'huden-hut'. The idea was to identify and stay away from them. Remember all this was over religion, because the Jews refused to accept Christianity.

And propaganda played an important role in this hatred. I'll give you some examples. In 1144, a 12-year-old boy was found murdered in Norwich; his name was William.

There was no evidence of who killed him, no leads, so the case was a dead end. But, four years later, a monk turned up in Norwich, and he said the Jews had killed William. And that allegation was like a spark.

Pretty soon, everyone pointed fingers at Jews. They were accused of blood libel, of killing Christian boys and using their blood for rituals. Today we call all of this fake news.

Another example is from the Black Death, the plague in the 14th century. Christians said it was the work of the devil, and what's more, the devil had a partner. No prizes for guessing, the Jews.

They were accused of poisoning the wells in Europe. And none of this is backed by proof, but enough people said it, so it became a fact, much like propaganda today. In most of these cases, there was a logical explanation.

The whole thing about Jewish money lenders, they were shown as evil and cunning, as holding more and more wealth. Even writers of this time fell for the trope, like William Shakespeare. You may have heard of his play 'The Merchant of Venice'.

It has a Jewish lender, his name is 'Shylock'. Lends money to the Christian protagonist, he gives it on one condition, if the money is not repaid, 'Shylock' will take a pound of his flesh. And guess how the play ends?

In Shylock's defeat, he ends up converting to Christianity. But have you wondered why Jews ended up as money lenders in the first place? Because Christians refused to do it.

In early Christianity, lending for interest was forbidden. But someone had to do it, and that someone was the Jews. It wasn't some devious plan to conquer the world, it was just economics.

But European leaders never understood that. They feared and persecuted the Jews. They were banished from European Kingdoms.

In the year 1290, Jews were expelled from Britain, in 1306 from France, in 1348 from Switzerland, and in 1394 from Germany. We are talking about an entire religious group expelled. In many ways, anti-Semitism was a convenient.

Tool you could use it anywhere children going missing blame the Jews Christians not getting rich blame the Jews a deadly plague wiping out your population again blame the Jews so anti-Semitism became the answer to Europe's problems an easy and hateful answer. Things improved slightly in the 1700s. This was the age of enlightenment, also the time of the French Revolution.

So freedom and science with the catchphrases. As Jews were emancipated, they became citizens for the first time, yet anti-Semitism persisted. Citizenship did not guarantee equal rights for Jews.

In many places, they were second class citizens. And until now, anti-Semitism was based on religion. It was Christianity versus Judaism.

But in 1859, that changed. Charles Darwin published his book on Evolution. It talked about survival of the fittest.

Now Darwin's theory was about organisms. Some beat their surroundings to reproduce, others perished, that's what he said. But some thinkers applied Darwin's Theory to race.

They said some races are superior, others like the Jews are not. They were not fit to survive. It was around this time that the word anti-Semitism emerged.

Until then, Jewish hatred had no single term. It was first used by a German journalist, William Mah. He represented a new sort of Jewish hatred.

It wasn't just about killing Christ or kidnapping Christian children. His hatred was rooted in race. He believed Jews could change the racial structure of Germany.

And Hitler used this Theory later on. Such beliefs led to violence across Europe. Take the Russian Revolution for example.

It was followed by hundreds of Jewish pilgrims. Between 30 and 70,000 Ukrainian Jews were killed, same in Poland and Belarus. Nazi Germany was the culmination of everything we've just said.

Of centuries of anti-Semitism. Hitler blamed Jews for Germany's defeat in the first World War. He wanted a pure Arian Germany.

At first, his policies were focused on marginalization. Jews were fired from government services. Their businesses were shut down.

But after 1939, the policy changed. It wasn't marginalization anymore. It was extermination.

What Hitler called the final solution to the Jewish Problem. Millions of Jews were packed off to killing centers. 6 million were murdered.

It's one of the darkest chapters in human history. Have things improved since then? Well, the church has tried to make amends.

It exonerated Jews for the murder of Jesus Christ. Pope John Paul II played a key role in this Outreach. He visited a synagogue in 1986.

He also established the Vatican's relationship with Israel. Later, the pope visited Israel's Holocaust Museum. He said anti-Semitism is anti-Christian.

Yet it thrives in 2017. Neo-Nazis marched through the US town of Charlottesville. They carried Nazi flags.

Their chant was this: Jews will not replace us. And anti-Semitism has become a rallying call for Western far-right leaders. It increases whenever Israel is at war.

Now, just to be clear, criticizing Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic. But if that criticism is based on race or religion, it can be. Looking back, what Europe did to Jews was unforgivable.

But it's also a lesson. Everything alien to us is not wrong. Everything we cannot comprehend is not wrong.

It's just different. And that is the beauty of life and humanity. The world should try to understand and value such differences, not stigmatize them.

That's the best tribute we can give as humans to those millions of Jews. To make sure that no one goes through that pain [Music] again.