Anti-Semitism is the hatred and prejudice against the Jewish people and their culture, that is, a form of xenophobia.
Etymologically, the term anti-Semitism means “aversion to the Semites” who, according to the Christian Bible, are the descendants of Shem, the eldest son of Noah.
In reality, the Semites include other various ethnic groups, such as the Hebrews, Arameans, Phoenicians, Arabs and Assyrians.
The term anti-Semitism was coined in Germany at the end of the 19th century as an attempt to scientifically explain the judenhass, which means "hatred of the Jews".
Learn more about the meaning of xenophobia.
However, due to the confusion that the suffix "Semitism" causes, leading to the belief that the aversion encompasses all Semitic peoples and not just Jews, some authors prefer to use the term "judeophobia", to characterize prejudice against Jewish culture, specifically.
The main case of anti-Semitism in human history was the Nazism German.
The Jews suffered the consequences of the idealistic paranoia of the Nazis, who, under Adolf Hitler, argued that the Jewish people were an inferior race and should be exterminated.
During World War II, some six million Jews are believed to have been exterminated across Europe, an action that became known as Holocaust.
Learn more about Nazism it's the Holocaust.
Even after the end of World War II, anti-Semitism was preserved in some countries, such as the extinct Soviet Union.
The Soviets did not accept Judaism as a religion, persecuting Jews living in that country.
There are several theories that try to explain the historical origin of the hatred that many people feel for the Jews, and the most mentioned hypotheses are:
| economic | Jews would be hated for having money and power |
| Racial | Jews would be hated for being of an inferior race (Nazi ideology) |
| deicide | Jews would be hated for being responsible for Christ's death |
| Selected | Jews would be hated for proclaiming themselves "God's chosen people" |
| Problem | Jews would be hated for being responsible for all the problems in the world. |
| Foreign | Jews would be hated for being different from the rest of the world - xenophobia. |
