User:Pashute/Timeline of Antisemitism

See: Timeline of World War II

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.

Antiquity

586 BCE

Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and captured Judea and 10,000 Jewish families.

circa 510 BCE

According to the Book of Ezra, Samaritans falsely accuse returning Jews from Babylon lead by Nehemiah claiming that they are disloyal to the Persian king. A petition is sent to the king and the original decree of return for the Jews, given by Cyrus the Great is found.

circa 486 BCE

According to the Book of Esther, Madian king Xerxes (possibly Xerxes II of Persia is lead to believe the Jews are disloyal to him, and authorizes a massacre, later replaced by Mordecai.

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.

19 CE

Roman Emperor Tiberius expels Jews from Rome. Expulsion is reported by the Roman historical writers Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio.

37–41

Thousands of Jews killed by mobs in Alexandria (Egypt), as recounted by Philo of Alexandria in Flaccus.

50

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.

66–73

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). 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.

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.

115–117

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.

167

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

306

The Synod of Elvira bans intermarriage between Christians and Jews. Other social intercourses, such as eating together, are also forbidden.

315–337

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.

325

First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Christian Church separates the calculation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover: "It was ... declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded.... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."

361–363

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.

386

John Chrysostom of Antioch writes eight homilies Adversus Judaeos (lit: Against the Judaizers). See also: Christianity and antisemitism.

388

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.

399

The Western Roman Emperor Honorius calls Judaism superstitio indigna and confiscates gold and silver collected by the synagogues for Jerusalem.

Fifth century

415

Jews are accused of ritual murder during Purim. 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.

418

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.

419

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.

429

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.

451

Sassanid ruler Yazdegerd II of Persia's decree abolishes the Sabbath and orders executions of Jewish leaders, including the Exilarch Mar Nuna.

465

Council of Vannes, Gaul prohibited the Christian clergy from participating in Jewish feasts.

Sixth century

519

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.

529–559

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. 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.

535

The First Council of Clermont (of Gaul) prohibits Jews from holding public office.

538

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.

576

Clermont, Gaul. Bishop Avitus offers Jews a choice: accept Christianity or leave Clermont. Most emigrate to Marseilles.

589

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. Reccared also rules children out of such marriages to be raised as Christians.

590

Pope Gregory I defends the Jews against forced conversion.

Seventh century

610–620

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.

614

Fifth Council of Paris decrees that all Jews holding military or civil positions must accept baptism, together with their families.

615

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.

632

The first case of officially sanctioned forced baptism. Emperor Heraclius violates the Codex Theodosianus, which protected them from forced conversions.

681

The Twelfth Council of Toledo, Spain orders burning of the Talmud and other "heretic" books.

682

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.

692

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.

694

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

717

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.

722

Byzantine emperor Leo III forcibly converts all Jews and Montanists in the empire into mainstream Byzantine Christianity.

Ninth century

807

Abbassid Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders all Jews in the Caliphate to wear a yellow belt, with Christians to wear a blue one.

820

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.

850

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

898–929

French king Charles the Simple confiscates Jewish-owned property in Narbonne and donates it to the Church.

Eleventh century

1008–1013

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.

1012

One of the first known persecutions of Jews in Germany: Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor expels Jews from Mainz.

1013

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

1016

The Jewish community of Kairouan, Tunisia is forced to choose between conversion and expulsion.

1026

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.

1032

Abul Kamal Tumin conquers Fez, Morocco and decimates the Jewish community, killing 6,000 Jews.

1033

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

1050

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."

1078

Council of Girona decrees Jews to pay taxes for support of the Catholic Church to the same extent as Christians.

1090

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.

1096

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.

Twelfth century

1107

Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yusuf ibn Tashfin ordered all Moroccan Jews to convert or leave.

1143

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.

1148–1212

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.

1165

Forced mass conversions in Yemen

1171

In Blois, France 31 Jews were burned at the stake for blood libel.

1179

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.

1180

Philip Augustus of France after four months in power, imprisons all the Jews in his lands and demands a ransom for their release.

1181

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.

1189

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa orders priests not to preach against Jews.

1189

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.

1190

Saladdin takes over Jerusalem from Crusaders and lifts the ban for Jews to live there.

1198

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

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.

1209

Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, humiliated and forced to swear that he would implement social restrictions against Jews.

1215

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."

1222

Council of Oxford: Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton forbids Jews from building new synagogues, owning slaves or mixing with Christians.

1223

Louis VIII of France prohibits his officials from recording debts owed to Jews, reversing his father's policy of seeking such debts.

1229

Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, heir of Raymond VI, also forced to swear that he would implement social restrictions against Jews.

1232

Forced mass conversions in Marrakesh.

1235

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.

1236

Crusaders attack Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou and attempt to baptize all the Jews. Those who resisted (est. 3,000) were slaughtered.

1240

Duke Jean le Roux expels Jews from Brittany.

1240

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.

1241

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.

1242

24 cart-loads of hand-written Talmudic manuscripts burned in the streets of Paris.

1242

James I of Aragon orders Jews to listen to conversion sermons and to attend churches. Friars are given power to enter synagogues uninvited.

1244

Pope Innocent IV orders Louis IX of France to burn all Talmud copies.

1250

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.

1253

Henry III of England introduces harsh anti-Jewish laws.

1254

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.

1255

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".

1263

Disputation of Barcelona.

1264

Pope Clement IV assigns Talmud censorship committee.

1264

Simon de Montfort inspires massacre of Jews in London.

1267

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.

1267

Synod of Breslau orders Jews to live in a segregated quarter.

1275

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.

1276

Massacre in Fez to kill all Jews stopped by intervention of the Emir

1278

The Edict of Pope Nicholas III requires compulsory attendance of Jews at conversion sermons.

1279

Synod of Ofen: Christians are forbidden to sell or rent real estate to or from Jews.

1282

John Pectin, Archbishop of Canterbury, orders all London synagogues to close and prohibits Jewish physicians from practicing on Christians.

1283

Philip III of France causes mass migration of Jews by forbidding them to live in the small rural localities.

1285

Blood libel in Munich, Germany results in the death of 68 Jews. 180 more Jews are burned alive at the synagogue.

1287

A mob in Oberwesel, Germany kills 40 Jewish men, women and children after a ritual murder accusation.

1289

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.

1291

Philip the Fair publishes an ordinance prohibiting the Jews to settle in France.

1298

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 (April 20), Würzburg (July 24), Nuremberg (August 1).

Fourteenth century

1305

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.

1320

Shepherds' Crusade attacks the Jews of 120 localities in southwest France.

1321

King Henry II of Castile forces Jews to wear Yellow badge.

1321

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.

1322

King Charles IV expels Jews from France.

1333

forced mass conversions in Baghdad

1336

Persecutions against Jews in Franconia and Alsace led by lawless German bands, the Armleder under the highwayman Arnold von Uissigheim

1348

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.

1349

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)

1359

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.

1370

Brussels massacre, end of the Jewish community in Brussels

1386

Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor, expels the Jews from the Swabian League and Strasbourg and confiscates their property.

1389

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.

1391

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.

1394

3 November, Charles VI of France expels all Jews from France.

1399

Blood libel in Posen.

Fifteenth century

1411

Oppressive legislation against Jews in Spain as an outcome of the preaching of the Dominican friar Vicente Ferrer.

1413

Disputation of Tortosa, Spain, staged by the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, is followed by forced mass conversions.

1420

All Jews are expelled from Lyons.

1421

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.

1422

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.

1434

Council of Basel, Sessio XIX: Jews are forbidden to obtain academic degrees and to act as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians.

1435

Massacre and forced conversion of Majorcan Jews.

1438

Establishment of mellahs (ghettos) in Morocco.

1447

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.

1449

The Statute of Toledo introduces the rule of purity of blood discriminating Conversos. Pope Nicholas V condemns it.

1458

The city council of Erfurt, Germany votes to expel the Jews.

1463

Pope Nicholas V authorizes the establishment of the Inquisition to investigate heresy among the Marranos. See also Crypto-Judaism.

1465

The Moroccan revolt against the Marinid dynasty, accusations against one Jewish Vizier lead to a massacre of the entire Jewish population of Fes.

1473–1474

Massacres of Marranos of Valladolid, Cordova, Segovia, Ciudad Real, Spain

Simon of Trent blood libel. Illustration in Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik, 1493

1475

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.

1481

The Spanish Inquisition is instituted.

1487–1504

Bishop Gennady exposes the heresy of Zhidovstvuyushchiye (Judaizers) in Eastern Orthodoxy of Muscovy.

1490

Tomás de Torquemada burns 6,000 volumes of Jewish mansucripts in Salamanca.

1491

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.

1496

Forced conversion and expulsion of Jews from Portugal. This included many who fled Spain four years earlier.

1498

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

Jews from Worms, Germany wear the mandatory yellow badge. A moneybag and garlic in the hands are an antisemitic stereotype (sixteenth-century drawing).

1505

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.

1516

The first ghetto is established, on one of the islands in Venice.

1519

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". February 21. All Jews expelled from Ratisbon/Regensburg.

1520

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.

1528

Three judaizers are burned at the stake in Mexico City's first auto da fe.

1535

After Spanish troops capture Tunis all the local Jews are sold into slavery.

Bookcover of On the Jews and Their Lies

1543

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." (See also Martin Luther and the Jews)

1540

All Jews are banished from Prague.

1546

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.

1547

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).

1550

Dr. Joseph Hacohen is chased out of Genoa for practicing medicine; soon all Jews are expelled.

1553

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.

1554

Cornelio da Montalcino, a Franciscan Friar who converted to Judaism, is burned alive in Rome.

1555

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.

1557

Jews are temporarily banished from Prague.

1558

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.

1559

Pope Pius IV allows Talmud on conditions that it is printed by a Christian and the text is censored.

1563 February

Russian troops take Polotsk from Lithuania, Jews are given ultimatum: embrace Russian Orthodox Church or die. Around 300 Jewish men, women and children were thrown into ice holes of Dvina river.

1564

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.

1565

Jews are temporarily banished from Prague.

1566

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.

1567

Jews are reauthorised to live in France

1586

Pope Sixtus V forbids printing of the Talmud.

1590

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

1603

Frei Diogo da Assumpcão, a partly Jewish friar who embraced Judaism, burned alive in Lisbon.

1608

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.

1612

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"

1614

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.

1615

King Louis XIII of France decrees that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death.

1615

The Guild led by Dr. Chemnitz, "non-violently" forced the Jews from Worms.

1619

Shah Abbasi of the Persian Sufi Dynasty increases persecution against the Jews, forcing many to outwardly practice Islam. Many keep practicing Judaism in secret.

1624

Ghetto established in Ferrara, Italy.

1632

King Ladislaus IV of Poland forbids antisemitic print-outs.

1648–1655

The Ukrainian Cossacks led by Bohdan Chmielnicki massacre about 100,000 Jews and similar number of Polish nobles, 300 Jewish communities destroyed.

1655

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.

1670

Jews expelled from Vienna.

1678

forced mass conversions in Yemen.

Eighteenth century

1711

Johann Andreas Eisenmenger writes his Entdecktes Judenthum ("Judaism Unmasked"), a work denouncing Judaism and which had a formative influence on modern antisemitic polemics.

1712

Blood libel in Sandomierz and expulsion of the town's Jews.

1727

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."

1734

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.

1744

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.

1762

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."

1768

Haidamaks massacre the Jews of Uman, Poland.

1775

Pope Pius VI issues a severe Editto sopra gli ebrei (Edict concerning the Jews). Previously lifted restrictions are reimposed, Judaism is suppressed.

1782

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

Eleazer Solomon is quartered for the alleged murder of a Christian girl in Grodno.

1790–1792

Destruction of most of the Jewish communities of Morocco.

1791

Catherine II of Russia confines Jews to the Pale of Settlement and imposes them with double taxes.

Nineteenth century

1805

Massacre of Jews in Algeria.

1815

Pope Pius VII reestablishes the ghetto in Rome after the defeat of Napoleon.

1819

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

Compulsory military service for the Jews of Russia: Jewish boys under 18 years of age, known as the Cantonists, were placed in preparatory military training establishments for 25 years. Cantonists were encouraged and sometimes forced to baptize.

1835

Oppressive constitution for the Jews issued by Czar Nicholas I of Russia.

1840

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.

1844

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.

1853

Blood libels in Saratov and throughout Russia.

1858

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.

1862

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.

1871

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."

1878

Adolf Stoecker, German antisemitic preacher and politician, founds the Christian Social Party, which marks the beginning of the political antisemitic movement in Germany.

1879

Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and politician, justifies the antisemitic campaigns in Germany, bringing antisemitism into learned circles.

1879

Wilhelm Marr coins the term Anti-Semitism to distinguish himself from religious Anti-Judaism.

1881–1884

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.

1882

The Tiszaeszlár blood libel in Hungary arouses public opinion throughout Europe.

1882

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)

1887

Russia introduces measures to limit Jews access to education, known as the quota.

1891

Blood libel in Xanten, Germany.

1891

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)

1892

Justinas Bonaventure Pranaitis writes The Talmud Unmasked an antisemitic and misleading inaccurate anti-Talmudic work.

1893

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.

1894

The Dreyfus Affair in France. In 1898 Émile Zola publishes open letter J'accuse!

1895

A. C. Cuza organizes the Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest, Romania.

1895 January 5

Captain Alfred Dreyfus being dishonorably discharged in France.

1899

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, racist and antisemitic author, publishes his Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts which later became a basis of National-Socialist ideology.

1899

Blood libel in Bohemia (the Hilsner case).

Twentieth century

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.

The victims of a 1905 pogrom in Dnipropetrovsk.

1903

The Kishinev pogrom: 49 Jews murdered.

1903

The first publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax in St. Petersburg, Russia (by Pavel Krushevan).

1905

Pogrom in Dnipropetrovsk

1906

Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army.

1909

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." Similarly, Peter N. Stearns comments that "the ideology behind the new anti-Semitism [in Germany] was more racist than religious."

1911

The Blood libel trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis in Kiev.

1915

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.

1917–1921

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.

1919–1922

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.

1920

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.

1921–1925

Outbreak of antisemitism in USA, led by Ku Klux Klan.

1924

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).

1925

Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf.

1929 August 23

The ancient Jewish community of Hebron is destroyed in the Hebron massacre.

1933–1941

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.[2]

• 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.

1934

2,000 of Afghani Jews expelled from their towns and forced to live in the wilderness.

1934

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..."

1935

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 will not be permitted to employ female citizens of German or kindred blood as domestic servants.
• 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.

1936

Arab Revolt 600 Jews killed in Palestine in attacks against Jewish villages. Old Jewish communities in ancient towns and villages leave their homes or are evacuated from the Galicia Court section in the old city of Jerusalem, and around Jerusalem from neighborhoods: Shimon Hatzadik, Mei Naftoah and Migdal Eder, Ekron, Yehudia, and Mishmar Hakarmel.

• Olympic Games in Berlin, German Jews are banned from participation but signs barring Jews are temporarily removed from the city.
• Jews may not vote in Germany.
• Germany boycotts Jewish owned businesses.

1938

1938

Anschluss, pogroms in Vienna, anti-Jewish legislation, deportations to Nazi 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

1938

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, many of them to Dachau.

1938 November 12

One billion marks find on Jews for Kristallnacht "damages".

1938 November 15

Jewish students expelled from all non-Jewish schools.

1938 December 3

Law of "Aryanization" of all Jewish businesses, Jews not allowed to drive cars.

1938 December 14

Prime minister Herman Goring sends memorandum on Jewish question, including their removal from the German economy, and a gradual plan for forcing their emigration.

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.

1939

See: Timeline of World War II (1939)

1939

The "Voyage of the damned": S.S. St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, is turned back by Canada, Cuba and the US.

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.

General Eisenhower inspecting prisoners' corpses at a liberated concentration camp, 1945.

1939–1945

The Holocaust. About 6 million Jews, including about 1 million children, systematically killed by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers. See also Holocaust denial.

• March 1939: Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Thousands of German Jewish refugees and Hungarian Jews in that country are expelled but are not accepted by Hungary. Most survive and escape to other countries.
• August 22, 1939: Hitler's speech to officers to "close their heads to pity" and "act brutally".
• August 1939: Following the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact thousands of Jewish refugees from German territories, along with religious Jews from the territories under Soviet control are sent to Gulags in Siberia where many perish.
• September 8th 1939 the first [Ghetto] was erected in Piotrków Trybunalski.
• September 8th first recorded einsatzgruppen atrocity at Będzin of burning Jews alive in a synagogue and shooting those who escaped, after they reached the river to put out the flames on their clothes.
• September 15-23, 1939: During the invasion to Poland Jewish border towns are attacked by local vigilantes assisted by Einsatzgruppen units of the SS and SD. On Rosh Hashana (September 15'th) and until Succot two weeks later, Jews are rounded up, tortured and burnt in the synagogues, or shot and killed in mass graves. These include the Jews of Dynów, Dubiecko, Rovna, Łańcut and other towns in what was to become known as the beginning of the 'Bullet per Victim' holocaust. Larger communities are deported and confined to "Ghettos" - enclosed neighborhoods designated for Jews only.
• At the same time, under Soviet control after the Molotow thousands of Jews are sent to Gulags in Siberia where many of them perish.
• October 1939 - first shipment of Austrian and German Jews, with Jews from Bohemia and Moravia to the Lublin camps erected according to the Nisco Plan
• to be completed...

1941

September 29-30: Babi Yar November 30, December 8: Rumbula massacres

1941

The Farhud pogrom in Baghdad results in 200 Jews dead, 2,000 wounded.

Following WWII

1946

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.

1946

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.

1947

To be completed... Montgomery

1948

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.

1948–2001

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.

1948

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.

After 1948

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. In 1955 UN General Assembly's session a high Soviet official still denied the "rumors" about their disappearance.

1952

The Prague Trials in Czechoslovakia.

1953

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." 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." This newer antisemitism was, in effect, a species of anti-Zionism.

1964

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.

1969

Series of residential building demolitions and public transport bombings killing Jews in and around Haifa are discovered to be lead by an Arab man married to a Jewish woman living in Acre.

1960s-1991

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.

1968

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.

1968

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.

1968

The Alhambra Decree was formally revoked on December 16, 1968.

1970

Series of shooting attacks on tourist bus near Hebron kill American Jewish tourist Leon Holz. A month later the same terror team similarly shoots a tourist bus killing another US citizen Christian pilgrim, wife of the reverend in charge of the tour.

1972

February, Aden, Yemen: Palestinian terrorists hijack Lufthansa flight from Hong Kong to Berlin. The 5 million dollar ransom is said to have paid for funding the Lod Airport Massacre later that year.

1972

11 Israeli Olympic team members are taken hostage and eventually killed in the Munich massacre. German Olympic officials deny commemoration of the event and the games continue. TV crews film a rescue attempt and show it live, warning the kidnappers. The German rescue team includes untrained policemen who recline from their role leading to the death of the remaining hostages.

1972 May 8, Lod Airport, Israel

Sabena flight to Tel-Aviv is kidnapped upon landing from Vienna. All but one of the hostages are rescued by Israeli commandos lead by Ehud Barak and including Benjamin Netanyahu who was wounded by friendly fire during the attack.

1972 May 30, Lod Airport, Israel

The Lod Airport massacre by the Japanese Red Army

1972 October 29, Tripoli

Lufthansa flight from Damascus to Frankfurt is hijacked, and freed after landing in Tripoli and Germany releasing three of the Munich Massacre terrorists as demanded.

1975

The United Nations passed a resolution determining that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." (It was revoked in 1991, as mentioned below.)

1976

Air France flight from Tel-Aviv to Paris hijacked to Entebbe Uganda, after a stop in Athens. Jews, most of whom are Israeli, are separated from the other hostages, and sent to an adjacent room. Dictator Idi Amin formerly trained in the Israeli army, retorts to efforts by Israeli diplomats to help release the hostages with antisemitic remarks. Israeli commandos rescue the plane, but an elderly Jewish woman is murdered in a Ugandan hospital, and Yoni Netanyahu the commander of the operation is killed in action.

1983

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)

1985

Tom Metzger from the Aryan Nation donates money to Louis Farakhan from the Nation of Islam, saying that "America is like a rotting carcass. The Jews are living off the carcass like the parasites they are. Farrakhan understands this."

1986

Leo Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Since 1987

Activities of Pamyat and other "nonformal" ultra-nationalist organizations in the Soviet Union.

1991

The United Nations's resolution determining that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" was revoked.

1994

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

2001

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.

2001

September 11 World trade center attacks, between 270-400 Jews were among the 1700 victims, including 5 Israelis, one on the first plane to hit the buildings. Palestinians in Gaza and Nablus were recorded rejoicing and handing out candy seeing the attacks as a successful hit to Jewish and Israeli friends. Conspiracy theories concerning prominent Jews and Israelis were circulated claiming they were the perpetrators and explaining the benefits they could have received from downing the towers. A survey in 2003 found that these theories were widely accepted in the Arab and Muslim world and in by UN personnel, along with white Supremacists in the US.

2002

Massive European wave of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions between March and May, with largest number of attacks occurring in France.

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." ([3])

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.

2005

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. The event causes international outcry. On 9 May, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing titled "Tools for Combating Anti-Semitism: Police Training and Holocaust Education".

2006 July

Naveed Afzal Haq kills Pamela Waechter and injures five others in the July 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting.

2006 July

Sidney synagogue attacked by large rocks damaging two cars parked outside the prayer hall and the roof of the building.

2006 December

The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference that opened on December 11, 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. [4]

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. [5][6]

2008

July 29: Joe Klein claims "Jewish Neoconservatives" have "divided loyalties" to the US and Israel, and that John McCain, the Republican candidate for presidency, had surrounded himself with them.

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

2008

November 26–29: 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.

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. 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.

2012

Jew Pond, a small body of water in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, is officially renamed Carleton Pond.

2013 October 27, Sidney NSW

Four Israeli men and a woman returning from a Sabbath meal while wearing kipa skull-caps were beaten by a group of youth after being cursed with antisemitic profanity.

2014 May

Residents of a village in Spain called Castrillo Matajudios (Castrillo Kill Jews) vote to change the name to the less offensive, older name for the town, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Castrillo Hill of the Jews).

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.

2015 January 10

French terrorist Amedy Coulibaly takes hostages in a kosher supermarket in Paris in the course of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. He claims in the media that he wanted to kill Jews.

External links

• International Religious Freedom Report for 2012 - A Continued Rise in Anti-Semitism, a report by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Antisemitism