Antisemitism - The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may

From the days of the Bible until the Roman Empire, Jews were criticized and sometimes punished for their efforts to remain a separate social and religious group — one that refused to adopt the values and the way of life of the non-Jewish societies in which it lived. [...] (In recent times, the Catholic church and other Christian churches have rejected these antisemitic falsehoods.) 1 / 3 In the 18th century, as the influence of Christianity began to lessen during the Enlightenment — which celebrated the rights and possibilities of men and women to a far greater extent than ever before — religiously based hatred of Jewishness gave way to non-religious criticism: Jud. [...] At the same time, in response to the decline of Christian belief and the growing number of Jews beginning to join the mainstream of European society (a trend known as "assimilation"), antisemites turned to the new "racial science," an attempt, since discredited, by various scientists and writers to "prove" the supremacy of non-Jewish whites. [...] While the rise to power of the Nazis (Germany's leaders during World War II) in the 1920s and 1930s involved numerous social and political factors, the views that helped turn antisemitism into official government policy included belief in the inborn superiority of "Aryans," or whites; belief that Jews destroyed societies; that Jews secretly worked together to gain control of the world; and that Je. [...] The hatred of Jewishness and the conspiracy beliefs of past eras are for the most part shared only by tiny numbers of those on the fringes of society (although as the World Trade Center and Oklahoma bombings showed, even a handful of extremists can carry out acts of great violence).