Anti-Semitism

Ant-Semitism
 * Anti-Semitism ** (also anti-semitism, antisemitism) is the prejudice, discrimination, and hatred of Jews as a national, ethnic, religious, or racial group. Synonyms also include Jew hatred and Judeophobia. The newest form of anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism, that which is specifically directed toward the State of Israel. However, many analysts of this phenomenon would argue that there is no difference between the two. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are similarly anti-Jewish. The nineteenth century brought a new sense of nationalism to European nations, while the early 20th C brought Socialism to Russia. The Jews’ economic success in Western European society was, for some, a source of envy and cause for personal and national concern. These factors coalesced to give rise to anti-Jewish political expression. According to Gil Graff, the first effort at creating a popular political movement based on anti-Semitism dates to Wilhelm Marr’s League of Anti-Semites, in 1879. The modern era culminated with the most violent form of anti-Semitic behavior and the murder of six million Jews, among that number one and a half million Jewish children. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was a response to anti-semitism and a means to protect future generations of Jews from persecution.