Timeline of Antisemitism - Twentieth Century

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.

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

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 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.

• Law against Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities
• Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service (ban on professions)
• The Reichsfluchtsteuer ("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.

1938

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

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.

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

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.

1939–1945

The Holocaust. About 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, systematically killed by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers. See also Holocaust denial.

1941

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

Since 1987

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

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