Timeline of antisemitism

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This timeline of antisemitism chronicles the facts of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group. It includes events in the history of antisemitic thought, actions taken to combat or relieve the effects of antisemitism, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.

Some authors prefer to use the term anti-Judaism or religious antisemitism for religious sentiment against Judaism before the rise of racial antisemitism in the 19th century.


586 BCE
Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and captured Judea and 10,000 Jewish families.
175 BCE-165 BCE
The Deuterocanonical First and Second Books of the Maccabees record that Antiochus Epiphanes attempts to erect a statue of Zeus in Jerusalem. The festival of Hanukkah commemorates the uprising of the Maccabees against this attempt.
2nd century BCE
Various Greek and Roman writers, such as Mnaseas of Patras, Apollonius Molon, Apion and Plutarch, repeat the legend that Jews worship a pig, a golden calf, a head, etc. Josephus collects and denies the rumours.[1][2]
19 CE
Roman Emperor Tiberius expels Jews from Rome. Expulsion is reported by the Roman historical writers Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio.
Thousands of Jews killed by mobs in Alexandria (Egypt), as recounted by Philo of Alexandria in Flaccus.
Jews ordered by Roman Emperor Claudius "not to hold meetings", in the words of Cassius Dio (Roman History, 60.6.6). Claudius later expelled Jews from Rome, according to both Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars", Claudius, Section 25.4) and Acts 18:2.
Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans is crushed by Vespasian and Titus. Titus refuses to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God." (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii)[citation needed]. The events of this period were recorded in detail by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus. His record is largely sympathetic to the Roman view and was written in Rome under Roman protection; hence it is considered a controversial source. Josephus describes the Jewish revolt as being led by "tyrants," to the detriment of the city, and of Titus as having "moderation" in his escalation of the Siege of Jerusalem (70).
1st century
Fabrications of Apion in Alexandria, Egypt, including the first recorded case of blood libel. Juvenal writes anti-Jewish poetry. Josephus picks apart contemporary and old antisemitic myths in his work Against Apion.[3]
Late 1st–early 2nd century
Tacitus writes anti-Jewish polemic in his Histories (book 5). He reports on several old myths of ancient antisemitism (including that of the donkey's head in the Holy of Holies), but the key to his view that Jews "regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies" is his analysis of the extreme differences between monotheistic Judaism and the polytheism common throughout the Roman world.
Thousands of Jews are killed during civil unrest in Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica, as recounted by Cassius Dio, History of Rome (68.31), Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica (4.2), and papyrii.
c. 119
Roman emperor Hadrian bans circumcision, making Judaism de facto illegal.
c. 132–135
Crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt. According to Cassius Dio 580,000 Jews are killed. Hadrian orders the expulsion of Jews from Judea, which is merged with Galilee to form the province Syria Palaestina. Although large Jewish populations remain in Samaria and Galilee, with Tiberias as the headquarters of exiled Jewish patriarchs, this is the start of the Jewish diaspora. Hadrian constructs a pagan temple to Jupiter at the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, builds Aelia Capitolina among ruins of Jerusalem.[4]
Earliest known accusation of Jewish deicide (the notion that Jews were held responsible for the death of Jesus) made in a sermon On the Passover attributed to Melito of Sardis.

Fourth century[edit]

The Synod of Elvira bans intermarriage between Christians and Jews. Other social intercourses, such as eating together, are also forbidden.
Constantine I enacts various laws regarding the Jews: Jews are not allowed to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their slaves. Conversion of Christians to Judaism is outlawed. Congregations for religious services are restricted, but Jews are also allowed to enter the restituted Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Temple's destruction.
Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, allows the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Temple.
John Chrysostom of Antioch writes eight homilies Adversus Judaeos (lit: Against the Judaizers). See also: Christianity and antisemitism.
A Christian mob incited by the local bishop plunders and burns down a synagogue in Callinicum. Theodosius I orders punishment for those responsible, and rebuilding the synagogue at the Christian expense. Ambrose of Milan insists in his letter that the whole case be dropped. He interrupts the liturgy in the emperor's presence with an ultimatum that he would not continue until the case was dropped. Theodosius complies.
The Western Roman Emperor Honorius calls Judaism superstitio indigna and confiscates gold and silver collected by the synagogues for Jerusalem.

Fifth century[edit]

Jews are accused of ritual murder during Purim.[7] Christians in Antioch confiscate synagogue. Bishop Cyril of Alexandria forces his way into the synagogue, expels the Jews and gives their property to the mob. Prefect Orestes is stoned almost to death for protesting.
The first record of Jews being forced to convert or face expulsion. Severus, the Bishop of Minorca, claimed to have forced 540 Jews to accept Christianity upon conquering the island. Synagogue in Magona, now Port Mahon capital of Minorca, burnt.
The monk Barsauma (Not the Bishop of Nisibis) gathers a group of followers and for the next three years destroys synagogues throughout the province of Palestine.
The East Roman Emperor Theodosius II orders all funds raised by Jews to support schools be turned over to his treasury.
439 January 31
The Codex Theodosianus, the first imperial compilation of laws. Jews are prohibited from holding important positions involving money, including judicial and executive offices. The ban against building new synagogues is reinstated. The anti-Jewish statutes apply to the Samaritans. The Code is also accepted by Western Roman Emperor, Valentinian III.
Sassanid ruler Yazdegerd II of Persia's decree abolishes the Sabbath and orders executions of Jewish leaders, including the Exilarch Mar Nuna.
Council of Vannes, Gaul prohibited the Christian clergy from participating in Jewish feasts.

Sixth century[edit]

Ravenna, Italy. After the local synagogues were burned down by the local mob, the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great orders the town to rebuild them at its own expense.
Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great publishes Corpus Juris Civilis. New laws restrict citizenship to Christians. These regulations determined the status of Jews throughout the Empire for hundreds of years: Jewish civil rights restricted: "they shall enjoy no honors". The principle of Servitus Judaeorum (Servitude of the Jews) is established: the Jews cannot testify against Christians. The emperor becomes an arbiter in internal Jewish matters.[clarification needed] The use of the Hebrew language in worship is forbidden. Shema Yisrael ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one"), sometimes considered the most important prayer in Judaism, is banned as a denial of the Trinity. Some Jewish communities are converted by force, their synagogues turned into churches.
The First Council of Clermont (of Gaul) prohibits Jews from holding public office.
The Third Council of Orléans (of Gaul) forbids Jews to employ Christian servants or possess Christian slaves. Jews are prohibited from appearing in the streets during Easter: "their appearance is an insult to Christianity". A Merovingian king Childebert approves the measure.
Clermont, Gaul. Bishop Avitus offers Jews a choice: accept Christianity or leave Clermont. Most emigrate to Marseilles.
The Council of Narbonne, Septimania, forbids Jews from chanting psalms while burying their dead. Anyone violating this law is fined 6 ounces of gold. The third Council of Toledo, held under Visigothic King Reccared, bans Jews from slave ownership and holding positions of authority, and reiterates the mutual ban on intermarriage.[8] Reccared also rules children out of such marriages to be raised as Christians.
Pope Gregory I defends the Jews against forced conversion.

Seventh century[edit]

Visigothic Hispania After many of his anti-Jewish edicts were ignored, king Sisebur prohibits Judaism. Those not baptized fled. This was the first incidence where a prohibition of Judaism affected an entire country.
Fifth Council of Paris decrees that all Jews holding military or civil positions must accept baptism, together with their families.
Italy. The earliest referral to the Juramentum Judaeorum (the Jewish Oath): the concept that no heretic could be believed in court against a Christian. The oath became standardized throughout Europe in 1555.
629 March 21
Byzantine Emperor Heraclius with his army marches into Jerusalem. Jewish inhabitants support him after his promise of amnesty. Upon his entry into Jerusalem the local priests convince him that killing Jews is a good deed. Hundreds of Jews are massacred, thousands flee to Egypt.
Frankish King Dagobert I, encouraged by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, expels all Jews from the kingdom.
The first case of officially sanctioned forced baptism. Emperor Heraclius violates the Codex Theodosianus, which protected them from forced conversions.
The Twelfth Council of Toledo, Spain orders burning of the Talmud and other "heretic" books.
Visigothic king Erwig begins his reign by enacting 28 anti-Jewish laws. He presses for the "utter extirpation of the pest of the Jews" and decrees that all converts must be registered by a parish priest, who must issue travel permits. All holidays, Christian and Jewish, must be spent in the presence of a priest to ensure piety and to prevent the backsliding.
Quinisext Council in Constantinople forbids Christians on pain of excommunication to bathe in public baths with Jews, employ a Jewish doctor or socialize with Jews.
17th Council of Toledo. King Ergica believes rumors that the Jews had conspired to ally themselves with the Muslim invaders and forces Jews to give all land, slaves and buildings bought from Christians, to his treasury. He declares that all Jewish children over the age of seven should be taken from their homes and raised as Christians.

Eighth century[edit]

Possible date for the Pact of Umar, a document that specified restrictions on Jews and Christians (dhimmi) living under Muslim rule. However, academic historians believe that this document was actually compiled at a much later date.
Byzantine emperor Leo III forcibly converts all Jews and Montanists in the empire into mainstream Byzantine Christianity.

Ninth century[edit]

Abbassid Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders all Jews in the Caliphate to wear a yellow belt, with Christians to wear a blue one.
Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, declares in his essays that Jews are accursed and demands a complete segregation of Christians and Jews. In 826 he issues a series of pamphlets to convince Emperor Louis the Pious to attack "Jewish insolence", but fails to convince the Emperor.
al-Mutawakkil made a decree ordering Dhimmi, Jews and Christians, wear garments to distinguish them from Muslims, their places of worship destroyed, demonic effigies nailed to the door, and that they be allowed little involvement government or official matters
French king Charles the Simple confiscates Jewish-owned property in Narbonne and donates it to the Church.

Eleventh century[edit]

Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ("the Mad") issues severe restrictions against Jews in the Fatimid Empire. All Jews are forced to wear a heavy wooden "golden calf" around their necks. Christians had to wear a large wooden cross and members of both groups had to wear black hats.
One of the first known persecutions of Jews in Germany: Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor expels Jews from Mainz.
During the fall of the city, Sulayman's troops looted Córdoba and massacred citizens of the city, including many Jews. Prominent Jews in Córdoba, such as Samuel ibn Naghrela were forced to flee to the city in 1013.Siege of Cordoba
The Jewish community of Kairouan, Tunisia is forced to choose between conversion and expulsion.
Probable date of the chronicle of Raoul Glaber. The French chronicler blamed the Jews for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was destroyed in 1009 by (Muslim) Caliph Al-Hakim. As a result, Jews were expelled from Limoges and other French towns.
Abul Kamal Tumin conquers Fez, Morocco and decimates the Jewish community, killing 6,000 Jews.
Following their conquest of the city from the Maghrawa tribe, the forces of Tamim, chief of the Zenata Berber Banu Ifran tribe, perpetrated a massacre of Jews in Fez. Fez massacre
Council of Narbonne, France forbids Christians to live in Jewish homes.
1066 December 30
Granada massacre: Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. "More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day."[9]
Council of Girona decrees Jews to pay taxes for support of the Catholic Church to the same extent as Christians.
The Jewish community of Granada, which had recovered after the attacks of 1066, attacked again at the hands of the Almoravides led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, bringing the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain to end.
The First Crusade. Three hosts of crusaders pass through several Central European cities. The third, unofficial host, led by Count Emicho, decides to attack the Jewish communities, most notably in the Rhineland, under the slogan: "Why fight Christ's enemies abroad when they are living among us?" Eimicho's host attacks the synagogue at Speyer and kills all the defenders. 800 are killed in Worms. Another 1,200 Jews commit suicide in Mainz to escape his attempt to forcibly convert them; see German Crusade, 1096. Attempts by the local bishops remained fruitless. All in all, 5,000 Jews were murdered.[10]

Twelfth century[edit]

Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yusuf ibn Tashfin ordered all Moroccan Jews to convert or leave.
150 Jews were killed in Ham, France.
1144 March 20 (Passover)
The case of William of Norwich, a contrived accusation of murder by Jews in Norwich, England.
The rule of the Almohads in al-Andalus. Only Jews who had converted to Christianity or Islam were allowed to live in Granada. One of the refugees was Maimonides who settled in Fez and later in Fustat near Cairo.
Forced mass conversions in Yemen
In Blois, France 31 Jews were burned at the stake for blood libel.
The Third Lateran Council, Canon 26: Jews are forbidden to be plaintiffs or witnesses against Christians in the Courts. Jews are forbidden to withhold inheritance from descendants who had accepted Christianity.
Philip Augustus of France after four months in power, imprisons all the Jews in his lands and demands a ransom for their release.
Philip Augustus annuls all loans made by Jews to Christians and takes a percentage for himself. A year later, he confiscates all Jewish property and expels the Jews from Paris.
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa orders priests not to preach against Jews.
A Jewish deputation attending coronation of Richard the Lionheart was attacked by the crowd. Pogroms in London followed and spread around England.
1190 February 6
All the Jews of Norwich, England found in their houses were slaughtered, except a few who found refuge in the castle.
1190 March 16
500 Jews of York were massacred after a six day siege by departing Crusaders, backed by a number of people indebted to Jewish money-lenders.[11]
Saladdin takes over Jerusalem from Crusaders and lifts the ban for Jews to live there.
Philip Augustus readmits Jews to Paris, only after another ransom was paid and a taxation scheme was set up to procure funds for himself. August: Saladdin's nephew al-Malik, caliph of Yemen, summons all the Jews and forcibly converts them.

Thirteenth century[edit]

Judensau at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Regensburg
13th century
Germany. Appearance of Judensau: obscene and dehumanizing imagery of Jews, ranging from etchings to Cathedral ceilings. Its popularity lasted for over 600 years.
Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, humiliated and forced to swear that he would implement social restrictions against Jews.
The Fourth Lateran Council headed by Pope Innocent III declares: "Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress." (Canon 68). See Judenhut. The Fourth Lateran Council also noted that the Jews' own law required the wearing of identifying symbols. Pope Innocent III also reiterated papal injunctions against forcible conversions, and added: "No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury...or deprive them of their possessions...or disturb them during the celebration of their festivals...or extort money from them by threatening to exhume their dead."[12]
Council of Oxford: Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton forbids Jews from building new synagogues, owning slaves or mixing with Christians.
Louis VIII of France prohibits his officials from recording debts owed to Jews, reversing his father's policy of seeking such debts.
Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, heir of Raymond VI, also forced to swear that he would implement social restrictions against Jews.
Forced mass conversions in Marrakesh.
The Jews of Fulda, Germany were accused of ritual murder. To investigate the blood libel, Emperor Frederick II held a special conference of Jewish converts to Christianity at which the converts were questioned about Jewish ritual practice. Letters inviting prominent individuals to the conference still survive. At the conference, the converts stated unequivocally that Jews do not harm Christian children or require blood for any rituals. In 1236 the Emperor published these findings and in 1247 Pope Innocent IV, the Emperor's enemy, also denounced accusations of the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews. In 1272, the papal repudiation of the blood libel was repeated by Pope Gregory X, who also ruled that thereafter any such testimony of a Christian against a Jew could not be accepted unless it is confirmed by another Jew. Unfortunately, these proclamations from the highest sources were not effective in altering the beliefs of the Christian majority and the libels continued.[13]
Crusaders attack Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou and attempt to baptize all the Jews. Those who resisted (est. 3,000) were slaughtered.
Duke Jean le Roux expels Jews from Brittany.
Disputation of Paris. Pope Gregory IX puts Talmud on trial on the charges that it contains blasphemy against Jesus and Mary and attacks on the Church.
In England, first of a series of royal levies against Jewish finances, which forced the Jews to sell their debts to non-Jews at cut prices.[14]
24 cart-loads of hand-written Talmudic manuscripts burned in the streets of Paris.
James I of Aragon orders Jews to listen to conversion sermons and to attend churches. Friars are given power to enter synagogues uninvited.
Pope Innocent IV orders Louis IX of France to burn all Talmud copies.
Saragossa: death of a choirboy Saint Dominguito del Val prompts ritual murder accusation. His sainthood was revoked in the 20th century but reportedly a chapel dedicated to him still exists in the Cathedral of Saragossa.
Henry III of England introduces harsh anti-Jewish laws.[15]
Louis IX expels the Jews from France, their property and synagogues confiscated. Most move to Germany and further east, however, after a couple of years, some were readmitted back.
Henry III of England sells his rights to the Jews (regarded as royal "chattels") to his brother Richard for 5,000 marks.
c. 1260
Thomas Aquinas publishes Summa Contra Gentiles, a summary of Christian faith to be presented to those who reject it. The Jews who refuse to convert are regarded as "deliberately defiant" rather than "invincibly ignorant".
Disputation of Barcelona.
Pope Clement IV assigns Talmud censorship committee.
Simon de Montfort inspires massacre of Jews in London.[16]
In a special session, the Vienna city council forces Jews to wear Pileum cornutum (a cone-shaped headdress, prevalent in many medieval illustrations of Jews). This distinctive dress is an addition to Yellow badge Jews were already forced to wear. Christians are not permitted to attend Jewish ceremonies.
Synod of Breslau orders Jews to live in a segregated quarter.
King Edward I of England passes the Statute of the Jewry forcing Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying yellow badge, and making usury illegal, in order to seize their assets. Scores of English Jews are arrested, 300 hanged and their property goes to the Crown. In 1280 he orders Jews to be present as Dominicans preach conversion. In 1287 he arrests heads of Jewish families and demands their communities pay ransom of 12,000 pounds.
Massacre in Fez to kill all Jews stopped by intervention of the Emir [17]
The Edict of Pope Nicholas III requires compulsory attendance of Jews at conversion sermons.
Synod of Ofen: Christians are forbidden to sell or rent real estate to or from Jews.
John Pectin, Archbishop of Canterbury, orders all London synagogues to close and prohibits Jewish physicians from practicing on Christians.
Philip III of France causes mass migration of Jews by forbidding them to live in the small rural localities.
Blood libel in Munich, Germany results in the death of 68 Jews. 180 more Jews are burned alive at the synagogue.
A mob in Oberwesel, Germany kills 40 Jewish men, women and children after a ritual murder accusation.
Jews are expelled from Gascony and Anjou.
1290 July 18
Edict of Expulsion: Edward I expels all Jews from England, allowing them to take only what they could carry, all the other property became the Crown's. Official reason: continued practice of usury.
Philip the Fair publishes an ordinance prohibiting the Jews to settle in France.
During the civil war between Adolph of Nassau and Albrecht of Austria, German knight Rintfleisch claims to have received a mission from heaven to exterminate "the accursed race of the Jews". Under his leadership, the mob goes from town to town destroying Jewish communities and massacring about 100,000 Jews, often by mass burning at stake. Among 146 localities in Franconia, Bavaria and Austria are Röttingen (20 April), Würzburg (24 July), Nuremberg (1 August).[18]

Fourteenth century[edit]

Philip IV of France seizes all Jewish property (except the clothes they wear) and expels them from France (approx. 100,000). His successor Louis X of France allows French Jews to return in 1315.
Shepherds' Crusade attacks the Jews of 120 localities in southwest France.
King Henry II of Castile forces Jews to wear Yellow badge.
Jews in central France accused of ordering lepers to poison wells. After massacre of est. 5,000 Jews, King Philip V admits they were innocent.
King Charles IV expels Jews from France.
forced mass conversions in Baghdad
Persecutions against Jews in Franconia and Alsace led by lawless German bands, the Armleder under the highwayman Arnold von Uissigheim
European Jews are blamed for the plague in the Black Death persecutions. Charge laid to the Jews that they poisoned the wells. Massacres spread throughout Spain, France, Germany and Austria. More than 200 Jewish communities destroyed by violence. Many communities have been expelled and settle down in Poland. Strasbourg massacre.
Basel: 600 Jews burned at the stake, 140 children forcibly baptized, the remaining city's Jews expelled. The city synagogue is turned into a church and the Jewish cemetery is destroyed. Erfurt massacre (1349).
1349 burning of Jews (from a European chronicle written on the Black Death between 1349 and 1352)
Charles V of France allows Jews to return for a period of 20 years in order to pay ransom for his father John II of France, imprisoned in England. The period is later extended beyond the 20 years.
Brussels massacre, end of the Jewish community in Brussels
Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor, expels the Jews from the Swabian League and Strasbourg and confiscates their property.
18 March, a Jewish boy is accused of plotting against a priest. The mob slaughters approx. 3,000 of Prague's Jews, destroys the city's synagogue and Jewish cemetery. Wenceslaus insists that the responsibility lay with the Jews for going outside during Holy Week.
Violence incited by the Archdeacon of Ecija, Ferrand Martinez, results in the destruction of the Jewish quarter in Barcelona. The campaign quickly spreads throughout Spain (except for Granada) and destroys Jewish communities in Valencia and Palma De Majorca. Thousands of Jews are murdered or forced to accept baptism.
3 November, Charles VI of France expels all Jews from France.
Blood libel in Posen.

Fifteenth century[edit]

Oppressive legislation against Jews in Spain as an outcome of the preaching of the Dominican friar Vicente Ferrer.
Disputation of Tortosa, Spain, staged by the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, is followed by forced mass conversions.
All Jews are expelled from Lyons.
Persecutions of Jews in Vienna, known as Wiener Gesera (Vienna Edict), confiscation of their possessions, and forced conversion of Jewish children. 270 Jews burned at stake. Expulsion of Jews from Austria.
Pope Martin V issues a Bull reminding Christians that Christianity was derived from Judaism and warns the friars not to incite against the Jews. The Bull was withdrawn the following year on allegations that the Jews of Rome attained it by fraud.
Council of Basel, Sessio XIX: Jews are forbidden to obtain academic degrees and to act as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians.
Massacre and forced conversion of Majorcan Jews.
Establishment of mellahs (ghettos) in Morocco.
Casimir IV renews all the rights of Jews of Poland and makes his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. He revokes it in 1454 at the insistence of Bishop Zbigniew.
The Statute of Toledo introduces the rule of purity of blood discriminating Conversos. Pope Nicholas V condemns it.
Pope Nicholas V authorizes the establishment of the Inquisition to investigate heresy among the Marranos. See also Crypto-Judaism.
The Moroccan revolt against the Marinid dynasty, accusations against one Jewish Vizier lead to a massacre of the entire Jewish population of Fes.
Massacres of Marranos of Valladolid, Cordova, Segovia, Ciudad Real, Spain
Simon of Trent blood libel. Illustration in Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik, 1493
A student of the preacher Giovanni da Capistrano, Franciscan Bernardine of Feltre, accuses the Jews in murdering an infant, Simon. The entire community is arrested, 15 leaders are burned at the stake, the rest are expelled. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V confirmed Simon's cultus. Saint Simon was considered a martyr and patron of kidnap and torture victims for almost 500 years. In 1965, Pope Paul VI declared the episode a fraud, and decanonized Simon's sainthood.
The Spanish Inquisition is instituted.
Bishop Gennady exposes the heresy of Zhidovstvuyushchiye (Judaizers) in Eastern Orthodoxy of Muscovy.
Tomás de Torquemada burns 6,000 volumes of Jewish mansucripts in Salamanca.
The blood libel in La Guardia, Spain, where the alleged victim Holy Child of La Guardia became revered as a saint.
1492 March 31
Ferdinand II and Isabella issue General Edict on the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain: approx. 200,000. Some return to the Land of Israel. As many localities and entire countries expel their Jewish citizens (after robbing them), and others deny them entrance, the legend of the Wandering Jew, a condemned harbinger of calamity, gains popularity.
1492 October 24
Jews of Mecklenburg, Germany are accused of stabbing a consecrated wafer. 27 Jews are burned, including two women. The spot is still called the Judenberg. All the Jews are expelled from the Duchy.
1493 January 12
Expulsion from Sicily: approx. 37,000.
Forced conversion and expulsion of Jews from Portugal. This included many who fled Spain four years earlier.
Prince Alexander of Lithuania forces most of the Jews to forfeit their property or convert. The main motivation is to cancel the debts the nobles owe to the Jews. Within a short time trade grinds to a halt and the Prince invites the Jews back in.

Sixteenth century[edit]

Jews from Worms, Germany wear the mandatory yellow badge. A moneybag and garlic in the hands are an antisemitic stereotype (sixteenth-century drawing).
Ten České Budějovice Jews are tortured and executed after being accused of killing a Christian girl; later, on his deathbed, a shepherd confesses to fabricating the accusation.
1506 April 19
A marrano expresses his doubts about miracle visions at St. Dominics Church in Lisbon, Portugal. The crowd, led by Dominican monks, kills him, then ransacks Jewish houses and slaughters any Jew they could find. The countrymen hear about the massacre and join in. Over 2,000 marranos killed in three days.
1509 August 19
A converted Jew Johannes Pfefferkorn receives authority of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor to destroy the Talmud and other Jewish religious books, except the Hebrew Bible, in Frankfurt.
1510 July 19
Forty Jews are executed in Brandenburg, Germany for allegedly desecrating the host; remainder expelled. 23 November. Less-wealthy Jews expelled from Naples; remainder heavily taxed. 38 Jews burned at the stake in Berlin.
1511 June 6
Eight Roman Catholic converts from Judaism burned at the stake for allegedly reverting.
The first ghetto is established, on one of the islands in Venice.
Martin Luther leads Protestant Reformation and challenges the doctrine of Servitus Judaeorum "... to deal kindly with the Jews and to instruct them to come over to us". 21 February. All Jews expelled from Ratisbon/Regensburg.
Pope Leo X allows the Jews to print the Talmud in Venice
1527 June 16
Jews are ordered to leave Florence, but the edict is soon rescinded.
Three judaizers are burned at the stake in Mexico City's first auto da fe.
After Spanish troops capture Tunis all the local Jews are sold into slavery.
In his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies Martin Luther advocates an eight-point plan to get rid of the Jews as a distinct group either by religious conversion or by expulsion:
"...set fire to their synagogues or schools..."
"...their houses also be razed and destroyed..."
"...their prayer books and Talmudic writings... be taken from them..."
"...their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb..."
"...safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews..."
"...usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them..." and "Such money should now be used in ... the following [way]... Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [certain amount]..."
"...young, strong Jews and Jewesses [should]... earn their bread in the sweat of their brow..."
"If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country" and "we must drive them out like mad dogs."
Luther "got the Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537 , and in the 1540s he drove them from many German towns; he tried unsuccessfully to get the elector to expel them from Brandenburg in 1543 . His followers continued to agitate against the Jews there: they sacked the Berlin synagogue in 1572 and the following year finally got their way, the Jews being banned from the entire country."[19] (See also Martin Luther and the Jews)
All Jews are banished from Prague.
Martin Luther's sermon Admonition against the Jews contains accusations of ritual murder, black magic, and poisoning of wells. Luther recognizes no obligation to protect the Jews.
Ivan the Terrible becomes ruler of Russia and refuses to allow Jews to live in or even enter his kingdom because they "bring about great evil" (quoting his response to request by Polish king Sigismund II).
Dr. Joseph Hacohen is chased out of Genoa for practicing medicine; soon all Jews are expelled.
Pope Julius III forbids Talmud printing and orders burning of any copy found. Rome's Inquisitor-General, Cardinal Carafa (later Pope Paul IV) has Talmud publicly burnt in Rome on Rosh Hashanah, starting a wave of Talmud burning throughout Italy. About 12,000 copies were destroyed.
In Papal Bull Cum nimis absurdum, Pope Paul IV writes: "It appears utterly absurd and impermissible that the Jews, whom God has condemned to eternal slavery for their guilt, should enjoy our Christian love." He renews anti-Jewish legislation and installs a locked nightly ghetto in Rome. The Bull also forces Jewish males to wear a yellow hat, females – yellow kerchief. Owning real estate or practicing medicine on Christians is forbidden. It also limits Jewish communities to only one synagogue.
Jews are temporarily banished from Prague.
Recanati, Italy: a baptized Jew Joseph Paul More enters synagogue on Yom Kippur under the protection of Pope Paul IV and tries to preach a conversion sermon. The congregation evicts him. Soon after, the Jews are expelled from Recanati.
Pope Pius IV allows Talmud on conditions that it is printed by a Christian and the text is censored.
1563 February
Brest-Litovsk: the son of a wealthy Jewish tax collector is accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual purposes. He is tortured and executed in line with the law. King Sigismund II of Poland forbids future charges of ritual murder, calling them groundless.
Jews are temporarily banished from Prague.
Antonio Ghislieri elected and, as Pope Pius V, reinstates the harsh anti-Jewish laws of Pope Paul IV. In 1569 he expels Jews dwelling outside of the ghettos of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon from the Papal States, thus ensuring that they remain city-dwellers.
Jews are reauthorised to live in France
Pope Sixtus V forbids printing of the Talmud.
Jewish quarter of Mikulov (Nikolsburg) burns to ground and 15 people die while Christians watch or pillage. King Philip II of Spain orders expulsion of Jews from Lombardy. His order is ignored by local authorities until 1597, when 72 Jewish families are forced into exile.
1593 February 25
Pope Clement VIII confirms the Papal bull of Paul III that expels Jews from Papal states except ghettos in Rome and Ancona and issues Caeca et obdurata ("Blind Obstinacy"): "All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. ... Then as now Jews have to be reminded intermittently anew that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live."

Seventeenth century[edit]

Frei Diogo da Assumpcão, a partly Jewish friar who embraced Judaism, burned alive in Lisbon.
The Jesuit order forbids admission to anyone descended from Jews to the fifth generation, a restriction lifted in the 20th century. Three years later Pope Paul V applies the rule throughout the Church, but his successor revokes it.
The Hamburg Senate decides to officially allow Jews to live in Hamburg on the condition there is no public worship.
Expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt on 23 August 1614: "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit of the gate"
Vincent Fettmilch, who called himself the "new Haman of the Jews", leads a raid on Frankfurt synagogue that turned into an attack which destroyed the whole community.
The Guild led by Dr. Chemnitz, "non-violently" forced the Jews from Worms.
Shah Abbasi of the Persian Sufi Dynasty increases persecution against the Jews, forcing many to outwardly practice Islam. Many keep practicing Judaism in secret.
Ghetto established in Ferrara, Italy.
King Ladislaus IV of Poland forbids antisemitic print-outs.
The Ukrainian Cossacks led by Bohdan Chmielnicki massacre about 100,000 Jews and similar number of Polish nobles, 300 Jewish communities destroyed.
Oliver Cromwell readmits Jews to England.
1664 May
Jews of Lemberg (now Lvov) ghetto organize self-defense against impending assault by students of Jesuit seminary and Cathedral school. The militia sent by the officials to restore order, instead joined the attackers. About 100 Jews killed.
Jews expelled from Vienna.
forced mass conversions in Yemen.

Eighteenth century[edit]

Johann Andreas Eisenmenger writes his Entdecktes Judenthum ("Judaism Unmasked"), a work denouncing Judaism and which had a formative influence on modern antisemitic polemics.
Blood libel in Sandomierz and expulsion of the town's Jews.
Edict of Catherine I of Russia: "The Jews... who are found in Ukraine and in other Russian provinces are to be expelled at once beyond the frontiers of Russia."
1736: The Haidamaks, paramilitary bands in Polish Ukraine, attack Jews.
1742 December
Elizabeth of Russia issues a decree of expulsion of all the Jews out of Russian Empire. Her resolution to the Senate's appeal regarding harm to the trade: "I don't desire any profits from the enemies of Christ". One of the deportees is Antonio Ribera Sanchez, her own personal physician and the head of army's medical dept.
Frederick II The Great (a "heroic genius", according to Hitler) limits Breslau to ten "protected" Jewish families, on the grounds that otherwise they will "transform it into complete Jerusalem". He encourages this practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750 he issues Revidiertes General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft: "protected" Jews had an alternative to "either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin" (Simon Dubnow).
1744 December
Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa orders: "... no Jew is to be tolerated in our inherited duchy of Bohemia" by the end of Feb. 1745. In December 1748 she reverses her position, on condition that Jews pay for readmission every ten years. This extortion was known as malke-geld (queen's money). In 1752 she introduces the law limiting each Jewish family to one son.
Rhode Island refuses to grant Jews Aaron Lopez and Isaac Eliezer citizenship stating "no person who is not of the Christian religion can be admitted free to this colony."
Haidamaks massacre the Jews of Uman, Poland.
Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes most of persecution practices in Toleranzpatent on condition that Yiddish and Hebrew are eliminated from public records and judicial autonomy is annulled. Judaism is branded "quintessence of foolishness and nonsense". Moses Mendelssohn writes: "Such a tolerance... is even more dangerous play in tolerance than open persecution".
1790 May 20
Destruction of most of the Jewish communities of Morocco.
Catherine II of Russia confines Jews to the Pale of Settlement and imposes them with double taxes. Pale of Settlement

Nineteenth century[edit]

Massacre of Jews in Algeria.
Pope Pius VII reestablishes the ghetto in Rome after the defeat of Napoleon.
A series of anti-Jewish riots in Germany that spread to several neighboring countries: Denmark, Latvia and Bohemia known as Hep-Hep riots, from the derogatory rallying cry against the Jews in Germany.
1827 August 26
The Damascus affair: false accusations cause arrests and atrocities, culminating in the seizure of sixty-three Jewish children and attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle East.
Karl Marx praises Bruno Bauer's essays containing demands that the Jews abandon Judaism, and publishes his work On the Jewish Question: "What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money... Money is the jealous God of Israel, besides which no other god may exist... The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of this world", "In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism." This probably led to the antisemitic feeling within communism.
Blood libels in Saratov and throughout Russia.
Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy whom a maid had baptised during an illness, is taken from his parents in Bologna, an episode which aroused universal indignation in liberal circles.
During the American Civil War General Grant issues General Order № 11 (1862), ordering all Jews out of his military district, suspecting them of pro-Confederate sympathy. President Lincoln directs him to rescind the order. Polish Jews are given equal rights. Old privileges forbidding Jews to settle in some Polish cities are abolished.
Speech of Pope Pius IX in regard to Jews: "of these dogs, there are too many of them at present in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets, and they are disturbing us in all places."
Adolf Stoecker, German antisemitic preacher and politician, founds the Christian Social Party, which marks the beginning of the political antisemitic movement in Germany.
Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and politician, justifies the antisemitic campaigns in Germany, bringing antisemitism into learned circles.
Wilhelm Marr coins the term Anti-Semitism to distinguish himself from religious Anti-Judaism.
Pogroms sweep southern Russia, propelling mass Jewish emigration from the Pale of Settlement: about 2 million Russian Jews emigrated in period 1880–1924, many of them to the United States (until the National Origins Quota of 1924 and Immigration Act of 1924 largely halted immigration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and Russia). The Russian word "pogrom" becomes international.
The Tiszaeszlár blood libel in Hungary arouses public opinion throughout Europe.
First International Anti-Jewish Congress convenes at Dresden, Germany.
1882 May
A series of "temporary laws" by Tsar Alexander III of Russia (the May Laws), which adopted a systematic policy of discrimination, with the object of removing the Jews from their economic and public positions, in order to "cause one-third of the Jews to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism and one-third to starve" (according to a remark attributed to Konstantin Pobedonostsev)
Russia introduces measures to limit Jews access to education, known as the quota.
Blood libel in Xanten, Germany.
Expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Moscow, Russia. The Congress of the United States eases immigration restrictions for Jews from the Russian Empire. (Webster-Campster report)
Justinas Bonaventure Pranaitis writes The Talmud Unmasked an antisemitic and misleading inaccurate anti-Talmudic work.
Karl Lueger establishes antisemitic Christian Social Party and becomes the Mayor of Vienna in 1897 .
5 January 1895 - The treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
The Dreyfus Affair in France. In 1898 Émile Zola publishes open letter J'accuse!
A. C. Cuza organizes the Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest, Romania.
1895 January 5
Captain Alfred Dreyfus being dishonorably discharged in France.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain, racist and antisemitic author, publishes his Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts which later became a basis of National-Socialist ideology.
Blood libel in Bohemia (the Hilsner case).

Twentieth century[edit]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of antisemitism.[20]

The victims of a 1905 pogrom in Dnipropetrovsk.
The Kishinev pogrom: 49 Jews murdered.
The first publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax in St. Petersburg, Russia (by Pavel Krushevan).
Pogrom in Dnipropetrovsk
Salomon Reinach and Florence Simmonds refer to "this new antisemitism, masquerading as patriotism, which was first propagated at Berlin by the court chaplain Stöcker, with the connivance of Bismarck." [21] Similarly, Peter N. Stearns comments that "the ideology behind the new anti-Semitism [in Germany] was more racist than religious." [22]
The Blood libel trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis in Kiev.
The World War I prompts expulsion of 250,000 Jews from Western Russia.
The Leo Frank trial and lynching in Atlanta, Georgia turns the spotlight on antisemitism in the United States and leads to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.
Attacked for being revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, unpatriotic pacifists or warmongers, religious zealots or godless atheists, capitalist exploiters or bourgeois profiteers, masses of Jewish civilians (by various estimates 70,000 to 250,000, the number of orphans exceeded 300,000) were murdered in pogroms in the course of Russian Civil War.
Soviet Yevsektsiya (the Jewish section of the Communist Party) attacks Bund and Zionist parties for "Jewish cultural particularism". In April 1920, the All-Russian Zionist Congress is broken up by Cheka led by Bolsheviks, whose leadership and ranks included many anti-Jewish Jews. Thousands are arrested and sent to Gulag for "counter-revolutionary... collusion in the interests of Anglo-French bourgeoisie... to restore the Palestine state." Hebrew language is banned, Judaism is suppressed, along with other religions.
The Jerusalem pogrom of April 1920 of old Yishuv
The idea that the Bolshevik revolution was a Jewish conspiracy for the world domination sparks worldwide interest in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In a single year, five editions are sold out in England alone. In the US Henry Ford prints 500,000 copies and begins a series of antisemitic articles in The Dearborn Independent newspaper.
1921 May 1–4
Jaffa riots in Palestine.
Outbreak of antisemitism in USA, led by Ku Klux Klan.
The National Origins Quota of 1924 and Immigration Act of 1924 largely halted immigration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and Russia; many later saw these governmental policies as having antisemitic undertones, as a great many of these immigrants coming from Russia and Eastern Europe were Jews (the "outbreak of antisemitism" mentioned in the above entry may have also played a part in the passage of these acts).
Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf.
1929 August 23
The ancient Jewish community of Hebron is destroyed in the Hebron massacre.[23]
Persecution of Jews in Germany rises until they are stripped of their rights not only as citizens, but also as human beings. During this time antisemitism reached its all-time high.[1]
  • Law against Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities
  • Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service (ban on professions)
  • The Reich Flight Tax is used to expropriate funds from Jewish emigrees.
2,000 of Afghani Jews expelled from their towns and forced to live in the wilderness.
The first appearance of The Franklin Prophecy on the pages of William Dudley Pelley's pro-Nazi weekly magazine Liberation. According to the US Congress report:

"The Franklin "Prophecy" is a classic antisemitic canard that falsely claims that American statesman Benjamin Franklin made anti-Jewish statements during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 . It has found widening acceptance in Muslim and Arab media, where it has been used to criticize Israel and Jews..."[24]

Nuremberg Laws introduced. Jewish rights rescinded. The Reich Citizenship Law strips them of citizenship. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor:
  • Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood are forbidden.
  • Sexual relations outside marriage between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.
  • Jews are forbidden to display the Reich and national flag or the national colors. On the other hand they are permitted to display the Jewish colors.
Anschluss, pogroms in Vienna, anti-Jewish legislation, deportations to concentration camps.
  • Decree authorizing local authorities to bar Jews from the streets on certain days
  • Decree empowering the justice Ministry to void wills offending the "sound judgment of the people"
  • Decree providing for compulsory sale of Jewish real estate
  • Decree providing for liquidation of Jewish real estate agencies, brokerage agencies, and marriage agencies catering to non-Jews
  • Directive providing for concentration of Jews in houses
Father Charles E. Coughlin, Roman Catholic priest, starts antisemitic weekly radio broadcasts in the United States.
1938 November 9–10
Kristallnacht (Night of The Broken Glass). In one night most German synagogues and hundreds of Jewish-owned German businesses are destroyed. Almost 100 Jews are killed, and 10,000 are sent to concentration camps.[25]
1938 November 17
Racial legislation introduced in Italy. Anti Jewish economic legislation in Hungary.
1938 July 6–15
Evian Conference: 31 countries refuse to accept Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany (with exception of Dominican Republic). Most find temporary refuge in Poland. See also Bermuda Conference.
The "Voyage of the damned": S.S. St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, is turned back by Canada, Cuba and the US.[26]
1939 February
The Congress of the United States rejects the Wagner-Rogers Bill, an effort to admit 20,000 Jewish refugee children under the age of 14 from Nazi Germany.[27]
General Eisenhower inspecting prisoners' corpses at a liberated concentration camp, 1945.
The Holocaust. About 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, systematically killed by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers. See also Holocaust denial.
The Farhud pogrom in Baghdad results in 200 Jews dead, 2,000 wounded.
1946 July 4
The Kielce pogrom. 37 (+2) Jews were massacred and 80 wounded out of about 200 who returned home after World War II. There were also killed 2 non-Jewish Poles.
Nikita Khrushchev, then the first secretary of Communist party of Ukraine, closes many synagogues (the number declines from 450 to 60) and prevents Jewish refugees from returning to their homes.[28]
1948 January 13
Solomon Mikhoels, actor-director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater and chairman of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee is killed in suspicious car accident (see MGB). Mass arrests of prominent Jewish intellectuals and suppression of Jewish culture follow under the banners of campaign on rootless cosmopolitanism and anti-Zionism.
Antisemitism played a major role in the Jewish exodus from Arab lands. The Jewish population in the Arab Middle East and North Africa has decreased from 900,000 in 1948 to less than 8,000 in 2001.
During the Siege of Jerusalem of the Arab-Israeli War, Arab armies were able to conquer the part of the West Bank and Jerusalem; they expelled all Jews (about 2,000) from the Old City (the Jewish Quarter) and destroyed the ancient synagogues that were in Old City as well.
1952 August 12–13
The Night of the Murdered Poets. Thirteen most prominent Soviet Yiddish writers, poets, actors and other intellectuals were executed, among them Peretz Markish, Leib Kwitko, David Hofstein, Itzik Feffer, David Bergelson.[29][30] In 1955 UN General Assembly's session a high Soviet official still denied the "rumors" about their disappearance.
The Prague Trials in Czechoslovakia.
The Doctors' plot false accusation in the USSR. Scores of Soviet Jews dismissed from their jobs, arrested, some executed. The USSR was accused of pursuing a "new antisemitism." [31] Stalinist opposition to "rootless cosmopolitans" – a euphemism for Jews – was rooted in the belief, as expressed by Klement Gottwald, that "treason and espionage infiltrate the ranks of the Communist Party. This channel is Zionism." [32] This newer antisemitism was, in effect, a species of anti-Zionism.
The Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issues the document Nostra Aetate as part of Vatican II, repudiating the doctrine of Jewish guilt for the Crucifixion.
The rise of Zionology in the Soviet Union. In 1983, the Department of Propaganda and the KGB's Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public orchestrates formally "anti-Zionist" campaign.
Polish 1968 political crisis. The state-organized antisemitic campaign in the People's Republic of Poland under guise of "anti-Zionism" drives out most of remaining Jewish population.
The ancient Jewish community of Hebron, which had been destroyed in the 1929 Hebron massacre, is revived at Kiryat Arba. The community, in 1979 and afterwards, moves into Hebron proper and rebuilds the demolished Abraham Avinu Synagogue, the site of which had been used by Jordan as a cattle-pen.
The Alhambra Decree was formally revoked on December 16th, 1968. [33]
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod officially disassociates itself from "intemperate remarks about Jews" in Luther's works. Since then, many Lutheran church bodies and organizations have issued similar statements. (See Martin Luther and the Jews)
Since 1987
Activities of Pamyat and other "nonformal" ultra-nationalist organizations in the Soviet Union.
Second Hebron massacre. Baruch Goldstein, a Jew, kills several Muslim worshippers; this leads to riots that kill both Muslims and Jews.
1999 August 10
Buford O. Furrow, Jr. kills mail carrier Joseph Santos Ileto and shoots five people in the August 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.
2000 Firebombing of a New York synagogue, 2000 New York terror attack

Twenty-first century[edit]

During the World Conference against Racism 2001, in Durban, two delegations, the United States and Israel, withdrew from the conference over objections to a draft document equating Zionism with racism.
Massive European wave of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions between March and May, with largest number of attacks occurring in France.[citation needed]
2003 October 16
The Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammed draws standing ovation at the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference for his speech. An excerpt: "[Muslims] are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries. And they, this tiny community, have become a world power."
2004 April
United Talmud Torah school library was firebombed in Montreal, Canada.
2004 June
A series of attacks on Jewish cemeteries in Wellington, New Zealand.
2004 September
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, a part of the Council of Europe, called on its member nations to "ensure that criminal law in the field of combating racism covers anti-Semitism" and to penalize intentional acts of public incitement to violence, hatred or discrimination, public insults and defamation, threats against a person or group, and the expression of antisemitic ideologies. It urged member nations to "prosecute people who deny, trivialize or justify the Holocaust". The report was drawn up in wake of a rise in attacks on Jews in Europe. The report said it was Europe's "duty to remember the past by remaining vigilant and actively opposing any manifestations of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance... Anti-Semitism is not a phenomenon of the past and... the slogan 'never again' is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago." ([2])
2005 September
Throughout the Polish election Radio Maryja continued to promote antisemitic views, including denial of the facts of the Jedwabne pogrom in 1941. Their support of right-wing conservative Law and Justice party is considered a major factor in their electoral victory.[34]
A group of 15 members of the State Duma of Russia demands that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from the country. In June, 500 prominent Russians demand that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism. The investigation was launched, but halted among international outcry.
2005 December
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad widens the hostility between Iran and Israel by denying the Holocaust during a speech in the Iranian city of Zahedan. He made the following comments on live television: "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets." Continuing, he suggested that if the Holocaust had occurred, that it was the responsibility of Europeans to offer up territory to Jews: "This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [the Jews] so that the Jews can establish their country." See Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel
2006 February
A French Jew, Ilan Halimi is kidnapped and tortured to death for 23 days in what Paris police have officially declared an antisemitic act.[35] The event causes international outcry.[36] On 9 May, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing titled "Tools for Combating Anti-Semitism: Police Training and Holocaust Education".[37]
2006 July
Naveed Afzal Haq kills Pamela Waechter and injures five others in the July 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting.
2006 December
The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference that opened on 11 December 2006 in Tehran, Iran; many saw it as a conference rife with antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and Holocaust denial.
2007 August/September
The Jewish state, Israel, is shocked to find a neo-Nazi group of immigrants (from Russia) called Patrol 36 committing vandalism and voicing anti-Semitic rhetoric within its borders. Some members had immigrated under the Law of Return. One of that group's members was a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, and all were of Jewish descent. The group was violent against gays, Ethiopian Jews, haredi Jews, and drug addicts. [3]
2007 and 2008
Pope Benedict XVI, via the document Summorum Pontificum, officially revives the Tridentine mass, which contains a Good Friday prayer asking for the conversion of the Jews. This leads to criticism from Jewish leaders, charging that the prayer is anti-Semitic. The Vatican subsequently issues a statement condemning anti-Semitism, but is reluctant to remove the prayer. and Benedict visits the Park East Synagogue in an April 2008 visit to New York, which is apparently well-received, with the congregants and the Pope exchanging gifts with each other. [4][5]

Jewish communities around the world are rocked by firebombings, assaults, and death threats during a spate of Antisemitic incidents during the Gaza War.

2008 26–29 November
Mumbai, India: Nariman House, a Chabad Lubavitch Jewish centre in Colaba known as the Mumbai Chabad House, was taken over by two Pakistani terrorists and several residents were held hostage. The house was stormed by NSG commandos and, after a long battle, the two attackers were killed. Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who was six months pregnant, were murdered with other hostages inside the house by the attackers. Indian forces found the body of six hostages inside the house.
2009 April
Members of the Lithuanian Jewish community report significant increases in anti-Semitism. Local Jewish leader Simonas Aperavicius notes anti-Semitism in the Lithuanian media.[38]
2009 May
attempted bombing of a New York synagogue; see 2009 New York bomb plot
2009 June
A lone 88-year-old gunman and Neo-Nazi, James vonn Brunn enters the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., shooting and fatally wounding Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security officer of African-American descent.[39] See: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting
2012 March
Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old Algerian Muslim kills four Jews (including three children) outside a school in Toulouse, France.[40]
Jew Pond, a small body of water in New Hampshire, was officially renamed Carleton Pond. [41]
2014 May
Residents of a village in Spain called Castrillo Matajudios (Castrillo Kill Jews) voted to change the name to the less offensive, older name for the town, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Castrillo Hill of the Jews). [42]
2014 April 14
Antisemitic Ku Klux Klan leader Frazier Glenn Cross, also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, kills three non-Jewish people at a Jewish community center and a Jewish retirement in home in Overland Park, Kansas, the day before the start of Passover. [43]


  1. ^ "Against Apion" Bk 2.7
  2. ^ (Symposiacs Bk 4.5).
  3. ^ e-text at Project Gutenberg
  4. ^ Lehmann, Clayton Miles (May–September 1998). "Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy". The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Archived from the original on 17 July 2006. Retrieved 19 July 2006. 
  5. ^ The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine, concerning the matters transacted at the Council, addressed to those Bishops who were not present
  6. ^ Life of Constantine Vol. III Ch. XVIII by Eusebius
  7. ^ Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History VI,16
  8. ^ "Toledo", Catholic Encyclopedia
  9. ^ Granada by Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906 ed.
  10. ^ Benbassa, Esther (2001). The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09014-9. 
  11. ^ German chronicler's account in Medieval Sourcebook
  12. ^ Halsall, Paul (1996). "Innocent III: Letter on the Jews 1199". Internet Medieval Source Book. Fordham University. Retrieved 27 November 2006. 
  13. ^ Ben-Sasson, H.H., Editor; (1969). A History of The Jewish People. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-674-39731-2 (paper).
  14. ^ Stephen Inwood, A History of London, London: Macmillan, 1998 p.70.
  15. ^ Inwood, loc. cit.
  16. ^ Inwood, loc. cit
  17. ^ http://books.google.be/books?id=1eqtODKlq1cC&pg=459#v=onepage&q&f=false
  18. ^ Rindfleisch article in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) by Gotthard Deutsch, S. Mannheimer
  19. ^ Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987), 242.
  20. ^ David Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews.
  21. ^ Reinach, Salomon & Simmonds, Florence. Orpheus: A General History of Religions, G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1909, p. 210.
  22. ^ Stearns, Peter N. Impact of the Industrial Revolution: Protest and Alienation. Prentice Hall, 1972, p. 56.
  23. ^ Hebron Massacre
  25. ^ Kristallnacht and The World's Response
  26. ^ The Tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis
  27. ^ A Decision Not to Save 20,000 Jewish Children
  28. ^ Joseph Schechtmann.
  30. ^ Seven-fold Betrayal: The Murder of Soviet Yiddish by Joseph Sherman
  31. ^ Schwarz, Solomon M. "The New Anti-Semitism of the Soviet Union," Commentary, June 1949.
  32. ^ Pravda 1952, 21 November
  33. ^ http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0610F63C54157493C5A81789D95F4C8685F9
  34. ^ Stephen Roth Institute, Annual Report, Poland
  35. ^ Rally honors legacy of slain French Jew by Norm Oshrin (NJ Jewish News)
  36. ^ Rutgers University Students Pay Tribute to Hate-Crime Victim 1 May 2006
  37. ^ OSCE at 'Critical Point' in Fight Against Anti-Semitism 12 May 2006
  38. ^ "Anti-Semitism from Lithuanian Media". The Baltic Times. 21 April 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2009.
  39. ^ White Supremacist Charged In D.C. Museum Shooting
  41. ^ http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/09/13764506-jew-pond-name-officially-changed-on-us-maps?lite
  42. ^ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/12/simon-wiesenthal-centre-rename-death-jews-village-france
  43. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/us/kansas-jewish-center-shooting/

External links[edit]