Anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism is prejudice, hatred, discrimination, or oppression against Judaism or Jews. It implies cruelty and unfair treatment directed toward the Jewish people. This hostility may be inflicted upon communities, nations, or individuals. The most notorious practice of recorded anti-Semitism, perpetrated by Adolph Hitler through the Nazis, occurred during World War II. Two typical manifestations since Israel's birth in 1948 are to deny the existence of the State of Israel and to deny its right to exist. Palestinian schools within Israeli borders use textbooks in which maps of the State of Israel are labeled "Palestine," teaching school children that Israel does not exist.

Nearly every generation has had its expression of anti-Semitism toward Jewish communities, beginning with the Egyptian Pharaoh who first enslaved the Jews. The Edward Expulsion Order decreed the deportation of 100,000 Jews from England in 1290. During the Spanish Inquisition in the 1400s, the Jewish people were required to convert to Christianity or face expulsion from the country. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Former Soviet Union was notorious for conducting pogroms (raids) against Jewish communities.

Anti-Semitism can also be expressed toward Jews of an entire nation. Hitler's most notable atrocity was the Holocaust. For a period of about eight years, from 1938 to 1945, millions of people were confined to concentration camps. The majority of these were Jews. In March 1942, Hitler's war machine began the systematic, mass executions, starvations, gassings, and other cruelties which would last a period of about 31 months. Those who lived to tell their stories speak of evils that no human should ever have had to face.

Today, an individual having even remote Jewish ancestry such as a Jewish great-grandparent may become the target of anti-Semitism. One of the most publicized acts of Anti-Semitism in this century occurred when Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, was killed in Pakistan by Muslims because he was Jewish. Increased incidents of anti-Semitism toward Jewish communities in France and Argentina have spurred Israel to encourage increased immigration of Jews from these nations. In 2005, the United Nations, the United States, and the Palestinian Authority pressured the Israeli government to force Jewish residents of Gaza from their own homes on Israeli soil. The Israelis forfeited to the Palestinians land which had been deeded to the Jews in the Book of Genesis.