Antisemitism: An Assault on Human Rights

ANTISEMITISM: An Assault on Human Rights, a publication of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, by Anthony Julius, Robert S. Rifkind, Jeffrey Weill, and Felice D. Gaer surveys the history and forms of antisemitism and explores its various manifestations over the last two millennia, including a supplement with texts of antisemitic laws and official pronouncements promulgated and embedded in official practice throughout the world. It outlines the body of international legal doctrines and agreements by which the international community has committed itself to the elimination of antisemitism.

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of American Jewish Committee

Submitted to The United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
By Anthony Julius, Robert S. Rifkind, Jeffrey Weill, Felice D. Gaer

The Jacob Blaustein Institute gratefully acknowledges Dr. Steven Bayme, director of Jewish Communal Life of the American Jewish Committee, and Ms. Selma Hirsh, former associate director of the American Jewish Committee, for their invaluable assistance in preparing this paper.

The Institute also wishes to acknowledge the research assistance of Adam Gregerman, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, and Rachel Rosenberg, a student at Columbia University School of Law, in connection with documentary supplement.

Preface

In preparation for the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish Committee prepared this report, Antisemitism: An Assault on Human Rights. The report surveys the history and forms of antisemitism and argues that, as a long-recognized form of racial discrimination, it should be addressed in the conclusions of the World Conference, which took place in August - September 2001. A supplement contains texts of antisemitic laws and official pronouncements that have been promulgated and embedded in official practice throughout the world over the past 2,000 years. The report was submitted in Durban to Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, foreign minister of South Africa and president of the Conference, and circulated widely to governmental delegates, representatives of NGOs, and members of the media.

In Durban and at regional meetings leading up to the conference, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights successfully pressed to have actions to combat antisemitism recommended in the WCAR's documents. First, substantive references to antisemitism were a notable part of the documents adopted in Strasbourg and Santiago preparatory conferences, covering Europe (East and West) and the Americas (North and South), respectively. Later, as a result, the concluding documents of the official intergovernmental meeting of the World Conference reference antisemitism and the need to act against it. Yet, ironically, speeches at the intergovernmental conference in Durban, as well as actions and the conclusions of the forum of nongovernmental organizations, illustrated the very antisemitism that this conference developed strategies to eradicate. The Conference itself underscores the need to pay even greater attention to the findings and proposals of Antisemitism: An Assault on Human Rights.

Introduction

In April 2000, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "Next year in South Africa, we will hold a World Conference on Racism at which, I should stress, antisemitism will be one of the forms of intolerance targeted for action."1 Far from meeting Secretary-General Annan's expectation, the documents created for the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance have yet to give antisemitism the attention it requires. Indeed, the proceedings held in preparation for the World Conference evidence remarkable gaps in knowledge regarding the phenomenon of antisemitism and a concomitant lack of determination to target it for action. This monograph seeks to fill those gaps and stimulate renewed determination to eradicate this ancient and persistent form of racism.
In 1945, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the systematic murder by the Nazis of murdered six million Jews, the international community created the United Nations "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person."2 The Charter of the United Nations further calls for "encouraging respect for human rights... for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."3

Since that time, national laws have been enacted and international human rights instruments, including a treaty to ban racial discrimination, have been adopted. Yet racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance persist. The World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa took as its mission the development of new strategies for dealing with this tenacious and dangerous scourge.

Antisemitism is perhaps the most ancient and persistent manifestation of the critical issues the Durban World Conference is charged with addressing. Precisely because antisemitism has been such a long-standing phenomenon and has adapted itself to such diverse conditions, addressing the subject is key to meeting the challenges facing the conference and its participants. Careful consideration of the experience of antisemitism can benefit societies in determining how best to respond to other forms of racism and intolerance. The fight against antisemitism, in fact, has given wings to the international human rights movement in the twentieth century.

This paper reviews the history of antisemitism and explores its various manifestations over the last 2,000 years. It offers evidence of the relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. It also outlines the body of international legal doctrines and agreements by which the international community has committed itself to the elimination of antisemitism, thereby placing antisemitism squarely on the agenda of the World Conference. Submitted with this brief is a documentary supplement containing examples of antisemitic laws and other expressions of antisemitic official state policies that have been enacted worldwide throughout the ages.

Who Are The Jews?

Throughout their long history, Jews have constituted a tiny percentage of the world's population. It is estimated that today there are approximately 13 million Jews in the world. Most of this population reside in the United States (5.7 million) and Israel (4.9 million). In addition, 1.1 million Jews live in the European Union; 440,000 in the Former Soviet Union; 420,000 Jews live in Central and South America; 90,000 in Africa; and 100,000 in Oceania.4 With the exception of the State of Israel, in each of the countries in which they live, they constitute a small minority.
What these widely dispersed people have in common is the belief that they are descendants (actual or adoptive) of nomadic tribes who settled between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River more than 30 centuries ago, and whose early history, culture, and religious experiences are reflected in the Hebrew Bible.5 The study and exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, perceived to be divinely revealed or inspired, have constituted the cornerstone of Jewish religious, cultural, and communal life down to modern times. And, indeed, the power of the biblical insistence on monotheism, the majesty of the Hebrew Bible's poetry, the authority of its ethical precepts, and the drama of its narrative of the exodus from slavery to freedom have engendered not only the devoted attention of Jews, but also the reverence of both Christians and Muslims. Notwithstanding the destruction by the Romans of the Jewish religious center in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., down through the centuries, generation after generation of Jews found meaning for their lives as the bearers of their scriptural tradition and sought to organize their lives and communities around their understanding of its commandments.

Under the impact first of Greek and then of Roman military occupation of ancient Israel, the Jewish population, once centered there, became widely dispersed. Nonetheless, the community's adherence to its distinctive folkways, the preservation of Hebrew as the language of religious liturgy, the memory of their national existence in ancient Israel, and their aspiration to return to Zion remained powerful centripetal forces in the life of the Jewish people, sustaining a sense of communal identity both among the devoutly religious and, in modern times, among relatively secularized Jews as well.

What is Antisemitism?

So long as Jews remain committed to their own distinctive cultural and religious traditions, they present themselves as, in some sense, different from their non-Jewish neighbors. In the ancient world they did not willingly worship the diverse gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon. Nor did they consent to the deified emperors of the Roman and Persian empires. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine in the fourth century, and the later establish of the various strands of Catholicism and Protestantism as state religions throughout Europe, inevitably left the Jews in the position of dissenters. Likewise, the Islamic conquest of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula placed the Jews of those lands in a distinctively minority posture.
None of these developments made it inevitable that Jews would be persecuted. In each case, it was an open question whether the majority population and the governing authorities would treat a small and obviously vulnerable minority with tolerance for its differences and respect for its humanity. In some times and places such a liberal approach prevailed. Muslim Spain during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for example, left its Jews in peace and witnessed a flowering of Jewish life, making significant contributions both to Jewish culture and to the well-being of the larger communities among whom the Jews resided. That experience was, unfortunately, more the exception than the rule. The great enemies of tolerance--fear of what appears different or strange, the temptation to scapegoat, the opportunity to foster social solidarity by exclusion--all proved more than most societies could resist. In one form or another, hostility toward Jews became the policy of states and churches and the practice of peoples.

In all its varied forms and manifestations, this phenomenon has become known as antisemitism, a term coined in 1879 by William Marr, a German polemicist who founded the League of Antisemites and denounced Jews on what he claimed to be scientific racial, rather than religious, grounds. The adoption of this term marked an awareness that it was no longer fashionable in late nineteenth-century Europe to be anti-Jewish, to oppose Jews on religious grounds. Historian Robert S. Wistrich noted: "Religious hostility in late nineteenth-century Europe was regarded by many intellectuals as something medieval, obscurantist and backward. There was clearly a need to establish a new paradigm for anti-Jewishness which sounded more neutral, objective, 'scientific' and in keeping with the enlightened Zeitgeist."6 Thus, the term 'antisemitism' has never referred to a hatred of so-called "Semites," which actually designates speakers of a group of languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Ethiopic. Rather, the term "antisemitism" is directed at the Jews; it is a modern linguistic formulation for Jew-hatred.

Antisemitic policies have sought to push Jews to the margins of society. Such marginalization has been accomplished in myriad ways: through discriminatory restrictions on religious observance, on political participation, vocation, education, residence, attire, and other denials of human rights. More extreme antisemitic laws have pushed Jews beyond the margins and excluded them from society even more irrevocably, through expulsion and murder.

Antisemitism ultimately is harmful to societies that tolerate it. It denies Jews the opportunity to contribute to their societies and denies the societies the benefit of those contributions. It also represents an irrational avoidance of real problems. For example, the outlandish belief that Jews caused the Black Plague by poisoning wells in Europe in the fourteenth century led to widespread persecution of Jews but did nothing to alleviate the Plague. Antisemitism also pollutes political discourse, driving out reasoned discourse with wholly irrational, but nonetheless potent, myths. The Strasbourg Consultation on Antisemitism in Europe Today, convened by the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, noted in its Declaration of Concern and Intent that antisemitism has a particularly destructive effect on democracy. The participants declared that combating antisemitism is integral to opposing all forms of racism.7

The way a society treats its Jewish members often provides a barometer for how it will treat other minorities. Intolerance of Jews has commonly paved the way to intolerance of other groups, thereby thwarting the openness and pluralism that sustain progress. The Nazi experience is but one extreme example. In Germany from 1933 to 1945 the government's antisemitic program led not only to the genocide of a large portion of the Jews of Europe, but was also the leading edge of a campaign pursuant to which a full five million other "non-Aryan" or otherwise "undesirable" people were exterminated.

A. Forms of Antisemitism
Antisemitism has appeared in many forms, including religious intolerance, political discrimination, economic exploitation, and racial discrimination. These categories bleed into one another, and it is difficult to determine the actual motive underlying any particular manifestation of antisemitism. This point was made in the American Jewish Committee's 1960 publication, As the UN Probes Prejudice: Observations on the United Nations Inquiry into Antisemitism and other Forms of Religious and Racial Prejudice. The Committee wrote, "It should be borne in mind that antisemitism is cumulative rather than evolutionary, in the sense that it feeds on earlier sources of nourishment, even those which have lost their initial rationale."8 Still, parsing out these categories casts light on the variety of harms inflicted on Jews throughout the ages.

1. Religious Antisemitism or Anti-Judaism
Some forms of antisemitism bespeak contempt for the Jewish religion. William Nicholls, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, concludes in his authoritative work, Christian Antisemitism, "No uncritical reader of the New Testament could easily come away with any but the most negative opinion of Jews. While the New Testament does not encourage racist views, for these were the invention of later periods, it sees little hope for Jews except in conversion to Christ."9

Whatever the attitude of the Christian Bible, Church theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries articulated an utterly degraded view of the Jews. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, likened them to dogs and wild animals. "I note," he wrote, "that many have high regard for the Jews and think that their present way of life is holy. That is why I am so anxious to uproot this deadly opinion." He described the synagogue as "a dwelling place of demons." Saint Augustine, one of history's most prominent Christian thinkers, declared, "The continued preservation of the Jews will be a proof to believing Christians of the subjection marked by those who, in the pride of their kingdom, put the Lord to death."10

In the centuries following the establishment of Christianity in Europe, Church doctrine characterized Jews as the murderers of Jesus and benighted deniers of Christ's revelation. The theology of contempt found its way into the Christian liturgy. The Good Friday liturgy of the Roman Missal contained a prayer for "the perfidious Jews" and asked God to "withdraw the veil from their hearts that they may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ." Pope John XXIII abolished this prayer in 1965 during the Second Vatican Council. But the centuries had taken their toll. Doctrine and liturgy shaped popular imagination. The Jew was seen as perfidious, benighted and morally deficient even by people who were no longer aware of how these perceptions had been received.

The Church affirmed, over the course of the centuries, that there would be no respite for the Jew. The theology of collective guilt held that "the blood of Jesus falls not only on the Jews of that time, but on all generations of Jews up to the end of the world."11 "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."12 A 1304 law in Spain and Portugal obligated Jews to pay a tax "in memorial of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, when the Jews crucified him."13 In addition, countless medieval pictures of Christ's passion depict his tormentors in the dress of medieval Jews. Thus the collective guilt of Jews for the death of Jesus was embedded in Christian theology, taught to the populace in prayer and preachment, and depicted in Christian art. This latter point was made in the American Jewish Committee's As the UN Probes Prejudice, which notes that "a Jewish stereotype was created in Christian art and literature. Distorted figures of the Jew were emblazoned on medieval frescoes, stained-glass windows, monuments, and memorials; on illustrated Bibles, psalters and prayer books."14

Destruction of Jewish sacred books exemplified the willingness to act on the theology of contempt. The Talmud, a vast collection of Jewish law and lore, has been a persistent object of antisemitic attention. In 1239, for example, Pope Gregory IX ordered all copies of the Talmud confiscated in France, England, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. (There is disagreement on the extent to which the decree was executed.)15 In 1242, 24 cartloads of the Talmud were burned in Paris. A papal bull of Pope Benedict XIII in 1415 decreed that "all Jews were forbidden to listen to, read, or teach the Talmud" and "all Hebrew books that contradicted the dogmas of Christianity were banned."16 In 1559, at the urging of the Dominicans, the Governor of Milan burned thousands of copies of the Talmud.17

Religious antisemitism was also expressed by forced conversion. Byzantine rulers imposed four mass conversions on Jews over the course of five centuries. In 418, the whole Jewish community of Minorca was forced to convert by Severs, the Bishop of Majorca. In 582, the Merovingian King Chilperic ordered all Jews in his kingdom to convert to Christianity or be blinded. In 613 in Visigothic Spain, Jews were given a choice of baptism or expulsion. Moreover, the property of a Jew who refused or delayed baptism was to be forfeited to the king, "as the life of said Jew has shown him to be obstinate and incorrigible."18 In 1492, between 40,000 and 100,000 Jews were forced by the Spanish government to convert or suffer expulsion.19 European Jews over the course of centuries before the Enlightenment were required to attend conversion sermons, often on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. The practice emerged in the Middle Ages of abducting Jewish children and relocating them to Christian homes or monasteries so that they could receive Christian training.

In Russia, there were many instances of coercion to convert the Jews. In 1827, Tsar Nicholas I sought to sever Jewish boys from their religious and cultural roots by impressing them into 25 years of military service, a more onerous term than Christian males endured. The Tsar hoped to make the young Jewish soldiers both Russian and Christian.20

Another tenacious manifestation of religious antisemitism has been the "blood libel," the allegation that Jews engage in ritual murders of non-Jews to use their blood for the baking of matzah, the unleavened bread eaten during the week of the Jewish holiday of Passover. This centuries-old story about Jewish religious practice appeared again and again in Europe and occasionally in the Muslim world between the twelfth and early twentieth centuries, and was used by demagogues to stir up credulous populations to horrific frenzies of violence against Jews. The utter falsity of the charge --not only the complete lack of evidence to support it, but the fact that Jewish dietary laws strictly forbid the consumption of any blood whatever--in no way diminished the power of the charge.

Anti-Judaism is also found in the Muslim world and in some Muslim religious sources, although not to the degree it existed in Christian Europe. Jews in Muslim texts are at times described as a people who rejected religious truth and persecuted Muhammad. According to one Muslim scholar, "Muslim prejudice toward Jews stemmed from the historical enmity of the Jews in Medina toward the Prophet."21 This prejudice, he writes, led to statements such as, "Thou wilt find the most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe (to be) the Jews and the idolators."22 There were also occasional instances of religious coercion in the Muslim world. In seventeenth century Yemen, for example, it was reported that Jewish elders were forced to the village square to listen to exhortations to convert. In addition, under Caliph Al-Hakim in the eleventh century, synagogues were burned, due to an oral Islamic tradition that all Jews must be converted within 500 years of Muhammad's death.23 In the sixteenth century, Shah Abbas I, toward the end of what had been a tolerant reign, expelled Jews from his capital, Isfahan, and then compelled them to convert to Islam.24 Yet, historically, religious antisemitism has not been as prominent in the Muslim world as it was in Christian Europe. As historian Bernard Lewis has written, "In Islamic society hostility to the Jew is non-theological. It is not related to any specific Islamic doctrine, nor to any specific circumstance in Islamic sacred history."25 Moreover, the Koran at times promotes a liberal attitude toward Jews and others: "And I shall not worship that which ye worship/Nor will you worship that which I worship/Unto you your religion, and unto me mine."26

2. Political Antisemitism
Religious antisemitism found expression in political action against Jews ranging from civil disabilities and disqualification, special taxes and ghettoization to deportation and extermination. It is important to note, however, that antisemitism survived the decline of religious fervor. The anticlerical leaders of the so-called Enlightenment in France, for example, had little tolerance for Jews.27 No less a figure than Voltaire denounced the Jews as "ignorant," "barbarous," and "sordid" practitioners of "detestable superstition," and could say nothing more generous than, "Still, we ought not to burn them."28 Likewise, the Soviet Union under Stalin was not only bitterly hostile to religion per se but persecuted Jews --even the most secular Jews -- with zeal.29 Further, in the modern, post-Emancipation era, when many legal restrictions were lifted, political antisemitism took on new forms as populist candidates used antisemitism to generate political gains.

Political discrimination against the Jew has commonly been predicated on the notion of the Jew as a "wandering" community, a people without a land or nation. But this perception was a reflection of the fact that Jews were seldom allowed to feel at home even in countries in which they had lived for many centuries.

Political and civil restrictions also took the form of laws that forbade Jews from holding public office. For instance, the Law of Theodosius II, part of the monumental code of the fifth century, decreed that no Jew "shall obtain offices and dignities; to none shall the administration of the city service be permitted. Indeed, we believe it sinful that the enemies of the heavenly majesty and of the Roman laws should become the executors of our laws."30

Jews were typically forced to wear special badges as well. In 1217, King Henry III of England issued an order that "all Jews wear upon the fore part of their upper garment...two white labels made of white linen...so that, by a sign of this kind, Jews can be patently distinguished from Christians."31 In the latter part of the thirteenth century Jews in various German regions were required to wear special hats.32 In 1551, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria decreed that Jews in his empire wear on their coats a "yellow ring" of prescribed dimensions.33 So-called "yellow badge" laws were abolished in the late eighteenth century, but returned with the Nazis 150 years later.

Jews were also subject to geographical limitations and to many forms of segregation. The unhealthy and socially isolating ghetto was a constant for the Jew in Christian Europe for hundreds of years.34 Likewise in Muslim countries, Jews were relegated to special Jewish quarters called mellahs. In the late eighteenth century, Jews under Russia's rule were relegated to a swath of land called the Pale of Settlement.35 Moreover, the threat and reality of expulsion have been ever-present through the centuries.

Expulsion constituted a still more serious form of marginalization. The practice of expulsion began in earnest in Europe at the end of the thirteenth century when, in 1290, Jews were expelled from England and, in 1306, from France. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled Jews from Spain. In 1593 the Jews of Berlin and the province of Brandenburg were given the choice of baptism or expulsion, and the Jews of the Duchy of Brunswick and the Archduchy of Austria were expelled. There were many other expulsions of Jews over the last two millennia. Orders of expulsion were entered in Carthage in 250; Alexandria in 415; the diocese of Clement, France in 554; the diocese of Uzzes, France in 561; Visigoth Spain in 612 and the Visigoth Empire in 642; from Italy in 855; Sens in 876; Mayence in 1012; from France in 1306; Switzerland in 1348; Hielbronn in 1349; Strasbourg in 1388; France in 1394; Austria in 1422; Fribourg and Zurich in 1424; Cologne in 1426; Savory in 1432; Mainz in 1438; Augsburg in 1439; Franconia in 1453; Breslau in 1453; Wurzberg in 1454; Bavaria in 1456; Vincenza in 1485; Lithuania in 1495; Portugal in 1497; Germany in 1499; Naples in 1510; Strasbourg in 1514; Regensburg in 1519; Naples in 1540; Bohemia in 1542; Genoa in 1550; Bavaria in 1551; Pesaro in 1555; Austria in 1559; Prague in 1561; Papal States in 1569; Brandenburg in 1571; Netherlands in 1582; Cermona, Pavia, and Lodi in 1597; Frankfort in 1614; Worms in 1615; Kiev in 1619 and Ukraine in 1649; Lithuania in 1656; Oran in North Africa in 1659; Vienna in 1670; Sandomir in 1712; Russia in 1727; Wuremburg in 1738; Bohemia in 1744; Moravia in 1745; Kovad, Lithuania, in 1753; Bordeaux in 1761; Russia in 1772; Warsaw in 1775; Alsace in 1789; various villages in Russia in 1804 and 1808; Lubeck and Brennen in 1815; cities in Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria in 1815; Bremes in 1820; Galatz, Romania, in 1866; Bavaria (only foreign-born Jews) in 1919; Nazi-controlled areas in 1938-1945. Moreover, after the State of Israel declared independence in 1948, close to 570,000 Jews fled in the wake of violent persecutions in several countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.36

With emancipation in the mid-nineteenth century, the ghetto walls came down and many legal impediments were lifted, allowing individual Jews to participate more fully in civil society. Millions of Jews enjoyed these new freedoms, but still retained their individual identification as Jews. Antisemites, both in Europe and in the United States, perceived these communities as incapable of being assimilated, alien, and a threat to the majority culture. The infamous trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus reflected this new antisemitism. It was a defining event in the course of modern antisemitism. Captain Dreyfus, a Jewish military officer in France, was convicted of espionage. The anti-Jewish violence and boycotts that accompanied the case demonstrated that, even after emancipation, popular antisemitism persisted and tainted the political system of a modern, democratic society that prided itself on its commitments to reason and human rights. The Dreyfus Affair was particularly telling, as it occurred in France, the home of liberty, equality, and fraternity and the embodiment of European emancipation. As one historian put it, "The bargain of emancipation had failed, and the Jews continued to remain a nation set apart."37 Moreover, the case demonstrated the delusional nature of antisemitism. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that Dreyfus was innocent, French society continued to harbor illusions of the Jewish officer's guilt, while Major Ferdinand Esterhazy, who actually had sold state military secrets to Germany, remained free. The antisemitic fixation of the French harmed France.

Political antisemitism has existed in the Muslim world as well. For centuries Jews were discriminated against, though often only as part of a larger non-Muslim minority, known as dhimmi. The term dhimmi denoted a protected, second-class citizen status for Jews and Christians. The rise of Muslim power at first brought relief to Jews and other oppressed minorities. While hostility and occasionally violence toward Jews certainly flared up in Muslim history, persecution was rarely a permanent state of existence, according to most historians. According to historian Steven Bayme, "On a day-to-day basis, Jews living under Islam reasonably could expect protection of their personal lives and property."38 Common political disabilities against dhimmis included special taxes, restrictions on religious practice, and the inability to provide testimony against Muslims. Dhimmis were forced to wear distinctive garb as well. External pressure mitigated discriminatory treatment by Muslims of Christians. Jews, by contrast, were regarded as a nation without a country and thus were without consular representation. For example, in the reign of Shah Abbas II (1642-1666) in Persia, the law that gave converts to Islam exclusive rights of family inheritance was mitigated for Christians as a concession to Pope Alexander VII, but remained in force for Jews until the end of the nineteenth century.

3. Economic Antisemitism
A distinctive but common form of political antisemitism was the economic exploitation of the Jews. As one writer has stated, many countries have used "economic strangulation as a weapon of antisemitism."39 Jews have suffered state expropriation, by fine or arbitrary levy, and unlawful but unpunished theft by rioting crowds. In the first century the Roman Emperor Vespasian exploited Jews as a special source of revenue. The "Fiscus Judaicus," originally a tax for the upkeep of the Temple, continued after the Temple's destruction. It essentially became a fee for the license to practice Judaism. In 193 CE, when the prefect of Syria Pescennius Niger (and future Roman Emperor) was asked to lighten the tax burden, he is said to have replied: "Would that I were able to tax the very air that you breathe."40

Special taxes on Jews were imposed by other sovereigns since Roman times. Jews have faced economic discrimination in the form of professional restrictions as well. In 814, Charlemagne's "Capitulary for the Jews" forbade Jews from selling wine, grain, "or other commodities," and from having "a money-changer's table" in his house.41 In 1412, King John I of Spain forbade Jews from being "spice dealers, apothecaries, surgeons, or physicians, or sell bread, wine, flour, oil, butter, or the eatables [sic] to Jews or Christians..."42 In the Austria-Hungarian Empire, there were several restrictions on owning and renting property. For instance, the Austrian Rothschild, though a baron, was forced to live in a hotel. Also, an 1803 law in Romania forbade Jews from renting farms and an 1817 Romanian law forbade Jews from acquiring real estate.43 Many similar laws existed throughout Russia, including one law, which stated that "all contracts for the mortgaging or renting of real estate situation outside of cities and towns to a Jew, shall be of no effect.44 Other Russian laws of the nineteenth century limited or forbade Jewish professionals (e.g., lawyers, doctors, veterinarians) from practicing their professions,45 usually in order to remove competition from non-Jews.46

State expropriation of Jewish property was a common feature of economic antisemitism. King Philip IV of France in 1306 commanded that "all land, houses, vineyards and other possessions" owned by "arrested" Jews in Orleans be sold "for a just price on our behalf."47 Sometimes government theft of Jewish property was intended to inhibit Jewish activity. Converts to Judaism under Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96 CE) were punished by property confiscation (among other sanctions). In addition, "The Seven Part Code" from thirteenth century Castile stated that "a Christian [who] is so unfortunate as to become a Jew" would be executed and his property would be "disposed of."48 In other cases, theft of Jewish property was unrelated to any motive other than cupidity. In 897, Charles the Simple gave to the Church all lands and vineyards owned by Jews in the Duchy of Narbonne. Sometimes it was both. Alfonso X the Wise, king of Castile, under pressure from the Church, arrested Jews on a Sabbath in January 1281 and only released them against the promise to pay a ransom of 4.3 million gold maravedis.49 At times property expropriation was linked with expulsions. When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, they forbade them from taking much of their property with them.50

In modern times, European nations profited from stolen property of Jews persecuted during the Holocaust. Laws enacted in Nazi Germany in 1935 and in subsequent years recapitulated the whole litany of prohibitions forbidding Jews from engaging in any number of professional activities, businesses, civil service, and the army. One 1938 law stated, "The profession of lawyer is closed to Jews. In so far as Jews are still lawyers they are eliminated from the Corps of Lawyers."51 Another law stated, "The owner of a Jewish business enterprise... can be ordered to sell or dispose of his business within a fixed period of time."52 Many other laws forced Jews to forfeit or sell at reduced costs farmlands.

4. Racial Discrimination Against Jews
The hostility of religious antisemitism can, at least in principle, be averted by the religious conversion of the Jew. The hostility of antisemitism based on race theory, though, is implacable. No matter what the Jew believes or does, he and his descendants are deemed tainted. The pursuit of purity of "blood" (i.e., race), as well as soil, was often a motivating factor to extreme forms of antisemitic persecution both in medieval Spain and Nazi Germany.53

Racial antisemitism, in extreme forms, views the Jew as "a breed apart" and in some cases, not human at all. The ultimate goal is to exclude the Jew not merely from the community, but from normal human civilization. A popular motif associating the Jew with pigs in Christian Europe exemplifies this racist notion. In antisemitic art, Jews were depicted riding on and sometimes consorting with pigs. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as vermin and rodents.

Racial antisemitism has been utilized to justify the withdrawing of the basic human rights of Jews. Germany's Nuremburg Laws, for example, proclaim that the Jew was not "fit to serve faithfully the German people" before stripping the Jew of a multitude of rights.54

B. Persistence of Antisemitism
Antisemitism has maintained vitality over time, repeatedly reappearing in one form or another. While official antisemitism enshrined in law is rare today, unofficial, de facto antisemitism has survived. In some societies and moments of history, antisemitism has been conspicuous, characterized by exploitation, brutality, and murder. At other times, it seems to subside. But it has resurfaced again and again.

Antisemitism's contemporary existence was affirmed in the General Conclusions of the European Conference Against Racism in October 2000. Those conclusions recognize the "persistence" of several problems, including "violent acts against members of Jewish communities and dissemination of antisemitic material."55 This conclusion was also reached by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism and Racial Discrimination, Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo of Benin. In his 2001 report to the Commission on Human Rights, Glele-Ahanhanzo noted that the state of the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East in late 2000 and 2001 "unleashed a series of attacks and antisemitic acts throughout the world, especially in Europe."56 The Special Rapporteur's report also quotes from the Declaration of Concern and Intent that emerged from the Council of Europe's "Consultation on Antisemitism in Europe Today," held in March 2000, prior to the outbreak of the second Intifada in Israel later that year:

Noting with distress that Jews still suffer from prejudices and are victims of a deeply rooted antisemitism in most Council of Europe member and other States; Distressed by the recent desecration of many Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and Jewish communal buildings and other property in several Council of Europe member and other States; Condemning the continuance of threats against the Jewish population and institutions in several Council of Europe members and other States; Gravely alarmed by the development throughout Europe of extremist groups and the dangerous indifference of the majority towards these developments; Deeply troubled by the electoral success of far right parties and, in some cases, their presence and participation in coalition governments; Noting with concern the resurgence of antisemitic feelings in countries where a debate on overlooked Holocaust assets is taking place; Deeply alarmed by the continued activities of Holocaust denial and Holocaust relativism...57
The persistence of antisemitism was also acknowledged in the declaration that emerged from the Santiago Regional Conference on the Americas in preparation for the Durban World Conference Against Racism, which refers to the "increase in antisemitism and hostile acts against Jews . . . as well as the emergence of radical and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas concerning the Jewish community."58 As these documents acknowledge, antisemitic episodes continue to plague many societies. There are many examples over the last decade.

In 1994, a bomb attack against the AMIA building, the Argentine Jewish community's central body, killed 85 people. A previous terrorist attack in 1992 killed 29 at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Investigations into the bombing of the AMIA building have revealed likely complicity and involvement of local police officers. Among the arrested was the head of the provincial police force's grand auto theft division and a close adviser to the provincial police chief. Buenos Aires police also have been accused of Jewish cemetery desecration and an attempted bombing.59 Conclusions of the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1997 urged Argentina "to take all measures within its power to expedite the ongoing proceedings in connection with the 1992 and 1994 antisemitic attacks."60 The trial of the police officers is scheduled to begin in September 2001. Jewish institutions, cemeteries and homes are attacked with alarming frequency in Argentina. A recent report shows nearly 20 physical attacks against Jewish institutions in 1998 alone, in addition to scores of incidents involving antisemitic verbal harassment, threatening letters, leafleting and demonstrations, workplace discrimination, etc.61

Attacks against Jewish institutions are one of the most common forms of contemporary antisemitism. Some of these attacks are vandalism against Jewish property, while others are deadly, like the bombing of the Goldenberg Kosher Restaurant in Paris in 1982. Sometimes, these targets are lucky to have survived, like the children attacked at a Jewish daycare center in Los Angeles in 1999.

On July 27, 1997, Belarussian official state television rebroadcast a documentary that included a seventeenth century "blood libel" story. The airing of the film coincided with the celebration of the saint's day of the Belarussian Orthodox Church, to which the majority of the population belongs.62 In addition, the Orthodox Church published an article in 1992 that advised readers to beware of the "cruel cults, where human sacrifices are being practiced," and identified the Orthodox Jewish sect, Hasidism, as one such "cult."63

In April 1997 the Slovak Ministry of Education distributed to teachers 90,000 copies of The History of Slovakia and Slovaks, which alleges that Jews did not suffer during the Holocaust and which glorifies Slovakia's wartime fascist government. The book also claims that Jews were well-treated in the concentration camps, that they fared better than the average Slovak during the war, and that the decision to deport whole families to concentration camps was a humanitarian one.64

The Council of Europe's "Consultation on Antisemitism in Europe Today" in March 2000 expressed "concern [over] the resurgence of antisemitic feelings in countries where a debate on looted Holocaust assets is taking place."65 This issue has also led to attacks on Jewish property in Europe, a trend also noted by the participants of the Council of Europe consultation. In Switzerland, for example, the claims for restitution pursued against the Swiss banks has prompted political antisemitism by rightist members of the Swiss parliament, as well as a rise in popular antisemitism. Switzerland's Eidgenossische Kommission Gegen Rassismus (EKR, Federal Commission Against Racism) in Antisemitism in Switzerland, reported an increase in antisemitic letters to Swiss newspapers and Jewish organizations.66 Moreover, opinion polls indicate an increase in negative attitudes toward Jews.

Contemporary Egyptian press borrows the racial imagery of the Nazis. A cartoon in the opposition weekly Al-Arabi in October 2000 depicts an Israeli soldier as a pig battling with stone-throwing Palestinians. Ironically, the soldier's legs form a swastika.67 Other cartoons in Egyptian papers portray Israelis as Nazis, as having fangs, and in other derogatory ways. One columnist for the Egyptian government-sponsored daily Al-Akhbar, wrote in April 2000: "Thanks to Hitler, of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him [Hitler] for his revenge on them was not enough."68 In 1995, the government-sponsored daily Al-Ahram, published "Snake Pits," an article alleging that Jews were "monkeys and jungle agents."69

In Western Europe today, political antisemitism often takes the form of the incendiary platforms of certain political groupings and the rhetoric of their spokespersons. These parties - usually rightwing nationalists - have had some electoral success. Some examples are the Freedom Party in Austria, the Front National in France, and the Vlaams Blok in Belgium. In Eastern Europe, antisemitism has been exploited by the political left and right in response to the political and economic convulsions of the last decade. This antisemitism is unpredictable and often violent in language. On occasion, it finds expression at the highest levels of government and in legislatures.

Verbal attacks cannot be dismissed as inconsequential. Verbal violence commonly precedes outbreaks of physical violence. In the classic study, The Nature of Prejudice, Harvard University psychologist Gordon Allport found that "intense verbal hostility" preceded every episode of physical violence against blacks in America. Similarly, he pointed out that 70 years of antisemitic speech laid the grounds for the Nuremberg racial laws of the Nazi regime in Germany.70

Antisemitic verbal attacks are common on the nationalist Russian political scene as well. Following his November 2000 election, the new governor of Kursk announced that his victory marked the triumph of ethnic Russians over Jews, and demonstrated that Russia was beginning to liberate itself from the "filth that has piled up over the last ten years." He added that President Vladimir Putin (who did not criticize or disassociate himself from the governor's remarks) was his ally in his crusade against "the world Jewish conspiracy."71 In spring 2001 gubernatorial elections in Tula, Russia, antisemitic rhetoric figured prominently, with the incumbent accusing the challenger of "sucking up to the Jews, Kazakha and Kalmyks," of being secretly Jewish, and being a member of a Satanic cult.72 Vladimir Zhirinovsky's perversely named Liberal Democratic Party, which advanced antisemitism on its far-right platform, won nearly 25 percent of the vote in a December 1993 election and became for a time the largest faction in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

The political movement Russian National Unity (RNU) borrows rhetoric and ritual from the Nazi party of 60 years ago and fuses Christian and nationalist antisemitism. A RNU official publication has asserted: "Anyone who realizes the danger to the existence of Russia's people and purity of the Russian Orthodox Church and is not fighting against Judaism or Freemasonry can't even be called a Christian. He is not even a pagan. He is a slave of Satan, and not a worker for Jesus Christ.'"73 While it has come under some attack for its activities by Russian courts and politicians, RNU has made inroads into the political mainstream. In July 2000, for instance, one RNU leader was appointed to a panel that advises the Saratov regional parliament.74 There has also been a proliferation of antisemitic graffiti in the Krasnodar region of Russia, according to an article in the March 27, 2001 issue of the newspaper Kubanskie Novosti, the official newspaper of the Krasnodar regional administration.75

The Middle East conflict spawns outbursts of antisemitic verbal abuse in the Muslim world as well. In October 2000, a member of the Palestinian Authority's Fatwa Council targeted Jews in general in a lengthy diatribe. The address, broadcast on the official Palestinian Authority television station, included the statements: "None of the Jews refrain from committing any possible evil.... They are all liars." The speaker also exhorted his listeners: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are in any country.... Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews."76

Some current manifestations of antisemitism in the Muslim world derive from the West. The so-called "blood libel" story about Jews using non-Jewish blood for ritual purposes, which first surfaced in Europe in the twelfth century, receives considerable attention in the Muslim world. The government-supported Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram published a lengthy article in October 2000 entitled, "A Jewish Matzah Made from Arab Blood."77 In 1984, Syria's defense minister, Mustafa Tlass, published a book The Matzah of Zion, devoted to blood libel. In the 1991 session of the Commission on Human Rights, the Syrian representative repeated this ancient allegation by referring to the book. Western antisemitic texts, including Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are available in Iran.78 (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written by a Russian priest in the early twentieth century. It is written from the point of view of an alleged Jewish "cabal" intent on world domination. Although it was long ago determined to be a forgery, The Protocols has resurfaced time and again in the United States, the Middle East, Asia, and elsewhere.)

In America, Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, regularly has spread antisemitic slurs, often dehumanizing, or diabolizing, Jews. In his 1996 Savior's Day speech, he addressed Jews: "Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood, you are not real Jews ... you are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell."79

There were continuing and even increasing numbers of antisemitic acts over the last year. Among the antisemitic acts committed worldwide in 2000 have been antisemitic-motivated murder in Pittsburgh; a near fatal antisemitic stabbing in London; synagogue fire bombings in New York, California, France, Holland, Russia and elsewhere; a bomb attack on a crowd of Jewish immigrants in Germany; and a multitude of swastika daubings and verbal attacks. In addition, there were many antisemitic-tinged political rallies in 2000 in Europe, Russia, the United States, and the Middle East.

In the United Kingdom in 2000, there were 270 reported antisemitic incidents, a 14 percent rise over 1999.80 In Germany in 2000, there was a spike in "right-wing extremist, xenophobic and antisemitic crimes," despite actions undertaken to prevent such crimes, according to the Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in March 2001.81 German Interior Minister Otto Schily has stated that "right-wing extremism, antisemitism and anti-foreigner sentiment have become a serious problem in Germany."82 The continuation of violent antisemitic incidents was demonstrated by statistics released to the Bundestag by the German federal government.83 For the first nine months of 2000, there were 707 antisemitic acts registered. The total for the entire previous year was 817.84 In the United States, antisemitic acts against individuals and institutions numbered 1,606, a four percent rise over 1999.85

One ongoing manifestation of political antisemitism has emerged within the context of the United Nations itself. In 1991, the General Assembly revoked Resolution 3379, the so-called "Zionism is racism" resolution.86 Zionism is the national self-determination movement of the Jewish people. It is the only form of national self-determination to have been denounced by resolution of the United Nations, which has honored the aspirations of scores of other peoples. Further, the discredited resolution equating Zionism with racism in effect declared the vast majority of Jews throughout the world to be engaged in racism, which is itself a racist allegation. Finally, until its revocation, Resolution 3379 demeaned and discredited the battle against real racism. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, reminding his listeners of the need to "denounce antisemitism in all of its manifestations," reflected on the discriminatory impact of this resolution: "This brings me to the lamentable resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 1975, equating Zionism with racism and racial discrimination. That was, perhaps, the low-point in our relations; its negative resonance even today is difficult to overestimate. Fortunately, the General Assembly rescinded the resolution."87

Resolution 3379 vilified Zionism, a movement that responded to the endemic antisemitism throughout the modern world and sought to preserve the remnant of the Jewish people, six million of whom were destroyed in the Holocaust. The resolution did not simply oppose the policies of the State of Israel. It challenged the legitimacy of the State of Israel. In doing so, the resolution challenged the very existence of a Jewish people and its inherent right to exercise political self-determination. The United States's UN ambassador at the time, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, explained the irony of equating the State of Israel with racism. "There is little trace either in Jewish doctrine or in Zionism of the idea that Jews are a race . . . One cannot choose the race to which one belongs. But in both the Jewish and the Zionist conceptions, any person of any racial stock can be or become a Jew by converting to the Jewish religion. Conversely, as the Israeli courts have said, any person born of a Jewish mother who converts to another religion is no longer a Jew. If one can join or resign from the Chosen People, it is scarcely a racially determined category."88

Anti-Zionism became a euphemism, a disguise for antisemitism. This was recognized by some of the world's leading human rights advocates. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the famed American civil rights leader and Nobel laureate, recognizing the right to self-determination, cautioned a friend who would parse the meanings of antisemitism and anti-Zionism:

You declare...that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely anti-Zionist. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews-this is God's own truth. Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. ...Anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so ...Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live on their own land....And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against the Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.89
From Moscow, Soviet dissident leader Andrei Sakharov remarked, upon learning of the "Zionism is Racism" resolution, "It can only contribute to antisemitic tendencies in many countries by giving them the appearance of international legality."90 Commenting on anti-Zionism at the UN, Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York remarked, "We must reject antisemitism just as much when clothed with seeming legality at the United Nations as when crudely exhibited on a neighborhood street corner."91

In 1991, United States President George Bush commented on Resolution 3379: "The so-called 'Zionism is racism' resolution mocks . . . the principles upon which the United Nations was founded. And I call now for its repeal. Zionism is not a policy; it is the idea that led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people, to the State of Israel. And to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and, indeed, throughout history. To equate Zionism with racism is to reject Israel itself, a member of good standing of the United Nations."92

Despite the repeal of Resolution 3379 in 1991, the "Zionism equals racism" resolution continues to be invoked. In 2001, at a UN-sponsored conference of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Amman, Jordan, participants invoked this resolution as proof of the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinian diaspora.93

C. The Constants
Common threads can be found throughout the varieties of antisemitism. First, antisemitism entails exclusion, a progressive expulsion of the Jew from the community, the city, the state and the world. Second, the antisemite is delusional; antisemitism reflects more on the antisemite than on the Jew.

1. Exclusionary Antisemitism
The exclusionary nature of antisemitism derives from the perception that the Jew stands outside the nation, and represents an alternative nation or an anti-national, internationalist collective. This idea thrived in the early twentieth century when Jews were said to be internationalist, and thus to stand against the interests of national communities. Because there are distinct Jewish communities in many countries, antisemites alleged that: 1) Jewish communities conspire to advance their collective interests to the detriment of their "host" countries and 2) the dominant forms taken by this conspiracy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are international finance and communism. In making such claims, antisemites sought to push out the Jew altogether.

The discriminatory laws of antisemitic regimes throughout history demonstrate this desire. These laws range in intensity. Some seek to separate the Jew by marking him with "yellow badges," excluding him from the practice of certain professions, and relegating him to walled ghettoes. Others seek to exclude the Jew by blotting him out of existence. This is demonstrated by forcible conversions, expulsions, and genocide. The exclusionary nature of antisemitism has been demonstrated in social milieus as well. Until recently, social clubs, professional bodies, and trade associations94 in the United States restricted Jewish membership. American universities also implemented quotas restricting the numbers of Jewish students they would admit.

2. Delusional Antisemitism
The delusional nature of antisemitism suggests that it is not only the Jew who suffers from antisemitism. The antisemites themselves and the society in which antisemitism is tolerated suffer as well. Individual antisemites suffer from the irrational inconsistencies of their own antisemitic beliefs. Societies suffer from the irrational avoidance of real problems, which leads to counterproductive scapegoating of Jews.

The common antisemitic perceptions of Jews are paradoxical. The Jew is considered both capitalist banker and Bolshevik. The Jew is clannish yet seeks to insinuate himself into gentile culture. The Jew possesses disproportionate power yet is impotent and effete. The greatest paradox of the Jewish power myth is revealed by the murders of six million Jews by Germany during World War II. This point was made in the American Jewish Committee's 1960 publication, As the UN Probes Prejudice:

As history has indicated time and again, antisemitism is utilized as a means of channeling public resentment away from an oppressive political regime. The pretext may be that Jews are radicals, hostile to the social order. After a revolution the new government may claim that Jews are reactionaries. Thus, the alleged grounds of antisemitism are often contradictory and irrational.95
Thus, the Jew that the antisemite perceives is of his own invention. It is a projection of his own fears. It is a delusion.

Such antisemitic fantasy even persists in the absence of Jews. For example, an antisemitic tradition flourished in England for centuries following the expulsion in 1290. A study of this period has appropriately be called "antisemitism without Jews." Popular antisemitism has in recent years persisted in Japan, Poland and elsewhere despite the paucity of Jews in those places. Similarly, the prime minister of Malaysia has made antisemitic comments part of his political rhetoric for almost thirty years, despite the almost complete absence of Jews in his country.96

The more worrisome antisemitic delusion is that suffered by whole societies. Scapegoating does not solve a society's problems. The history of antisemitism provides examples. Allegations that Jews poisoned wells, causing the Black Plague, did not help determine the cause of, nor cure people, of the disease. Accusations that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes did not help find actual murderers. A French military court's conviction of career military officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus for espionage did not secure France's security, while the guilty party remained at large. The Soviet Union's denial of basic freedoms for Jews led to international opprobrium and ultimately a mass emigration of talented Soviet Jews. German's blaming of its economic woes on the Jews after World War I led not to 1,000 years of prosperity, but to disaster.

The antisemitic delusion creates still other problems for societies that tolerate it. The General Conclusions of the October 2000 European Conference, "All Different, All Equal: From Principle to Practice," acknowledge an important truth - that antisemitism, left unchecked, is interrelated with and often leads to other forms of racism, xenophobia, and related intolerance. The conclusions state:

The European Conference, convinced that combating antisemitism is integral and intrinsic to opposing all forms of racism, stresses the necessity of effective measures to address the issue of antisemitism in Europe today in order to counter all manifestations of this phenomenon.97
Other sources echo this historical dynamic. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in its declaration adopted at a summit in Lisbon in 1992, pointed out that antisemitism and aggressive nationalism "continue to endanger stability in OSCE" and committed itself to addressing the problem of antisemitism.98

In the history of the Western World, antisemitism has been continuously available to states, political movements, non-Jewish religious denominations, writers and artists, demagogues and the disaffected. Racists continue to rely upon it, and it is there for anyone who finds the complexity of the world too much to bear. Antisemitism is the great simplifier. At the price of truth, it offers coherence and comfort. As the French antisemitic agitator, Charles Maurras, acknowledged: "Everything seems impossible, or frightfully difficult, without the providential arrival of antisemitism, through which all things fall into place and are simplified."99

Relevant International Instruments and Institutions

Prohibitions against antisemitism merit specific recognition in the declarations that emerge from the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. The framers of the documents that form the backbone of the United Nations and its quest for international peace and justice recognized that antisemitism is an endemic problem that impacts Jews, the antisemite, and whole societies. Those diplomats created - and continue to create - international instruments and norms that condemn and prohibit antisemitism, among other forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. These norms are the pillars upon which the World Conference rests.
Unfortunately, although international prohibitions against antisemitism are firmly established, the subject of ill treatment of Jews has rarely been a priority in the human rights programs of the world body. The UN has not accorded antisemitism proper attention. The discussion below identifies relevant international human rights instruments.

A. The United Nations Charter
The United Nations Charter, adopted in 1945, sets forth as one of the purposes of the United Nations the promotion and encouragement of "respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."100 The Charter repeats these prohibitions against discrimination in article 13, which states, "The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of…assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion."101 In Article 55, the Charter, seeking to encourage peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination, avows again to promote fundamental freedoms and respect for human rights for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.102 This language is reiterated in Article 76(c), concerning the world body's trusteeship system. Thus, the basic legal instrument establishing the United Nations stands firm against all forms of discrimination.

B. The International Bill of Human Rights
The International Bill of Human Rights, composed of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), specifies the protections and rights that states must ensure for all of their citizens, including Jews. The involvement of Jewish organizations in promoting the creation of UN instruments that combat all forms of discrimination is well documented. Indeed, Nobel Laureate René Cassin of France, one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stated that the inclusion of freedom of religion in that document came about in large measure because of the ideas, talents, and persistence of nongovernmental organizations, particularly religious ones, which included Jews and non-Jews alike.103

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the cornerstone document of international human rights, proclaims human rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, and that every individual and organ of society shall constantly strive to promote respect for the rights and freedoms set forth in the instrument. After affirming in Article 1 that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," the Universal Declaration states in Article 2 that "everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms" set forth-and that they apply on a non-discriminatory basis.104 The term "everyone" may not be limited by states or individuals, nor diminished by the "political, jurisdictional, or international status" of one's country or territory. The Universal Declaration thus proclaims that the principle of non-discrimination governs relations between individuals as well as between governments and the governed. It was, in fact, the revelation not merely of unbridled discrimination, but of the way that such persecution led to deliberate mass murder --genocide -- of Jews that in significant part motivated the drafting of the Declaration. The Holocaust itself, ending just one year before the drafting process began, is alluded to in the Declaration's preamble: "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind…".105

Article 2 of the Universal Declaration sets out the types of discrimination that are specifically prohibited: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin."106 UDHR also contains an equal protection clause in Article 7, which states that all people are entitled - "without any discrimination" - to equal protection before the law.107 Furthermore, in Article 18 the Universal Declaration states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion."108 These references reinforce the world community's commitment to combat all prejudice and intolerance, including intolerance and discrimination based on religious belief, which would include beliefs of the Jewish religion.

Additionally, Article 30 of the UDHR states, "Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."109 The legislative history of Article 30 indicates that the drafters specifically intended this to prohibit the actions of Nazi and other hate-based groups from engaging in actions aimed at destroying the rights of Jews, blacks, or others. René Cassin, one of the drafters of the Declaration, emphasized this interrelationship: "It was the fundamental aim of Hitlerism to stamp out the Jews, but their destruction was also part of an attack on all that the French revolution stood for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Human Rights. Hitler's racialism was essentially an attempt to destroy the principles of the French Revolution."110

2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights specifies further measures states must take to ensure rights, including the measures needed to prohibit antisemitism. Article 2 of the Covenant obligates state parties to ensure civil and political rights to all, regardless of "race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion."111 It requires states to adopt laws to give effect to these rights, to ensure an effective remedy if the rights are abrogated, and for state authorities to enforce these remedies when granted. No one may be denied any of these rights on the basis of discriminatory criteria, such as religion, ethnicity, or race. Equality of all before the law is ensured in Articles 14 and 16.112

Later, the Covenant turns specifically to religion. Article 18, modeled closely on a similar provision in the Universal Declaration, begins: "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." The Covenant, like the Universal Declaration, affirms both the right to believe and the right to manifest those beliefs in four areas - worship, observance, practice, and teaching - thus ensuring the individual's rights are not limited to inner beliefs, but have external aspects that may be visible within the normal life of the society in which he or she is situated.

The free exercise of religion clause has been broadly construed by the Human Rights Committee, an 18-member body that reviews compliance with the Covenant. The Committee's authoritative General Comment 22, paragraph two, states: "The Committee…views with concern any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reason, including the fact that they…represent religious minorities."113 (emphases added). Discrimination against the world's Jewish communities, normally small minorities in the countries in which they are present, is thus clearly prohibited by the Covenant. Likewise, the Human Rights Committee provides a broad understanding of freedom of religious practice in paragraph four of General Comment 22. While it mentions no religion specifically, the Comment points to customs commonly associated with Judaism, such as "dietary regulations, the wearing of distinctive clothing or headcoverings…and the use of a particular language customarily spoken by a group."114 While those religious practices are not exclusive to Judaism, they are well-known and integral aspects of Jewish tradition. Thus, the protection of religious freedom extends to Jews.

Article 26 of the Covenant calls for equal protection before the law and states that the law must prohibit discrimination based on many grounds, including religion and national origin, both of which are aspects of Jewish identity.115 Moreover, in paragraph nine of General Comment 22, the Human Rights Committee emphasizes that any impairment of the rights of a religious minority in a society would violate the guarantee of equal protection inherent in Article 26 of the Covenant.

Article 27 specifically concerns the protection of minorities. It states, "In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language."116 General Comment 23 of the Human Rights Committee, interpreting Article 27, simply states in paragraph 5.l, "The terms used in Article 27 indicate that the persons designed to be protected are those who belong to a group and who share in a common culture, a religion and/or a language."117 The Jewish people possess an identifiable culture, practice a religion, and use a particular language. Moreover, the Jewish people qualify as a minority in any common interpretation of the term: numerical inferiority, nondominant position and a common will to preserve its distinctive characteristics.

In another of its interpretative analyses, General Comment 18, the Human Rights Committee maintains that "the term 'discrimination' as used in the Civil and Political Rights Covenant should be understood to imply any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."118 Here, then, the Committee members recognized religious discrimination - one form of antisemitism - as a prohibited aspect of discrimination. They further recognized discrimination on "any ground" as being of concern to the ICCPR. This inclusive understanding of discrimination also brings discrimination against Jews securely within the concerns of the Covenant.

C. Racism Convention
While antisemitism is not specifically mentioned in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (ICERD), records of the debates concerning the convention demonstrate that antisemitism was very much of concern to the drafters and it was intended to come within its purview. During one debate on the subject, the Soviet representative argued that antisemitism was a "repugnant form of racial discrimination and…a dangerous social and political phenomenon."119

Although ICERD was adopted with no mentions of specific discrimination (except apartheid), language throughout this convention would apply to antisemitism. The definition of 'racial discrimination' itself encompasses antisemitism and discrimination against Jews. In Article 1(1), "racial discrimination" is defined as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."120 Antisemitism would fall under the Convention's own definition of racial discrimination, whether Jews are seen as a 'race' or 'national' or 'ethnic' group. In fact, the treaty's monitoring committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which reviews state reports on compliance with the treaty, has on numerous occasions examined treatment of Jewish minorities as well as antisemitic laws, statements and actions in many countries.

D. Declarations on Racial Discrimination and Religious Intolerance
The drafting of the twin UN declarations on racial discrimination and religious intolerance began as a response to an outbreak of antisemitic incidents in 1959-60. Those incidents impelled the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the Commission on Human Rights to condemn antisemitism specifically in a resolution adopted March 16, 1960: "noting with deep concern the manifestations of antisemitism and other forms of racial prejudice and religious intolerance of a similar nature…which might be once again the forerunner of other heinous acts endangering the future…," the resolution "condemns these manifestations as violations of the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in particular as a violation of the human rights of the groups against which they are directed, and as a threat to the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all peoples." (emphasis added)121

Like other global human rights instruments, the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, adopted in 1981, contains no specific mention of antisemitism or any other form of intolerance. But the subject was considered during the drafting process. Articles 1 and 6 in the Declaration guarantee the free exercise of religion. Article 2 prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion or belief. Article 3 demands that "discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes an affront to human dignity and a disavowal of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and shall be condemned as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enunciated in detail in the International Covenants on Human Rights."122 This declaration clearly includes antisemitism as a concern of the UN's major human rights instruments, including the Charter and the Universal Declaration.

E. Regional and Expert Preparatory Meetings
Prohibitions against discrimination against Jews have been recognized by regional and expert preparatory conferences to the Durban World Conference. The European and American regional preparatory conferences to the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, convened respectively in October and December 2000, acknowledged antisemitism as a matter of concern in their own regions and as an appropriate subject of concern for the World Conference.

The ministers at the European conference, "All Different, All Equal: From Principle to Practice," included several references to antisemitism in both the political declaration and the general conclusions that emerged from the meeting. In the political declaration, Council of Europe member states express alarm at the "continued and violent occurrence of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and related intolerance."123 The declaration also proclaims, "The Holocaust must never be forgotten."124

The General Conclusions of the European Conference Against Racism contain independent references to antisemitism. They recognize the persistence of "violent acts against members of the Jewish communities and dissemination of antisemitic material" in the "Context" section of the document.125 In paragraph 22, the document affirms the influence politicians can have in "combating racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and related intolerance."126 Paragraph 28 on religious discrimination and intolerance recognizes the complex identities inherent in religion by noting, "religion…may be related to racial and ethnic origin."127 In the very next paragraph, devoted exclusively to antisemitism, the European Conference notes that "combating antisemitism is integral and intrinsic to opposing all forms of racism" and stresses the necessity of developing "effective measures to address the issue of antisemitism in Europe today."128 In paragraph 43 the European ministers call upon participating states to promote Holocaust remembrance programs.

The Regional Conference of the Americas in preparation for the World Conference also produced a declaration and plan of action with references to antisemitism. Paragraph 46 of the declaration is devoted to antisemitism. In it, the governments of the regional conference

Confirm with deep concern the increase in antisemitism and hostile acts against Jews in some countries in the region and in other parts of the world, as well as the emergence of radical and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas concerning the Jewish community.129
The plan of action for the intergovernmental preparatory meeting for the Americas stresses in paragraph 151 that the Holocaust should be studied.130

Several regional expert meetings have been convened by the United Nations as part of the official preparations for the World Conference. Antisemitism has been addressed in the recommendations of several of these meetings. For example, the Central and East European regional expert meeting, convened July 5-7, 2000, in Warsaw, drew attention to the need to combat antisemitism by concluding in paragraph 3 of its recommendations that:

The World Conference is encouraged to consider the general policy recommendations adopted by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe, and especially general policy recommendation No. 1 on 'Combating racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance', which recommends to the Governments of Member States, inter alia, to adopt laws, enforce them and offer judicial remedies, and to adopt policies and take measures in order to strengthen the fight against racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance.131
In paragraph 46, the regional experts drew attention to the interlocking and multiple aspects of discrimination - racial, religious, and national - when they recommended:

The World Conference should note that racial discrimination in Central and Eastern Europe often affects national minorities. In particular, racial discrimination in the region has taken the form of antisemitism, discrimination against minorities, such as the Roma, and the discrimination against Muslims."132
Earlier in paragraph five, the experts encouraged the World Conference to:

Underline the many-faceted nature of racism and encourage Governments to commission studies on its various facets (anti-Roma, anti-Jewish, anti-Black, anti-Muslim, etc.) and every form of ethnicity-related discrimination and abuse, and to strengthen their capacity to address each particular form with appropriate legal, economic cultural, political, educational and social measures.133
In October 2000, the regional conference of experts for Latin America and the Caribbean, meeting in Santiago, concluded:

The victims of racial discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance also include mestizos of indigenous or African descent, along with certain minorities such as the Jewish and Roma communities.134
F. Special Rapporteurs
Antisemitism has been a matter of explicit concern to the UN's Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Mr. Maurice Glele-Ahahanzo of Benin. In 1994, the Commission on Human Rights, after receiving the Special Rapporteur's first report, specifically adopted language in which it "requests the Special Rapporteur to examine… incidents of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, any form of discrimination against Blacks, Arabs and Muslims, xenophobia, negrophobia, antisemitism, and related intolerance, as well as governmental measures to overcome them, and to report on these matters…"135 In every year since then it has repeated this request - and this formulation of issues of concern - including the language specifically in the definition of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and beginning in 1999, in the texts of resolutions at the General Assembly as well.

Over the years, the Special Rapporteur on Racial Discrimination has not only examined specific incidents, in accord with his mandate, but has also made broad recommendations concerning efforts to halt antisemitism. For example, in his 1994 report to the UN General Assembly, he recommended: "With regard to antisemitic propaganda, given the wide circulation of antisemitic publications and the danger they represent, the Special Rapporteur recommends that appropriate legislative and administrative measures should be taken by the States concerned and, where appropriate, at the international level to halt the dissemination of such publications, in particular the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."136 Mr. Glele repeated this recommendation in his 2001 report to the Commission on Human Rights in which he recommended that States set up national human rights institutions "with a particular emphasis on combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and antisemitism." In that same report, the Special Rapporteur noted that a series of "attacks and antisemitic acts throughout the world" were "unleashed" as a result of the recent outbreak of violence in Israel.137

Further, in 1998, in his report to the Commission on Human Rights, discussing racism and the Internet, Special Rapporteur Glele recommended educational measures: "The Special Rapporteur wishes once again…(b) To envisage the possibility of action at the international level by immediately beginning studies, research and consultations on the use of the Internet for purposes of incitement to hatred, racist propaganda and xenophobia, and to draw up a program of human rights education and exchanges over the Internet on experience in the struggle against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism."138

The Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, Abdelfattah Amor of Tunisia, has examined and reported on antisemitic acts. In 2000, he completed a paper for the World Conference Against Racism in which, at the specific request of the Commission on Human Rights, he offered an analysis of the relationship between racial discrimination, as defined in ICERD, and religious intolerance. Amor links complex religious identities to racial discrimination. He writes, "Religion as a public expression of the life of a nation or social group, may be included in [the ICERD's definition of racial discrimination]"139 and states that "religious identity is an integral part of racial identity and vice versa."140 Borrowing language from the title of the World Conference, Amor states, "Discrimination, measures of intolerance, and xenophobic practices cannot be defined or dealt with separately [from religion]…. It is difficult in some instances to dissociate ethnic aspects from religious aspects."141 Amor again links "racial discrimination" to religious intolerance by pointing out that in Article 5 of ICERD, subparagraph (d)(vii), states must prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination and guarantee equality of "freedom of thought, conscience and religion." Notably, the Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance cites "Jewish minorities across the world"142 as one example of this complex identity. Thus, the multifaceted discrimination inherent in antisemitism is clearly acknowledged.

 

Supplement Contents 1

A prevailing theme of the attached paper is that Jews throughout history have been perceived of and treated as a perpetual outsider and a danger to the societies in which they live. While the intensity of antisemitism has at times subsided, history teaches that it always returns as well. One compelling proof of the Jew’s pariah status throughout history is offered by official antisemitic state policies, which entrench discrimination and foster prejudice. What follows, in chronological order, is a sampling of antisemitic laws edicts, legal decisions, papal rulings, and other examples of state policy that have been promulgated over the last 2,000 years. They demonstrate the persistence of official antisemitism throughout the world and the need for efforts to eradicate it.

Theodosian Code

(completed 438 under Emperor Theodosius II)
The Theodosian Code was a sixteen-volume work that contained the imperial edicts of Christian emperors from Constantine (early 4th century) to Theodosius II. Some sections of laws within the Code are excerpted here.
Laws of Constantine the Great (October 18, 315)
We wish to make it known to the Jew and their elders and their patriarchs that if, after the enactment of this law, any one of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger on another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God [Christianity], he must speedily be given to the flames and burned together with all his accomplices.

Moreover, if any one of the populations should join their abominable sect and attend their meetings, he will bear with them the deserved penalties.

Laws of Constantius (August 13, 339)
This pertains to women, who live in our weaving factories and whom Jews, in their foulness, take in marriage. It is decreed that these women are to be restored to the weaving factories. This prohibition [of intermarriage] is to be preserved for the future lest the Jews induce Christian women to share their shameful lives. If they do this they will subject themselves to a sentence of death.

A law of Theodosius II (January 31, 438)
No Jew—or no Samaritan who subscribes to neither [the Jewish nor the Christian] religion- shall obtain offices and dignities; to none shall the administration of city service be permitted; nor shall any one exercise the office of a defender of the city. Indeed, we believe it sinful that the enemies of the heavenly majesty and of the Roman laws should become the executors of our laws.... We forbid that any synagogue shall rise as a new building. To these things we add that he who misleads a slave or a freeman against his will or by punishable advice, from the service of the Christian religion to that of an abominable sect and ritual, is to be punished by loss of property and life.

On the one hand, whoever has built a synagogue must realize that he has worked to the advantage of the Catholic Church [which will confiscate the building]; on the other hand, whoever has already secured the badge of office shall not hold the dignities he has acquired. On the contrary, he who worms himself into office must remain, as before, in the lowest rank even though he will have already earned an honorary office. And as for him who begins the building of a synagogue and is not moved by the desire of repairing it, he shall be punished by a fine of fifty pounds gold for his daring. Moreover, if he will have prevailed with his evil teachings over the faith of another, he shall see his wealth confiscated and he soon subjected to a death sentence.

Emperor Justinian’s Novella 146 (553)
Christian Emperor Justinian here banned rabbinic interpretation, demanded use of languages other than Hebrew in the synagogue, and insisted on certain articles of belief.

Preface. Necessity dictates that when the Hebrews listen to their sacred texts they should not confine themselves to the meaning of the letter, but should also devote their attention to those sacred prophecies which are hidden from them, and which announce the mighty Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Ch. I ii. But the Mishnah, or as they call it the second tradition, we prohibit entirely. For it is not part of the sacred books, nor is it handed down by divine inspiration through the prophets, but the handiwork of man, speaking only of earthly things, and having nothing of the divine in it.

Ch. II. If any among them seek to introduce impious vanities, denying the resurrection or the judgment, or the work of God, or that angels are part of creation, we require them everywhere to be expelled forthwith; that no backslider raise his impious voice to contradict the evident purpose of God. Those who utter such sentiments shall be put to death, and thereby the Jewish people shall be purged of the errors, which they introduced.

Epilogue. This is our sacred will and pleasure, and your Excellency and your present colleague and your staff shall see that it is carried out, and shall not allow the Hebrews to contravene it. Those who resist it or try to put any obstruction in its way, shall first suffer corporal punishment, and then be compelled to live in exile, forfeiting also their property, that they flaunt not their impudence against God and the empire. You shall also circulate our law to the provincial governors, that they learning its contents may enforce it in their several cities, knowing that it is to be strictly carried out under pain of our displeasure.

Justinian Code
(completed 565 under Emperor Justinian I)
Emperor Justinian I ordered the creation of a unified collection of earlier imperial laws, to which he added his own, one of which is excerpted.

A Law of Justinian:
Since many judges, in deciding cases, have addressed us in need of our decision, asking that they be informed what ought to be done with witnesses who are heretics, whether their testimony ought to be received or rejected, we therefore ordain thantno heretic, nor even they who cherish the Jewish superstition, may offer testimony against orthodox Christians who are engaged in litigation, whether one or the other of the parties is an orthodox Christian.

Visigothic Code (Spain, 586-711)
This code of religious restrictions derives from the Catholic period on the Iberian Peninsula.

Title II. Concerning the Eradication of the Errors of all Heretics and Jews:
5. Jews shall not celebrate the Passover According to their Custom: No Jew shall celebrate the Passover upon the fourteenth day of the month, nor shall perform any of the ceremonies customary at such times. Nor shall any Jew, in honor of his ancient, erroneous belief, observe any festival days, great or small; or attempt their observance; or desist from labor upon any holidays; or hereafter keep the Sabbath, or any other sacred days prescribed by his rites, or attempt to do so. Anyone detected violating this law shall be liable to the condemnation and penalty prescribed for the same.

6. Jews shall not Contract Marriage According to their Custom: No Jew shall marry, or defile with adultery or incest, anyone nearly related to him by blood. No Jew shall marry another within the seventh degree of relationship; nor shall he desire or practice any other nuptial ceremony than that customary among Christians. Whenever detected, he shall be punished according to law.

7. Jews shall not perform the Rite of Circumcision: No Jew shall circumcise another; nor shall a person who has permitted himself to be circumcised be exempt from the operation of the law. No slave, free born person, or freedman, native or foreign, shall practice or submit to this detestable operation. Whoever is proved to have voluntarily performed, or submitted to it, shall be punished with the utmost severity of the law.

8. Jews shall not Divide their Food into Clean and Unclean, according to their Custom: The blessed apostle Paul said, "To the pure all things are pure," but nothing is pure to those who are defiled, because they are unbelievers; and, for this reason, the execrable life of the Jews and the vileness of their horrible belief, which is more foul than any other detestable error, must be destroyed and cast out. Therefore, no Jew shall make a distinction between food which is clean and unclean, as established by the customs and traditions of his ancient rites. No one shall perversely refuse to eat food of any kind, whose condition is proved to be good.... Anyone detected in the violation of this law shall be subjected to the punishment instituted for the same.

10. No Jew shall Testify Against a Christian; and Under what Circumstances the Descendants of Jews may Testify: If he who is convicted of having uttered a falsehood becomes infamous in the sight of all men, with how much more reason should he be excluded from giving testimony who denies the truth of the Divine Faith? Jews, whether baptized or unbaptized, are therefore forbidden to testify against Christians.

12. Concerning the Penalties to be Inflicted for Offences Committed by Jews: The following law is derived from others of great severity, which have been enacted to punish the perfidy of the Jews; and it is herby decreed that whoever attempts to commit any of the crimes prohibited by former laws, or contained in any amendments to the same, or presumes to act in defiance of said laws, shall be either stoned to death, or burned by such of his own countrymen as may have entered into an agreement to do so. However, if the king, in his mercy should decide to spare the life of such a criminal, he shall be delivered up as a slave to whomever the king may select, and all his property shall be given to others; and this shall be done in such a way that the culprit can never come into possession of his property again, or recover his liberty in the future.
Title III. Concerning New Laws Against the Jews, in which Old Ones are Confirmed, and New Ones are Added:
III. Jews shall not Absent themselves, or Remove their Children or Slaves, to Avoid the Blessing of Baptism: Henceforth, where any Jew of those who have not yet been baptized, or have themselves delayed their own baptism; or have, under any pretext, neglected to send their children or slaves to the priest, in order to be baptized.... and the said Jew, after the lapse of one year from the promulgation of this law, shall not have been baptized; said transgressor, whoever he may be, shall receive a hundred lashes, and having had his head shaved, shall be driven into exile. His property shall be forfeited to the king, and shall be bestowed upon whomever he may direct, as the life of said Jew has shown him to be obstinate and incorrigible.

Councils of Toledo III-XVII (Spain, 589-694)
This series of Spanish councils inaugurated the period when Spain passed from Arian Christian to Catholic control, and began detailing the laws that would govern Jews under Catholic rule for centuries.

Toledo VI (638)
Inflexibilis on safeguarding the faith of Jews:

Judaeorum Perfidia. The inflexible perfidy of the Jews seems to shake at last under piety and power from high, since it is manifest that the most excellent and most Christian prince, inspired by the supreme God and ablaze with the fire of faith, decided, together with the priests of his kingdom, to eradicate entirely their prevarications and superstitions...We promulgate with him, therefore, this unanimous decision...namely, that anyone who will obtain in the succession of time the crown of the kingdom should not ascend the royal throne before he had promised, among the other terms of his oath, that he would not allow them [the Jews] to violate this Catholic faith and that he would not show favor in any way to their perfidy...

Toledo XII (681)
On the Confirmation of the Laws that were Promulgated Against the Vileness of the Jews, Following the Ordered List of the Titles of these Laws, which is given in the same Canon:

De Judaeorum Autem: We have examined thoroughly, and with great attention to meaning, the laws recently given by the glorious prince concerning the execrable perfidy of the Jews, laws whose regulations are divided among different titles; and, cognizant of the weight of their importance, we have improved their measures.... Henceforth they should be maintained irrevocably against their crimes, in due course of justice, as follows:

De Commemoratione Priscarum: The law on recalling the ancient laws promulgated against the transgressions of the Jews and on their new confirmation. Item, De Blasphematoribus Sanctae: The Law on those blaspheming against the Holy Trinity. Item, Ne Judaei Aut: That Jews should not remove from the grace of baptism either their sons or their servants.

Item, Ne Judaei More Suo Celerbrent: That Jews should not celebrate Pascha according to their custom or practice circumcisions of the flesh, and that they should not turn any Christian from the faith of Christ.

Item, Ne Judaei Sabbatha: That the Jews shall not dare to celebrate Sabbath and the other holidays of their rite.

Item, Omnis Judaei Diebus: That every Jew should cease from work on Sundays and on the designated days.

Item, Ne Judaei more Suo DiJudicent: Jews should not discriminate between foods according to their custom.

Item, Ne Judaei Ex Propinquitate: That the Jews should not enter into marriage with close blood relatives, and that they shall not dare to be married without the benediction of a priest.

Item, Ne Judaei Religion: That the Jews should not dare defend their sect by insulting our religion, and that they should not move elsewhere in flight from our faith, and that no one should receive them in their escape.

Item, Ne Christianus A Judaeo: That a Christian should not accept any sort of gift from a Jew against the faith of Christ.

Item, Ne Judaei Libros: That the Jews shall not dare to read those books that the Christian faith repudiates.

Item, Ne Judaeis Mancipia: That Christian slaves should not serve Jews or adhere to them.

Item, Judaeus Ex Aliis: That a Jew coming from other provinces or territories under our royal rule should not defer presenting himself before the local bishop or priest.

Item, De Damnis Sacerdotum: On the punishments of priest and judges who would delay putting into effect the measures instituted in the laws against Jews.

Pact of Umar (7th C.)
This document, composed by Umar I around 637 but subsequently altered, is an early attempt at regulating relations between the Jews and Christians, on the one hand, and Muslims on the other.

This is a letter to the servant of God, Umar, Commander of the faithful, from the Christians of such and such a city. When you [Muslims] marched against us, we asked of you protection for ourselves, our posterity, our possessions, and our co-religionists; and we made this stipulation with you, that we will not erect in our cities or the suburbs any new monastery, church, cell or hermitage; that we will not repair any of such buildings that may fall into ruins, or renew those that may be situated in the Muslim quarters of the town; that we will not refuse the Muslims entry into our churches either by night or by day; that we will open the gates wide to passengers and travelers; that we will receive any Muslim traveler into our houses and give him food and lodging for three nights; that we will not harbor any spy in our churches or houses, or conceal any enemy of the Muslims....

...that we will not prevent any of our kinsmen from embracing Islam, if they so desire. That we will honor the Muslims and rise up in our assemblies when cap, turban, sandals, or parting of the hair; that we will not make use of their expressions of speech, nor adopt the surnames...that we will not ride on saddles or gird on swords, or take to ourselves arms or wear them, or engrave Arabic inscriptions on our rings; that we will not sell wine...that we will shave the front of our heads; that we will keep to our own style of dress, wherever we may be; that we will wear girdles round our waists...

...that we will not recite our service in a loud voice when a Muslim is present.

The Jews of Angevin England (7th to 13th C.)
This collection of laws contained numerous religious, financial and social restrictions against Jews.

The Laws of the Church about the Jews (7th C.)
I. If any Christian woman takes gifts from the infidel Jews or of her own will and commits sin with them, let her be separated from church a whole year and live in much tribulation, and then let her repent for nine years . . . But if with a pagan let her repent seven years.

II. If anyone shall despise the council of the Nicene Synod and make Easter with the Jews on the fourteenth of the moon, he shall be cut off from the whole church, unless he do penance before his death.

III. If any Christians accepts from the infidel Jews their unleavened cakes or any other meat or drink and share in their impieties, he shall do penance with bread and water for forty days.

Corpus Juris Canonici. Decretal V. vi (1198)
C. III. Jews may keep their old synagogues, may not erect new ones....

C. IV. On Good Friday Jews may not keep their doors or windows open....

C. V. Christians ought to be excommunicated who serve Jews in their houses. And secular princes ought to be excommunicated who spoil baptized Jews of their goods.

A General Release except for Jews. Faedera (1204)
Know that we, for the love of God and salvation of the soul of our mother who is dead, have freed and acquitted from Wednesday next before Easter, 14th, April, in the fifth year of our reign, all the prisoners and incarcerated, whether for felony, or robber, for breach of the first law, or any other crime: except prisoners captured in our war, and except those whom we sent from Normandy to England to be incarcerated or kept under guard, and except our Jewish prisoners.
The King of the Sheriff of Dorset, & c.

Charlemagne’s "Capitulary for the Jews" (814)
King Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, focused on financial transactions of Jews in this law.

1. Let no Jew presume to take in pledge or for any debt any of the goods of the Church in gold, silver, or other form, from any Christian. But if he presume to do so, which God forbid, let all his goods be seized and let his right hand be cut off.

2. Let no Jew presume to take any Christian in pledge for any Jew or Christian, nor let him do anything worse; but if he presume to do so, let him make reparation according to this law, and at the same time he shall lose both pledge and debt.

3. Let no Jew presume to have a money-changer’s table in his house, nor shall he presume to sell wine, grain, or other commodities there. But if it be discovered that he has done so all his goods shall be taken away from him, and he shall be imprisoned until he is brought into our presence.

Obadiah the Proselyte on the treatment of the Jews of Baghdad under Al-Muqtadi (Iraq, 11th C.)
This text unearthed from a geniza (document storeroom) describes policies instituted against Jews of Baghdad.

He directed that yellow badges should be affixed to the headgear of every Jewish male. In addition to the badge on the head, another of lead, the weight of a silver coin, was to hang round the neck of every Jew. The lead pendant was to be inscribed with the word "dhimmi" indicating that the Jews were the tribute bearers. He also imposed that every Jew should wear a distinguishing belt around the waist. Abu Shuja imposed two distinguishing signs upon Jewish women. Each woman had to wear one red shoe and one black shoe. Furthermore, each woman had to have a small copper bell on her neck or on her shoe which would tinkle so that all would know and differentiate between the women of the Jews and of the Muslims. He assigned cruel Muslim men to watch over the Jewish men and cruel Muslim women to oversee the Jewish women, in order to oppress them with every sort of insult, humiliation, and contempt. The Muslims would mock them, and the common rabble, together with their children, would beat Jews through all the streets of Baghdad.

The law regarding the tribute which was collected annually by the servants to the ruler of Baghdad is as follows: From every wealthy Jew, they would collect four and a half dinars; from every Jew of middle class, two and a half; and from the poorest Jews, one and a half. If a Jew died, not having paid the tribute in full, the Muslims would not let him be buried until the remainder is paid, be the amount large or small. If the deceased left nothing of value, the Muslims demanded it from the Jewish community, and they must redeem their dead by paying the outstanding tribute money out of their own funds. If not, the Muslims would seek to burn the body.

Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
This was the largest ecumenical church gathering ever, and represented a high-water mark in the authority of the papacy under Innocent III.

Canon 68:
In some provinces a difference in dress distinguishes the Jews of Saracens from the Christians, but in certain others such a confusion has grown up that they cannot be distinguished by any differences. Thus it happens at times that through error Christians have relations with the women of Jews or Saracens, and Jews and Saracens with Christian women. Therefore, that they may not, under pretext of error of this sort, excuse themselves in the future for the excesses of such prohibited intercourse, we decree that such Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress.... Moreover, during the last three days before Easter and especially on Good Friday, they shall not go forth in public at all, for the reason that some of them on these very days, as we hear, do not blush to go forth better dressed and are not afraid to mock the Christians who maintain the memory of the most holy Passion by wearing signs of mourning. This, however, we forbid most severely, that any one should presume at all to break forth in insult to the Redeemer. And since we ought not to ignore any insult to Him who blotted out our disgraceful deeds, we command that such impudent fellows be checked by the secular princes by imposing them proper punishment so that they shall not at all presume to blaspheme Him who was crucified for us.

Canon 69: Since it is absurd that a blasphemer of Christ exercise authority over Christians, we on account of the boldness of transgressors renew in this general council what the Synod of Toledo (589) wisely enacted in this matter, prohibiting Jews from being given preference in the matter of public offices, since in such capacity they are most troublesome to the Christians.

Canon 70: Some (Jews), we understand, who voluntarily approached the waters of holy baptism, do not entirely cast off the old man that they may more perfectly put on the new one, because, retaining remnants of the former rite, they obscure by such a mixture the beauty of the Christian religion.... We decree that such persons be in every way restrained by the prelates from the observance of the former rite, that, having given themselves of their own observance.

Holy Land Decrees:
...We command also that Jews be compelled by the secular power to cancel interest, and, till they have done so, intercourse with them must be absolutely denied them by all Christians under penalty of excommunication.

Introduction of the Jew-Badge in England by King Henry III (Oxford, March 30th, 1217)
Many laws required Jews to wear distinguishing dress when living among Christian and Muslims.

The King To The Sheriff Of Worchester We order you to have published and observed throughout your bailiwick that all Jews wear upon the fore part of their upper garment, wherever they walk or ride, within or outside the village, two white tables made of white linen or parchment so that, by a sign of this kind, Jews can be patently distinguished from Christians.

Orders of Confiscation (France, 1246)
The property of Jews in France (and elsewhere) was sometimes confiscated by the crown, as this law describes.

Laws Enacted at Saint-Germain-en-Laye
1. We order you to return to those to whom they belong all those Jews held captive who do not belong to us and not to seize anything from them.

2. However, from those held captive who are our Jews, since we wish to have from them as much as possible, you should seize goods and, indicating to us the sum which you are able to realize therefrom, you should cause that sum to be carefully and safely guarded and preserved.

3. We further order, concerning captive and other Jews of your seneschalsy or Jews who live in those areas under our jurisdiction, that you cause them to be forbidden by person and goods from henceforth presuming to extort usury. Rather, they should earn their sustenance from another source.

4. We also order and command you not to compel anyone to repay debts to the Jews and to receive nothing of debts which Christians owe to Jews. |

German Laws (13th C.)
These sets of laws in Germany forced Jews to set themselves apart by their dress.

Provincial Council of Breslau (1267)
We also decree and ordain that Jews shall resume the horned hat, which at one time they were accustomed to wear in these parts, and presumed in their temerity to put aside, so that they should be clearly discernible from Christians.

Schwabenspiegel
Article 214, 10. The Jews shall wear hats that are pointed; thereby they are marked off from the Christians, so that one shall take them for Jews.

Las Siete Partidas / "The Seven-Part Code" (Castile, 13th C.)
These laws, part of a much larger code, were composed in the 13th Century but did not take effect until the 14th Century. Once enacted, they were applied throughout Spain, and in territories possessed by Spain (including Louisiana, Florida, and Puerto Rico).

Title XXIV. Concerning the Jews:

Law VII. What Penalty a Christian Deserves Who Becomes a Jew
Where a Christian is so unfortunate as to become a Jew, we order that he shall be put to death just as if he had become a heretic; and we decree that his property shall be disposed of in the same way that should be done with that of heretics.

Law VIII. No Christian Man or Woman shall live with a Jew
We forbid any Jew to keep Christian men or women in his house, to be served by them; although he may have them to cultivate and take care of his lands or protect him on the way when he is compelled to go to some dangerous place. Moreover, we forbid any Christian man or woman to invite a Jew or a Jewess, or to accept an invitation from them, to eat or drink together, or to drink any wine made by their hands....

Law IX. What Penalty a Jew Deserves Who Has Intercourse with a Christian Woman
Jews who live with Christian women are guilty of great insolence and boldness, for which reason we decree that all Jews who, hereafter, may be convicted of having done such a thing shall be put to death.

Law XI. Jews Shall Bear Certain Marks in Order That They Be Known
Many crimes and outrageous things occur between Christians and Jews because they live together in cities, and dress alike; and in order to avoid the offenses and evils which take place for this reason, we deem it proper and we order that all Jews male and female living in our dominions shall bear some distinguishing mark upon their heads so that people may plainly recognize a Jew or a Jewess; and any Jew who does not bear such a mark, shall pay for each time he is found without it ten maravedis of gold; and if he has not the means to do this he shall publicly receive ten lashes for his offence.

Capitation Tax at Segovia (August 29, 1304)
This law, issued by Kind Ferdinand, required payment from Jews for the death of Jesus.

We, Ferdinand, by the grace of God, king of Castile, etc., etc. To the Jews of the Jewry of Segovia, and all other Jewries of the towns and places within the said diocese, to whom this my order or a copy of it signed by a Notary Public, cometh, health and grace. Know ye, that the bishop and dean have complained to me, and say, that you will not pay nor account with them, nor to their order, the thirty deniers each of you have to give in memorial of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, when the Jews crucified him, and intreat me to order what I deem right. You are bound to pay the same in gold, and I consider it just that you pay the amount in the correct coin.

Therefore I command that you give and pay the same, and annually make payment thereof to the bishop, dean, and chapter, aforesaid, or any of them, or the persons that receive for them, thirty deniers of the current coin, each of you well and truly, in such manner that there be no deduction therefrom. And should they require assistance for the fulfillment hereof, I command the councilors, magistrates, alcaldes, judges, and all other officers, or any of them, to whom this my order, or a copy of it duly authenticated, cometh, to accompany and assist them in such manner that what I command be fulfilled.
Given at Palencia, 29th August 1304

Laws Enacted at Paris (August 18, 1306)
Another confiscation decree in France.

Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to the overseers of Jewish affairs in the bailliage of Orleans and to the bailiff of that area, greetings:

We command you and each of you to have all lands, houses, vineyards and other possessions, which the Jews of the said bailliage held as their own at the time of their arrest, sold at public auction for a just price on our behalf. This should be done as quickly as possible....You should cause all this to be announced throughout the entire bailliage without delay.

Provincial Council of Zamora (Spain, 1313)
A panoply of restrictions on vocation, social relations, religious practice, etc.

Constitution:
1. Thirty days are allowed to all Jews that now do or hereafter may reside in our province, for the execution hereof.

That in criminal, civil, and all other causes, they shall not oppose nor defend themselves by the privilege they have; saying that as no Jew was summoned against them in the cause, they cannot be condemned; nor may they claim that or any other privilege to the prejudice of the Christian faith, nor presume to obtain such similar privileges.

Therefore we obtain, that in criminal, and all other causes, the testimony of the Jews against Jews shall be valid as heretofore; but not of a Jew against a Christian, nor, as is proper or just, shall his testimony be received. Those persons that desire to place Jews above Christians, and do not observe these and all other constitutions made against the Jews, whether they be ecclesiastic, layman, or secularized clergy; may the curse of Almighty God, of St. Peter and St. Paul, whose constitutions they are inclined to break, and the curse of St. Iago come upon them. The ordinary prelates shall compel and oblige them to observe this. Those persons who act contrary shall receive from the holy church the punishment the sin deserves.

2. Henceforth Jews shall hold no post or dignity from kings, or any secular prince, and within the aforesaid time they shall resign those they now hold.

3. They are not to be admitted into frequent association with Christians, lest from the intimacy, they adopt their errors which they do not understand.

4. That they do not serve as witnesses against Christians, nor claim as hitherto the benefit of the laws.

5. That no Christian women, either temporarily or otherwise, act as wet nurses, or rear their children.

6. They are not to appear in public, from the Wednesday of Passion Week until Saturday; and on Good Friday are to close their doors and windows the whole day, not to mock the sorrow of Christians for the passion.

7. The Jews and Jewesses wear an ostensible sign, that they may be distinguished and separate among Christians, which is right, practiced in other states.

8. Notwithstanding their learning and reputation, they are not to practice medicine with the Christians.

9. They are not to invite Christians to their feasts, that Christians do not eat with Jews; particular they are not to eat their meat or drink their wine.

10. They are annually to pay tithes on their landed property, and the houses they occupy, the same as Christians did before they belonged to Jews.

11. Synagogues that have been newly erected or enlarged, shall be restored to their former state between this date, and the next great festival of the resurrection; this term is peremptorily fixed, and if at its expiration the Jews have not executed it, the judges, alcaldes, communities, and universities of the cities, towns, and places where synagogues have been recently erected and elevated, are to fulfill and have this ordinance executed, in virtue of holy obedience under the penalty of Constitution 1.

12. They are not to practice usury, nor exact, nor take any interest from Christians, as is prohibited by the constitutions of Pope Clement V, enacted at the council of Vienne; and any person who acts contrary, or attempts to hide it, incurs the penalties ordained by the said council.

13. On Sundays and other Christian holidays, they are not to work publicly for themselves or other persons.

Ecclesiastical Law (Germany, 15th C.)
Restriction on relations between Jews and Christians.

If a Jew commits a transgression by lying with a Christian woman, and she gives birth to a child, the child shall not remain with the father. It is to be baptized, and its Christian mother shall educate it. Should she die, another Christian shall educate it. The secular court or municipal council shall direct and compel the Jew to reimburse them for the cost of the child’s education until it will be able to care for itself....

Laws of King John I (Spain, 1412)
These laws contain numerous types of restrictions on Jewish activities.

1. That all Jews of my kingdoms and dominions reside and live apart from Christians, in an enclosure in a part of the city, town or village, where they are resident; and the streets around it shall be closed with gates in such a manner, that all the gates lead to the enclosure...

2. Furthermore, I ordain and command, that no Jews or Jewesses shall be spice dealers, apothecaries, surgeons, or physicians, or sell bread, wine, flour, oil, butter, or other eatables to Jews or Christians, or keep warehouses, shops, or tables for selling, either publicly or secretly, except for the disposal of grapes, live stock (that they have a license for), as well as fruit and vegetables, the produce of their own or hired gardens...Any Jews or Jewesses whomsoever who act contrary hereto, shall incur the penalty of 500 maravedis for each offence, besides the corporal punishment my pleasure may choose to inflict, that they may learn to perform my order....

4. I likewise ordain and command, that the Jews and Jewesses are not to eat with Christians, nor Christians among Jews and Jewesses...

7. Furthermore I ordain and order, that no Jews or Jewesses shall be brokers or bankers, or carry swords, daggers, or similar arms, in the cities, towns, and places of my kingdoms; but they may carry knives to cut food. Any Jew or Jewess who acts contrary hereto, or to any part hereof, shall be fined for each time offending 500 maravedis.

11. Furthermore I ordain and command, that no Jew or Jewess shall be styled, either in writing or verbally, don or donna: if by consent they are so called, for each time they are to pay a fine of 500 maravedis, but otherwise they incur no penalty.

13. Furthermore I ordain and command, that all Jews in my kingdoms shall wear over their clothes coats with skirts, and shall not wear cloaks; and in the cities, towns, and places where they reside, they shall wear the customary red sign or badge; but it is my pleasure, that in traveling, as well on the road as in the places they go to, they may wear the clothes they now have, to avoid the dangers they might otherwise encounter.

15. Furthermore I ordain and command, that none of the Jews of my kingdoms and dominions shall shave, or have their beards shaved with razors; but they may cut them with scissors...

19. Furthermore I ordain and command, that no Jew is to be a tailor, or make dresses for any Christian woman, of whatever rank or condition she may be....

Papal Bull of Pope Benedict XIII (Spain, 1415)
Following the Disputation at Tortosa, one of the Jewish-Christian debates rabbis were compelled to attend, Pope Benedict XIII issued this bull.

1. To prohibit generally all persons, without distinction, publicly or privately, to hear, read, or teach the doctrines of the Talmud; ordering that within one month there becollected in the cathedral of every diocese, all copies that can be found of the Talmud...and every other writing that has directly or indirectly any relation to such doctrine; and the diocesans and inquisitors are to watch over the observance of this decree, visiting the Jews personally or by others, within their jurisdictions every two years, and punishing severely every delinquent...

3. That no Jew may make, repair, or under any pretence have in his possession any crucifix, chalices, or sacred vessels, nor bind Christians’ books in which the name of Jesus Christ or the most Holy Virgin Mary is written. Christians who give any of these articles to Jews...are to be excommunicated.

4. No Jew may exercise the office of judge, even in causes that may occur among his people.

5. All synagogues recently built or repaired are to be closed. Where there is one, it may remain, provided it is not sumptious...but should it be proved that any one of the said synagogues has at any time been a church, it is immediately to be closed.

6. No Jew may be a physician, surgeon, druggist, shopkeeper, provision dealer, or marriage maker, or hold any other office, whereby he has to interfere in Christians’ affairs; nor may Jewesses be midwives, or have Christian nurses; nor Jews have Christians to serve them, or sell to, or buy provisions of them, or join them at any banquet, or bathe in the same bath, or be stewards or agents to Christians, or learn any science, art, or trade in their schools.

7. That in every city, town, or village where there are Jews, barriers shall be appointed for their residence apart from Christians.

8. That all Jews or Jewesses shall wear on their clothes a certain red and yellow sign, of the size and shape designated in the bull, men on the breast of the outward garment, and women in front.

9. That no Jew may trade, or make any contract; thus to avoid the frauds they practice, and the usuries they charge to Christians.

10. That all Jews and Jewesses converted to the Catholic faith...may inherit from their unconverted parents and relatives; declaring null any testament, codicil, last-will or donation INTER VITO they may make to prevent any of their property devolving to Christians.

11. That in all cities, towns, and villages, where there may be the number of Jews the diocesan may deem sufficient, three public sermons are to be preached annually; one on the second Sunday of Advent; one on the festival of the Resurrection; and the other on the Sunday when the Gospel, "And Jesus approached Jerusalem," is chanted. All Jews above twelve years of age shall be compelled to attend to hear these sermons. The subjects are to be the first to show them that the true Messiah has already come, quoting the passages of the Holy Scripture and the Talmud that were argued in the disputation of Jerome of Santa Fe; the second to make them see that the heresies, vanities, and errors of the Talmud, prevent their knowing the truth; and the third, explaining to them the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, and the perpetuity of their captivity, as our Lord Jesus Christ and the other prophets had prophesied. And at the end of these sermons this bull is to be read, that the Jews may not be ignorant of any of its decrees.

Regulation of King John II (Spain,1481)
Another clothing restriction.

As to the clothes of Jews, it is right that they should be of the same description of cloth as I have ordered other men to wear, but they may not wear silk, and are only to wear woolen. And they are to wear the customary sign of a star, according to the form of ordinance, on the pit of the stomach.

Edict of Expulsion from Spain (1492)
After consolidating Spain under their rule, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion of the ancient Spanish Jewish community. An estimated 40,000-100,000 Jews were forced to leave Spain.

Whereas, having been informed that in these kingdoms, there were some bad Christians who judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic faith, the chief cause of which was the communication of Jews with Christians; at the Cotes we held in the city of Toledo in the year of 1480, we ordered the said Jews in all the cities, towns, and places in our kingdoms and dominions, to separate into Jewries and place apart, where they should live and reside, hoping by their separation alone to remedy the evil. Furthermore, we have sought and given orders, that inquisition should be made in our said kingdoms, which, as is known, for upwards of twelve years has been, and is done, whereby many guilty persons have been discovered, as is notorious.

And as we are informed by the inquisitors, and many other religious, ecclesiastical, and secular persons, that great injury has resulted and does result, and it is stated, and appears to be, the participation, society, and communication they held and do hold with Jews, who it appears always endeavor in every way they can to subvert our holy Catholic faith, and to make faithful Christians withdraw and separate themselves therefrom, and attract and pervert them to their injurious opinions and belief, instructing them in the ceremonies and observances of their religion, holding meetings where they read and teach them what they are to believe and observe according to their religion; seeking to circumcise them and their children; giving them books from which they may read their prayers; and explaining to them the fasts they are to observe; assembling with them to read and to teach the histories of their law; notifying to them the festivals previous to their occurring, and instructing them what they are to do and observe thereon; giving and carrying to them from their houses unleavened bread and meat slaughtered with ceremonies; insulting them what they are to refrain from, as well as in food as in other matters, for the due observance of their religion, and persuaidt gnehla m ltehac y nt oporssefa k dneeht p elwa fo oM;sesg nivi gtehot mu rednts,dnat tahxetpect ,taht erehi on s other law or truth, which is proved by many declarations and confessions, as well of Jews themselves as of those who have been perverted and deceived by them, which has greatly rebounded to the injury, detriment, and opprobrium of our holy Catholic faith. Notwithstanding we were informed of the major part of this before, and we knew the certain remedy for all these injuries and inconveniences was to separate the said Jews from all communication with Christians, and banish them from all our kingdoms, yet we were desirous to content ourselves by ordering them to quit all the cities, towns, and places of Andalusia, where, it appears they had done greatest mischief, considering that would suffice, and that those other cities, towns and places would cease to do and commit the same. But as we are informed that neither that nor execution of some of the said Jews, who have been guilty of the said crimes and offenses against our holy Catholic faith, has been sufficient for a complete remedy to obviate and arrest so great an opprobrium and offence to the Catholic faith and religion. And as it is found and appears, that the said Jews, wherever they live and congregate, daily increase in continuing their wicked and injurious purposes; to afford them no further opportunity for insulting our holy Catholic faith, and those whom until now God has been pleased to preserve, as well as those who have fallen, but have amended and are brought back to our Holy Mother Church, which, according to the weakness of our human nature and the diabolical suggestion that continually wages war with us, may easily occur, unless the principal cause of it be removed, which is to banish the said Jews from our kingdoms....

Therefore we, by and with counsel and advice from some prelates and high noblemen of our kingdoms, and other learned persons of our council, having maturely deliberated thereon, resolve to order all the said Jews and Jewesses to quit our kingdoms, and never to return or come back to them, or any of them. Therefore we command this our edict to be issued, whereby we command all Jews and Jewesses, of whatever age they may be, that live, reside, and dwell in our said kingdoms and dominions, as well natives as those who are not, who in any manner or for any cause may have come to dwell therein, that by the end of the month of July next, of the present year 1492, they depart from all our said kingdoms and dominions, with their sons, daughters, man-servants, maid-servants, and Jewish attendants, both great and small, of whatever age they may be; and they shall not presume to return to, nor reside therein, or in any part of them, either as residents, travelers, or in any other manner whatever, under pain that if they do not perform and execute the same, and are found to reside in our kingdoms and dominions, or should in any manner live therein, they incur the penalty of death, and confiscation of all their property to our treasury, which penalty they incur by the act itself, without further process, declaration, or sentence.

And we command and forbid any person or persons of our said kingdoms, of whatsoever rank, station, or condition they may be, that they do not presume publicly or secretly to receive, shelter, protect, or defend any Jew or Jewess, after the said term of the end of July, under pain of losing all their property, vassals, castles, and other possessions; and furthermore forfeit to our treasury any sums they have, or receive from us.

And that the said Jews and Jewesses during the said time, until the end of the said month of July, may be the better able to dispose of themselves, their property, and estates, we hereby take and receive them under our security, protection, and royal safeguard; and insure to them and their properties, that during the said period, until the said day, the end of the said month of July, they may travel in safety, and may enter, sell, barter, and alienate all their moveable and immoveable property, and freely dispose thereof at their pleasure.

And that during the said time, no harm, injury, or wrong whatever shall be done to their persons or properties contrary to justice, under the pains those persons incur and are liable to, that violate our royal safeguard.

We likewise grant permission and authority to the said Jews and Jewesses, to export their wealth and property, by sea or land, from our said kingdoms and dominions, provided they do not take away gold, silver, money, or other articles prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms, but in merchandise and goods that are not prohibited.

And we command all the justices of our kingdoms, that they cause the whole of the above herein contained to be observed and fulfilled, and that they do not act contrary hereto; and they afford all necessary favor, under pain of being deprived of office, and the confiscation of all their property to our exchequer.

Yellow Badge Laws (16th C.)
Examples of several enactments of dress restrictions enacted in the sixteenth century.

Reichsppolizeiordnung (1530)
XXII. Concerning the Dress of Jews. A yellow ring on coat or cap, not covered over, shall always and publicly be worn by Jews for their identification.

Austrian Law Enacted by Ferdinand I at Vienna (August 1, 1551)
We, Ferdinand, by the grace of God King in Hungary and Bohemia etc. It has come to us frequently and credibly to what an extent the Jews, whom we have mercifully admitted and permitted to dwell and live in a number of places of our principalities and lands, practice indecent intolerable usury, damage and injury on our Christian people and subjects; that furthermore they also indulge in many other ways in all sorts of evil, scandalous and vicious actions to the disgrace, defamation and disparagement of our sacred Christian name, belief, and religion. These scandalous evil actions are said to flow in good part from the fact that the Jews in numerous localities dwell and move about among the Christians without any distinguishing marks and without any difference in clothes and costume and thus cannot be distinguished from Christians nor recognized as Jews.

Therefore, it is due and proper to us as a Christian governing Lord and Prince, by virtue of our office, to take appropriate account of this.... Hence, we order that there be observed a distinction between Christians and Jews in clothing and costume and, as is done in numerous countries, the Jews be marked and recognized by a certain sign....Thus we decree and order...that all Jews, settled in our hereditary principalities and lands or now and then sojourning in them on business, shall begin within one month from the publication of this our general decree to use and wear publicly an uncovered a sign, by which they are to be distinguished and recognizable from Christians: namely on the outer coat or dress over the left breast a yellow ring, circumference and diameter of the circle as herein prescribed and not narrower nor smaller, made of yellow cloth (notwithstanding any previous enactments or exemptions which are hereby revoked). - Emperor Ferdinand I

Johannes Purgoldt's Law Book (16th C.)
Book VIII, Article 102. In all respects the Jews shall be different, in their dwellings, clothes, and other things. Their houses shall be separated from those of the Christians, and all of them shall be together, and ropes shall be drawn across the streets. Their clothes shall also be separate from the clothes of the Christians; males shall not wear kogeln but higher hats of felt. Men shall also wear boots, and go without wooden shoes; the women with wound veils and with wide windows on their cloaks, and without wooden shoes.

Tsar Refuses Jews' Entry (Russia, 1550)
In 1550, the Polish King Sigismund Augustus demanded that Russian Tsar Ivan IV admit Jews from Poland into Russia for business purposes in accord with treaties that had been signed between Poland and Russia. The Tsar responded:

It is not convenient to allow Jews to come with their goods to Russia, since many evils result from them. For they import poisonous herbs into our realm and lead astray the Russians from Christianity. Therefore he, the [Polish] King, should no more write about these Jews.

Religious Restrictions in Yemen (17th C)
In this document, the Yemeni Imam al–Mahda excoriated the Jewish leaders in Yemen and exhorted them to convert to Islam. This speech, as related by a Jewish historian, followed the plundering of Jewish homes by Yemeni forces. A later Imam expelled the Jews from Yemen to Mauza in the region of Tihama.

O you filthy, despicable and indolent people! I know the wickedness and evil which you have harbored in your heart against us since the day you came to our land. You think evil of our kingdom and our prophet. You are anxiously awaiting the time of our visitation and downfall, with the advent of your false-messiah....You have sinned in the times of Moses your prophet, until your God was furious with you and He dispersed your fathers from His land and scattered them in all the countries until this very day. Yet you did not hearken to the Lord of your prophets, nor did you obey Him. You also dealt deceitfully with our prophet Muhammad, the seal of the prophets, and you betrayed him....Do you think that your kingdom will be reestablished, so that you may dominate all the world and corrupt it as your fathers did? It is better for you to hearken to our words and believe in our prophet, not to deny him, so that we may become one nation. [If you don't obey] you shall risk your lives, and you shall descend to the terrible fire of Hell, the place where Jews and all the rebels and unbelievers in our prophet and his teaching go. But [if you obey] you shall be worthy of dwelling in the land, enjoying life full of pleasure, peace and tranquility. Moreover, you shall inherit a good portion in paradise, where you shall delight in abundance of marvelous orchards, streams of honey and buttermilk, with the beautiful maidens...

Edict against the Jews (Rome, 18th C)
This excerpt illustrates the early modern Church's restrictions on Jewish behavior.

Article 31:
Jews and Christians are forbidden to play, eat, drink, hold intercourse, or exchange confidences of ever so trifling a nature with one another. Such shall not be allowed in palaces, houses, or vineyards, in the streets, in taverns, in neither shops nor any other place. Nor shall the tavern-keeper, inn-keeper, nor shop proprietor permit any converse between Jews and Christians. The Jews who offend in this matter shall incur the penalties of a fine of 10 scudi and imprisonment; Christians, a similar fate and corporal punishment.

Petition Dismissed by Rhode Island Court (1762)
Jews and other religious minorities often faced inequality before the law in the American colonies.

The petition of Messrs. Aron Lopez & Isaac Elizar, Persons professing the Jewish Religion, praying that they may be naturalized on an Act of Parliament made in the thirteenth year of his late Majesty's Reign, George the Second, having been duly considered, and also the act of Parliament therein referr'd to; this Court are unanimously of Opinion that the said Act of Parliament was wisely designed for increasing the number of Inhabitants in the plantations, but this Colony being already so full of People that many of his Majesty's good Subjects, born within the same have removed & settled in Nova Scotia & other Places, cannot come within the Intention of the said act. Farther by the Charter granted to this Colony it appears that the free & quiet Enjoyment of the Christian Religion and a Desire of propagating the same were the principal Views with which the Colony was settled, & by a Law made & passed in the year 1663, no Person who does not profess the Christian Religion can be admitted free of this Colony. This Court, therefore, unanimously dismiss the said Petition as absolutely inconsistent with the first principles upon which the Colony was founded & a Law of the same now in full Force.

Chronology of Romanian Laws against Jews (1803-1873)
The Romanian Constitution of 1866 limited Jewish civil rights, stating "only Christians may obtain naturalization." (Article VIII) These laws limited Jewish economic rights and expelled Jews.

1803 Alexander Monize, ruler of Moldavia, forbids Jews to rent farms.

1804 Alexander Monize forbids Jews to buy farm products.

1817 Code Cahmachi forbids Jews of Romania to acquire real property.

1818 Code of John Caradja of Wallachia repeats the ancient church laws against allowing Jews to witness against Christians.

1819 Code of Kallimachor of Moldavia gave civil rights to Jews, who, however, may not own land.

1831 Fundamental law of Moldavia, chapter 3, section 94, orders all Jews and their occupations to be registered; Jews not of proved usefulness are to be expelled.

1839 Tax of 60 plasters per annum placed on Jews of Moldavia.

1850 No Jew allowed to enter Romania unless possessed of 5000 plasters and of known occupation.

1861 Circulation of Romanian ministry preventing Jews from being innkeepers in rural districts.

1864 Jews excluded from being advocates/lawyers.

1868 Jews excluded from medical profession.

1869 Jews not allowed to be tax farmers in rural communes.

1869 Jews prevented from being apothecaries, except where there are no Romanian apothecaries.

1873 Law forbidding Jews to sell spiritual liquors in rural districts.

A Russian Statute Concerning Jews in Rural Areas (1807)
One of many Russian laws that limited Jews' economic options.

Beginning with January 1, 1807, in the Governments of Astrakhan and Caucasia, also in those of Little Russia and new Russia, and, beginning with January 1, 1808, in the other Governments, no one among the Jews in any village or hamlet shall be permitted to hold any leases on land, to keep taverns, saloons, or inns, whether under his own name or under a strange name, or to sell wine in them, or even to live in them under any pretext whatever, except when passing through.

 

Supplement Contents 2

Delineation of the Pale of Settlment (April 1835)
In 1791, Catherine the Great issued a decree barring Jews from certain areas in the Russian Empire. The area in which Jews were allowed to live became known as the Pale of Settlement. Nicholas I officially delineated the Pale of Settlement in April 1835. It was abolished in 1917.

3. A permanent residence is permitted to the Jews; (a) In the provinces: Grodno, Vilna, Volhynia, Podolia, Minsk, Ekaterinoslav. (b) In the districts: Bessarabia, Bialystok.

4. In addition to the provinces and districts listed in the preceding section, a permanent residence is permitted to the Jews, with the following restrictions: (a) in Kiev province, with the exception of the provincial capital, Kiev; (b) in Kherson province, with the exception of the city of Nikolaev; (c) in Tavaria province, with the exception of the city of Sebatopol; (d) in the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces, except in the villages; (e) in Chernigov and Poltava provinces, but not within the government and Cossack villages, where the expulsion of the Jews has already been completed; (f) in Courland province permanent residence is permitted only to those Jews who have been registered until the present date with their families in census lists. Entry for the purpose of settlement is forbidden to Jews from other provinces; (g) in Lithland province, in the city of Riga and the suburb Shlok, with the same restrictions as those applying in Courland province...

11. Jews who have gone abroad without a legal exit-permit are deprived of Russian citizenship and not permitted to return to Russia.

12. Within the general area of settlement and in every place where the Jews are permitted permanent residence, they are allowed not only to move from place to place and to settle in accordance with the general regulations, but also to acquire real estate of all kinds with the exception of inhabited estates, the ownership of which is strictly forbidden to Jews...

23. Every Jew must be registered according to the law in one of the legal estates of the realm. Any Jew not complying with this regulation will be treated as a vagrant.

Motive for Establishing Jewish Schools (1844)
This excerpt from a memorandum accompanied a decree that established Jewish schools in Russia.

The purpose of educating the Jews is to bring about their gradual merging with the Christian nationalities, and to uproot those superstitions and harmful prejudices which are instilled by the teachings of the Talmud.

General Ulysses S. Grant's General Order No. 11
(United States, December 17, 1862)
General Grant blamed the Jews in his department (Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi) for illegal cotton trading during the US Civil War. Only a handful of Jews were involved in the trade, but Grant expelled all Jews from the area under his control.

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within 24 hours from receipt of this order.

Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested.... No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

President Lincoln reversed Grant's order a few weeks later.

The "May Laws" (Russia, May 3, 1882)
A two-year spate of pogroms began in Russia in 1881. Alexander III, following the policy of "isolation and assimilation," enacted the May Laws.

1. As a temporary measure and until the revision of the laws regulating their status, Jews are forbidden to settle hereafter outside of cities and towns. Exception is made with regard to Jewish villages already in existence where the Jews are engaged in agriculture.

2. Until further order all contracts for the mortgaging or renting of real estate situated outside of cities and towns to a Jew, shall be of no effect. Equally void is any power of attorney granted to a Jew for the administration or disposition of property of the above-indicated nature.

3. Jews are forbidden to do business on Sundays and Christian holidays; the laws compelling Christians to close their places of business on those days will be applied to Jewish places of business.

4. The above measures are applicable only in the governments situated within the pale of settlement.

Discrimination in the Russian military (1882)
The Tsarist Minister of War issued the following regulation to decrease the number of Jewish doctors in the military because doctors possessed the rights of army officers, a privilege otherwise unattainable for Jews.

First, to limit the number of Jewish physicians...in the Military Department to five percent of the general number of medical men. Second, to stop appointing Jews on medical service in the military districts of Western Russia, and to transfer the surplus over and above five percent to the Eastern districts.

Third, to appoint Jewish physicians only in those contingents of the army in which the budget calls for at least two physicians, with the proviso that the second physician must be a Christian.

It is necessary to stop the constant growth of the number of physicians of the Mosaic [Jewish] persuasion in the Military Department, in view of their deficient conscientiousness in discharging their duties and their unfavorable influence upon the sanitary service in the army.

Chronology of Antisemitic Laws in Russia (Late 19th C.)
The late nineteenth century brought antisemitic laws to Russia under Alexander III and his successor, Nicholas II.

1882 An order by the Governor-General of St. Petersburg shut down the business of fourteen apothecaries.

1886 A Senatorial decision set forth that no Jew could be elected to a vacancy on the board of an orphan asylum.

1886 A circular of the Minister of Finance and a Senatorial decree introduced rigorous restrictions concerning Jews engaged in the liquor traffic, permitting them to sell liquor only from their own homes and owned property.

1887 A Senatorial resolution stated that Jews who graduated from a university outside Russia do not belong to the privileged class possessing the universal right of residence by virtue of their diplomas, and therefore must not settle outside the Pale of Settlement.

1887 An Imperial sanction prohibited Jews from settling in Finland.

1889 Jews must obtain a special permit from the Minister of Justice to be elected to the Bar.

1891 An order forbade non-Christians from acquiring real estate in the provinces of Akmolinski, Semirietchensk, Uralsk and Turgai.

1892 In accordance with a proposal of the Imperial Council, the mining industry in Turkestan was closed to Jews.

1894 The Minister of the Interior decreed that Jews that have graduated from a veterinary college are no longer to be admitted to the service of the State.

1895 A Senatorial decision asserted that rabbis possess no right of residence beyond the Pale of Settlement.

1895 A circular of the Minister of War instructed the Cossack authorities in the Caucasus and the Don Territory that Jews visiting the Don, Kuban and Terek provinces for the sake of the medicinal waters are to be turned back.

Chronology of Greek Laws against Jews (1880-1922)
The Greek government passed antisemitic laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries aimed at excluding Jews from Greek society.

1880's During this decade Jewish head covering was forbidden for a time.

1913 A weekly market held on Monday was transferred to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, to discourage Jewish participation.

1922 Sunday closing laws were enacted in some communities as a measure of economic protection for non-Jews against Jewish merchants.

1922 through 1923, the mayor of Salonika prohibited Jews from working at the port. They were replaced with Greek refugees who returned to Greece after World War I.

A Twentieth-Century Yemenite Version of the Pact of Umar (1905)
This decree, modeled on the original seventh century Pact of Umar, stipulated the nature of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Muslim lands.

...This is a decree which the Jews must obey as commanded. They are obliged to observe everything in it. They are forbidden to disobey it....That is that these Jews are guaranteed protection upon payment of the jizya by each adult male...In this way their blood is spared, and they are brought in the pact of protection. They may not avoid it. It is incumbent upon each individual to pay it...

...They are not to assist each other against a Muslim. They may not build their houses higher than Muslim homes. They shall not crowd them in their street. They may not turn them away from their watering places. They may not belittle the Islamic religion, nor curse any of the prophets. They shall not mislead a Muslim in matters pertaining to his religion. They may not ride on saddles, but only sit sidesaddle. They may not wink or point to the nakedness of Muslim. They may not display their Torah except in their synagogues. Neither shall they raise their voices when reading, nor blow their shofars loudly. Rather a muffled voice will suffice....It is their duty to recognize the superiority of the Muslim and to accord him honor.

- Sulayman b. Yihya Habshush, Eshkolot Merorot

Paraguay's Immigration Rules (late 1930s)
The government of Paraguay, after allowing some Jews to enter the country–in particular, those who could work in the agricultural sector and those with capital–issued a decree which "forbids entry of Jews, irrespective of nationality, into Paraguay." In 1938, White Russian immigrants provoked anti-Jewish attacks. Seventeen Jews were expelled from the country as "Communists" and Jewish immigration was thwarted.

South African Quota Acts (1930 and 1937)
Fearing an influx of Jewish immigrants, the South African government instituted a quota policy in which immigrants were placed in one of two tiers. Those from some European countries were allowed unfettered immigration, while Jews were limited to extremely small numbers or banned entirely. When fascism arose in Europe in the 1930's, additional Jews sought to immigrate to South Africa, including many from Germany, who would ordinarily be considered immigrants from a more "desirable" country. In 1937, the government therefore amended the 1930 law to allow only those who were considered readily assimilable into South African society to enter, effectively allowing the government to ban Jewish immigrants. The effect of this was that almost all applications for immigration by German Jews fleeing Europe were denied.

1930 The Quota Act severely restricted immigration of Jews to South Africa.

1937 The Aliens Act was enacted, curtailing German Jewish immigration on grounds of "unassailability." Jews were excluded from membership in the National Party, whose 1937 platform urged the complete prohibition of Jewish immigration and the introduction of quotas restricting Jewish participation in economic life.
Report from a Baghdad School (October 3, 1934)
As anti-Jewish agitation increased during the 1930's in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, the Iraqi government passed laws that marginalized Jews. Jewish employees of state industries were dismissed, limitations were placed on the number of Jewish students allowed in secondary and post-secondary schools. In 1935, Zionist activity in Iraq was declared illegal. In 1941, a pogrom in Baghdad resulted in the deaths of 900 Jews. The following report from 1934 prepared by an official at a Jewish school illustrates the beginning of this trend.

I am pained to inform you that for the last few months a movement of hostility against the Jews has been taking shape around us and is becoming more accentuated from day to day It began with the more and more systematic dismissal of Jewish employees from government service. After tens of lower and middle senior employees, the secretary of the Ministry of Public Works and the assistant Director of Posts and Telegraph, both Jews, were dismissed after so many others had been previously sacrificed. These continual dismissals have greatly alarmed our Community, which has met to study the situation and see in what measure it can react. Some have advised a mass protest; others have suggested the need to still remain silent. No solution was adopted and the situation remains unchanged.

Furthermore, in secondary and superior schools, a numerus clausus has been established for Jewish pupils, whose number may not exceed 10 percent of the non-Jewish students, even though the Jewish population of Baghdad (80,000) is one fourth of the total population.

Jewish businessmen would have sent funds to Palestine with the aim of undertaking certain commercial transactions. These transfers of money have encountered diverse opposition and multiple hindrances.

The Jewish newspapers from Palestine and Europe have been placed on the index and their entry into Iraq is forbidden. On the list is The Jewish Chronicle, l'Univers Israelite, and the Paix et Droit. The result of this is that we are ignorant of everything going on in the Jewish world. Japanese Policies and Attitudes (before and during World War II)

 

Japanese Policies and Attitudes (before and during World War II)
In 1937, as Japan’s relationship with Germany grew, Japan adopted antisemitic policies. Three powerful antisemites in the army–Norihuro Yesue, Koreshige Inuzuka and Nobutaka Shioden–wrote and spoke publicly about the Jewish conspiracy to control world markets. In addition, criticism of antisemitism was made punishable by prison. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Jews in Japan were ordered out of larger cities. Synagogues were closed in the city of Harbin. The ghetto in Shanghai, which was controlled by Japan, was home to 17,000 Jewish refugees. Concerns about economic competition led Japan to restrict immigration of refugees.

Racial Laws in Occuied Libya (1939)
The governor of Lybia advised Mussolini to modify Italy’s anti-Jewish laws in Libya; Mussolini rejected the request.

My Leader,

The law for the defense of the race are being applied in Libya. We have made arrangements to dismiss from government service officials who are of the Jewish race, and Jewish pupils have been expelled from secondary schools. Changes have been made in banks’ discount committees and in the managing boards of official and semi-official bodies and municipal councils for the purpose of implementing the provisions of the law.

I have diligently examined the local Jewish problem as a whole. Certain situations and aspects have emerged which deserve much consideration and to which I feel it my duty to call your exalted attention.

In this region the Jewish population has special characteristics both in quality and numbers. It is an important ethnic element, since about one-fifth of the total population of Tripoli is Jewish. The presence in Libya of strong troops of Jews dates back to time immemorial...Even before the Italian occupation the Jews received protection from Italy, set up schools and spread the Italian language. Most of them live in very backward social conditions, and do not take the slightest part in political activities. They are mostly peaceful and timid, craftsman and peddlers keeping to their modest little workshops and stalls, intent only on making a living from their occupation.

In contrast with this vast majority, a few dozen wealthy Jews run almost all local industry and trade, are the banks’ main clients, provide the funds for most of the Muslim business enterprises.

If the Jews stopped participating in the economy before they could be replaced by a group of Catholic merchants and industrialists, there would be economic imbalances in Libya. Looking at the local situation on a general level, I can point out several special cases that could not be readily solved:

Hospitals in Libya treat numerous in-patients of the Jewish race, cared for by Jewish employees. This is essential because they obviously cannot be cared for by Muslims. Medical care for Muslim women giving birth is also provided by Jewish women, since Muslim nurses are lacking. Replacing this staff with metropolitans is both unacceptable and impossible.... Hence, strict application of the measures would mean that Jews would be deprived of hospital services.

Monopoly industries whose main factories are in Tripoli largely use trained Jewish female workers, especially for the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes. These workers may no longer be employed by the governing authorities. It is not possible to find in Libya Italian nationals who are both skilled and willing to accept the same modest wages.

The government and municipals employ Jewish clerks whose conduct is irreproachable. They have been working for a long time as Arabic and Hebrew interpreters; if they were dismissed, they would have to be replaced. Though in time this would be easy for Arabic, it would be impossible for Hebrew, since only those who profess the Jewish religion know it.

In a country like this one, which had always had the virtue, compared with neighboring countries, of allowing Jews and Arabs to live together in full harmony, it would in my opinion be advisable to avoid making the struggle for defense of the race a harsh one. The Jews are already a dead people; there is no mean to oppress them cruelly, especially since the Arabs, the traditional enemies of the Jews now show no signs of feeling sorry for them.

No one can suspect me of weakness, since–as everyone remembers–two years ago I did not hesitate to order the public flogging of Jews, even those of high social standing, who were guilty of adopting an attitude of passive indifference to certain official measures. But I have a duty to portray the situation frankly and as it really is. Accordingly, may I venture to advise you to give the Government of Libya authorization to apply the racial laws " to the extent desirable in view of the very special local situation."

With my sincere respect,
Your faithful servant.

Mussolini replies:

Reply to your letter regarding Libyan Jews. No changes should be made regarding the situations listed....Nonindigenous Jews, that is, those with metropolitan citizenship, should be given the treatment they receive in Italy under the recent laws. I therefore authorize you to apply the racial laws as above, remembering that though the Jews may seem to be dead, they never really are.

Nazi Era Laws (1935-1945)
The following laws demonstrate Nazi measures to cut off the Jew from German society, and throughout Europe and other areas conquered by Germany and the Axis powers. Similar laws were forced upon or appropriated by other countries during World War II. These laws began with loss of citizenship and ended with genocide.

The Reich Citizenship Law (September 15, 1935)

Article II:
(1) A citizen of the Reich is only that subject, who is of German or kindred blood and who, through his conduct, shows that he is both desirous and fit to serve faithfully the German people and Reich.

(2) The right to citizenship is acquired by the granting of Reich citizenship papers.

(3) Only the citizen of the Reich enjoys full political rights in accordance with the provisions of the Laws.

The Fuehrer and Reichs Chancellor Adolf Hitler
The Reichs Minister of the Interior Frick

Law for the Protection of German Blood And German Honor (September 15, 1935)
Thoroughly convinced by the knowledge that the purity of German blood is essential for the further existence of the German people and...by the inflexible will to safeguard the German nation for the entire future. The Reichs Parliament (Reichstag) has resolved upon the following law unanimously which is promulgated herewith:

Section 1. Marriages between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.

Section 2. Relations outside marriage between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.

Section 3. Jews will not be permitted to employ female nationals of German or kindred blood in their household...

Section 4.1. Jews are forbidden to hoist the Reich’s...national flag and to present the colors of the Reich.

Section 4.2. On the other hand they are permitted to present the Jewish colors. The exercise of this authority is protected by the State.

First Regulation to the Reich’s Citizenship Law (Germany, 1935)
Article 2:
(2) An individual of mixed Jewish blood is one who is descended from one or two grandparents who, racially, were full Jews, insofar that he is not a Jew according to Section 2 of Article 5. Full-blooded Jewish grandparents are those who belonged to the Jewish religious community.

Article 4:
(1) A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. He has no right to vote in political affairs, he cannot occupy a public office.
(2) Jewish officials will retire as of 31 December 1935. If these officials served at the front in the World War, either for Germany or her allies, they will receive in full, until they reach the age limit, the pension to which they were entitled according to last received wages; they will, however, not advance in seniority.

Article 5:
(1) A Jew is anyone who descended from at least three grandparents who were racially full Jews.

(2) A Jew is also one who descended from two full Jewish parents, if:

(a) He belonged to the Jewish religious community at the time this law was issued or who joined the community later.
(b) He was married to a Jewish person, at the time the law was issued, or married one subsequently.
(c) He is the offspring from a marriage with a Jew, in the sense of section 1, which was contracted after the Law for the protection of German blood and German honor became effective (RGB1, I, page 1146 of 15 Sept. 1935).
(d) He is the offspring of an extramarital relationship, with a Jew, according to section1, and will be born out of wedlock after July 31, 1936 ...
The Fuehrer and Reichs Chancellor Adolf Hitler
The Reich Minister of the Interior Frick
The Deputy of the Fuehrer R. Hess
Reich Minister without Portfolio

Decree governing the Introduction of the Nuremberg Racial Laws in the Province Of Austria (May 20, 1938)
On the basis of Article II of the Law of March 13, 1938, governing the Reunion of Austria with the German Reich (Reichgesetzblatt I page 237), the following is decreed:

Section 3. The exclusion of Jews from public offices which they occupy at the time this decree goes into effect will be specially regulated.

Fourth Decree Relating to the Reich Citizenship Law (July 25, 1938)
Section 1. Licenses (Bestallungen) of Jewish physicians terminate as of September 30, 1938.

Section 3.
(1) A Jew whose licenses have terminated and to whom a permit in accordance with section 2 has not been granted are forbidden to practice the art of healing.
(2) A Jew who has been granted a permit in accordance with section 2 may, aside from his wife and his children born in wedlock, treat only Jews.

Fifth Decree Governing Reich Citizenship Law (September 27, 1938)

Article I: Elimination of Jews from Corps of Lawyers:

Section 1. The profession of lawyer is closed to Jews. In so far as Jews are still lawyers they are eliminated from the Corps of Lawyers in accordance with the following regulations:
a) In the old Reich territory: The licenses of Jewish lawyers are to be revoked as of November 30, 1938;
b) In the Province of Austria: Jewish lawyers are to be stricken from the list of lawyers at the latest by December 31, 1938, by order of the Reich Minister of Justice.

Decree Concerning the Utilization of JewishProperty (December 3, 1938)

Article I: Business Enterprises:

Section 1. The owner of a Jewish business enterprise (Third Decree of June 14, 1938, under the Reich’s Citizenship Law Reichsgesetzblatt 1938, Part I, page 627) can be ordered to sell or dispose of his business within a fixed period of time. Certain conditions can be applied to this regulation.

Section 2. Par. 1. For Jewish business enterprises whose owners have been compelled, in accordance with Section 1 of this Decree, to sell or to liquidate the business, a Trustee can be appointed for continuing temporarily the business and for effecting the sale or liquidation...Par. 4. The cost of the administration by the Trustee has to be paid by the owner of the business.

Article II: Farming and Forestry Real Estate and Other Property:

Section 6. A Jew can be ordered to sell within a fixed period, in whole or in part, his agricultural or forestry business, his other agricultural or forestry property, his other real property or other parts of his property. Such an order can be made under certain conditions.

Regulations for the Execution of the DecreeConcerning the Utilization of Jewish Property:

Article I:
2 (1) The "Decree concerning the utilization of Jewish property" alters the former legal status, especially in that the elimination of Jews from Jewish concerns, from the ownership of real estate, and from other important property assets, can also be effected by compulsion

Article II: Elimination of Jews from Business Concerns:

Section 7. If in the case of a permit for the desemitization of a business concern conditions are also made regarding the transfer of shares of stock and other securities, a special permit according to Section 12 of the Decree is not necessary.

Article III: Elimination of Jews from the Ownership of Real Estate:

1 (1) Regarding the elimination of Jews from the ownership of real estate, the Decree of December 3, 1938, establishes two important new rules, namely: In section 7 the general prohibition against Jews acquiring real estate, rights similar to real estate and rights in real estate (mortgages, "Grundschulden," etc.); and in Section 8 the obligation upon Jews to apply for a permit to enable them to dispose of their real estate or rights similar to real estate.
9. I [the Minister of Internal Affairs] have expressed in general my approval to the Reich’s Minister of Finance that Jewish real property taken instead of cash as payment of the "Jewish atonement fine" will be transferred to the ownership of the Reich.

Implementation Order No. 1 for the Regulation of October 26, 1939 for the Introduction of Forced Labor for the Jewish Population in the Government-General (German Occupied Poland, December 11, 1939)

Pursuant to S 2 of the Regulation for the introduction of Forced Labor for the Jewish population of October 26, 1939 (Verordnungsbl. G.G.P., p6), I order the following:

1. As from January 1, 1940, it is forbidden for all Jews within the Government-General of the Occupied Polish Territories to move their place of residence or lodging, without the written permission of the local German Administrative Authority, beyond the limits of the community of their place of residence, or to cross the border of this community and to move away after giving up their permanent residence or lodging.

2. All Jews moving into, or transferred into, the Government-General are required to register immediately with the mayor of the locality when they have taken up residence, but no later than 24 hours after entering the Government-General, and to inform the local Judenrat of their presence. The Judenrat will record this information in writing and submit it to the Mayor on the Monday of each week, against written acknowledgment.

3. After having obtained accommodation, all Jews referred to in S 2 must comply with the requirements of S 1.

4. All Jews within the Government-General are forbidden to enter or use pathways, streets and public squares between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. without written authority specifying the times and places, issued by the local German authorities. Orders by local German authorities containing more severe restrictions are not affected by this regulation.

5. The restrictions of S 4 do not apply in cases of public or personal emergency.

6. Jews contravening the regulations under S 1 through 4 will be sent immediately to prolonged hard forced labor. This does not affect punishment provided by other orders.

7. The orders under S 1 through 6 do not apply to Jews who have moved under the provisions permitting them to do so in accordance with the law setting out an "Agreement between the German Reich Government and the Government of the U.S.S.R. concerning the transfer of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population out of the area belonging to the Zone of Interest of the German Reich."

8. The public announcement of these instructions will be carried out by the Mayors according to orders by the sub-district Commander (Kreishauptmann) or the City commander (Stadthauptmann). The Judenraete will be instructed by the Mayors.

9. These orders are effective immediately.

–Higher SS and Police Leader (Hoeherer SS-und Polizeifuehrer) in the Government-General of the Occupied Polish Territories Krueger SS Obergruppenfuehrer

German Regulation for the Use of Railroad by Jews in the Government-General (Poland and surrounding occupied areas, January 26, 1940)
1. The use of the Railroad by Jews is prohibited until further notice.
2. This does not apply to journeys for which there is an order in writing from the Governor General, his office, or of a District Commander.

Policies Concerning Treatment of Jews in the Government-General (April 6, 1940)
In order to preserve uniformity in dealing with all Jewish affairs, it is necessary to reach an understanding concerning the basis on which our future work will be built up.

On taking over the department of Jewish affairs in the Office of the Governor General, I am therefore turning to the advisers in this field and would like to outline briefly the attitude that will be appropriate in confrontation with Jewry. This will at the same time indicate the targets at which we must aim (Basic Working Principles 1-9). These working principles are roughly as follows:

1. Spatial separation between Poles and Jews. In the decision whether a person is a Jew or a non-Jew, the sole essential factors are his racial origins and blood and his acceptance of Judaism (through marriage of a non-Jew with a Jew): not simply membership in a religious community.

2. A full Jew (Volljude) –unlike in the Nuremberg Laws–is a person who has two or more Jewish grandparents or is married to a Jew and does not dissolve this connection.

3. As a matter of principle Jews are to work for Jews; for instance, only Jews are to be used for the building of accommodations for Jews.

4. The Jews are to establish their own social insurance system and are not to pay contributions to non-Jewish insurance schemes, nor make claims on non-Jewish facilities.

5. The property and funds of such Jewish organizations will be under the protection of the German Administration. The same applies to Jewish welfare establishments.

6. It should be considered whether, as a temporary measure, the Polish Red Cross may be used by Jews if Jews had up to now supported and helped this institution.

7. All measures must be directed at the target that later the whole of Jewry will be concentrated in a specific district and in one area of Jewish settlement, as a self-supporting society under the control of the Reich

8. Preparation of a plan for the resettlement of 400,000 Jews who will enter the area of the Government-General after May 1, 1940.

9. Creation of archives on Polish Jews and Jews in general (newspaper reports, regulations, laws, culture, races, health care, etc.)

In addition you are requested to answer the following questions, as far as possible, in accordance with the situation in your district:

– In which districts and which sub-districts do the largest number of Jews live at the present time, and what percentage do they form of the general population in those areas (with maps, if possible)?
– Which areas are the least valuable economically as regards the nature of the soil? How large are they? Where are they situated (map)?
– Which areas are least closely populated, how large are they, how many people live there at the present time? Why are they so sparsely populated? What nationalities live there (numbers!)? To what extent would it be possible to resettle the non-Jewish nationalities? Is the area suited for a purely Jewish colony?
– What property is still in Jewish hands? Where is the Jewish property and of what does it consist? What additional means would have to be supplied for the settlement of the 400,000 Jews who will arrive here after May 1, 1940?
– What proposals can you make for the accommodation of the deportees? What possibilities of work are there for the deportees in the various districts (preferably in public services)? What temporary arrangements–camps, etc. –are still available at the present time?
– What has been done up to now in order to prevent as far as possible the likelihood of infection or disease being passed on to non-Jews? What is the position concerning health and hygiene among the Jews in the area of the Government-General, particularly where living conditions are cramped and close contact between Jews and non-Jews cannot be avoided?

In addition, I request a report on all plans for work and the dispatch of a record of all measures taken up to now by your office in any Jewish affairs.

Dr. Gottong
Head of Department for Jewish Affairs
Government-General

Anti-Jewish laws in Vichy-controlled France (during World War II)

Law of 3 October 1940:

Article I. For the purposes of the present law, a Jew is one who has three grandparents of the Jewish race; or who has two grandparents of that race, if his or her spouse is Jewish.

Article II. The availability and exercise of the following public functions and duties are denied to Jews:
Head of State, member of the government, the Conseil d’Etat, the national council of the Legion of Honor, the Cour de Cassation..., the courts of appeal, courts of first jurisdiction, justices of the peace, etc.

Law of 4 October 1940:
Foreign nationals of the Jewish race may, from the promulgation date of the present law, be interned in special camps by a decision of the prefect of the department of their residence.

A commission charged with the organization and administration of these camps shall be constituted within the Ministry of the Interior.... Foreign nationals of the Jewish race may at any time be assigned a forced residence by the prefect of the department in which they reside.

Ban on Jewish Emigration from the Government-General (November 23, 1940)
Memorandum to District Governors in the Government-General:

In a Decree of October 25, 1940, the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) has informed me of the following:

"Owing to the fact that the emigration of Jews from the Government-General still further considerable reduced the already shrinking opportunities for emigration for Jews from the Altreich, the Ostmark (Austria) and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, contrary to the wish of the Reich Marshal, I request that no such emigration be considered.

"The continued emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe [to the West] spells a continued spiritual regeneration of world Jewry, as it is mainly the Eastern Jews who supply a large proportion of the rabbis, Talmud teachers, etc., owing to their statements. Further, every Orthodox Jew from Eastern Europe spells a valuable addition for these Jewish organizations in the United States in their constant efforts for the spiritual renewal of United States Jewry and its unification. It is United States Jewry in particular, which is endeavoring, with the help of newly immigrated Jews, especially from Eastern Europe, to create a new basis from which it intends to force ahead its struggle, particularly against Germany.

"For these reasons it can be assumed that after a certain number of emigration permits have been issued, creating a precedent for Jews from the Government-General, so to speak, a large part of the entry visas, (which are) mainly for the United States, will in future only be made available for Jews from Eastern Europe."

I fully accept the point of view of the Reich Security Main Office and request that you will not pass on to the office here for decision any more applications by Jews to emigrate. Such applications of course have to be rejected here.

I empower you to reject without further investigation any applications by Jews from the Government-General for permission to emigrate. It is requested that applications to emigrate shall be forwarded here only if they involve Jews holding foreign citizenship. As there is no further question of emigration by Jews from the Government-General as a matter of principle, there is also no need for a Jew to receive a permit to visit the Reich for the purpose of obtaining a visa from a foreign consulate in the German Reich. It is requested that even applications by Jews for the issuing of a permit for the purpose of obtaining a visa from a foreign consulate in the Reich should also be rejected.

(for) Eckhaardt

Bolivia Visa Restriction (1940)

Public concern over Jewish refugees resulted in the Bolivian Secret Police raiding the Jewish community center in La Paz in 1939. Attacks against Jews also appeared in the press at this time. The following decree was posted on the wall of the anteroom of the Bolivian Consulate in Buenos Aires:

Decree of 6 May 1940
Article 1. It is prohibited in general terms for national consuls to provide passports and tourist visas to semitic elements.
Article 2. This regulation is incorporated as a general tourism regulation on 24 November 1939. Made public in the city of La Paz on 6 May 1940. General Enrique Penaranda Alberto Ostria Gutierrex

Antisemitic Legislation in Yugoslavia (1940)

Regulation Concerning the Measures which Relate to the Jews with Respect to the Operation of Business Involving Objects of Human Sustenance

The Royal Government has prescribed the Regulation concerning measures which relate to Jews with respect to the operation of business involving human foodstuffs. The text of this Regulation reads:

Article I:

Commercial businesses which deal in wholesale trade with human foodstuffs, regardless of whether their owners are material or legal persons, are to be submitted to review if the owners of businesses are Jews.

All those businesses are to be considered as businesses of Jews whose owners or co-owners are Jews on the day when this Regulation goes into effect or whose capital in whole or the majority thereof is in the hands of Jews.

Joint stock companies, companies with limited liability, and co-operatives are to be considered Jewish if the management, directors, and confidential clerks of the companies or co-operatives are, in the majority, Jews....

Regulation on the Limitation of Schooling of Persons of Jewish Origin

The Ministerial Council has prescribed the Regulation on the enrollment of persons of Jewish origin as students of universities, higher, middle, normal and other vocational schools.

Article I:

At universities, high schools with the rank of universities, higher, middle, normal, and other vocational schools may be enrolled only a fixed number of pupils of Jewish origin. This number will be determined in such a way that they will be a proportion to the number of other pupils of this school in that ratio in which citizens of Jewish origin are to be found in proportion to the number of other citizens....

Article III:

Foreigners of Jewish origin may not enroll as students at universities or other schools listed in Article 1, paragraph 1 of this regulation....

Heydrich’s Guidelines (Soviet Union, July 2, 1941)
Reich Secret Document
In the following I make known briefly the most important instructions given to me by the Einsatzgruppen and Kommandos of the Security Police and the SD, with the request to take note of them...
4) Executions
All of the following are to be executed:
Officials of the Comintern (together with professional Communist politicians in general); top- and medium-level officials and radical lower-level officials of the Party, Central Committee and district and sub-district committees; people’s Commissars; Jews in Party and State employment, and other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, inciters, etc.) insofar as they are, in any particular case, required or no longer to be required, to supply information on political or economic matters which are of special importance for the further operations of the Security Police, or for the economic reconstruction of the Occupied Territories....

Regulation on the Introduction of Forced Labor of the Jewish Population (August 16, 1941)
Pursuant to Article 8 of the Fuehrer’s edict on the Admininistration of the newly occupied Eastern Territories of July 17, 1941, I order the following:

Article I:
Male and female Jews aged from their completed 14th to completed 60th year, residing in the newly occupied Eastern Territories, are liable for Forced Labor. The Jews will be collected in Forced Labor groups for this purpose.

Article II:
1) Any person evading Forced Labor will be sent to prison with hard labor.
2) In the event of several persons conspiring to avoid Forced Labor, or in other especially grave cases, the death penalty may be imposed.
3) Cases will be judged by the Special Courts. . .
-The Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, signed Rosenberg

Resettlement Order (Government General, July 19, 1942)
I herewith order that the resettlement of the entire Jewish population of the Government-General be carried out and completed by December 31, 1942.

From December 31, 1942, no persons of Jewish origin may remain within the Government-General, unless they are in collection camps in Warsaw, Cracow, Czestochowa, Radom, and Lublin. All other work on which Jewish labor is employed must be finished by that date, or, in the event that this is not possible, it must be transferred to one of the collection camps.

These measures are required with a view to the necessary ethnic division of races and peoples for the New Order in Europe, and also in the interests of the security and cleanliness of the German Reich and its sphere of interest. Every breach of this regulation spells a danger to quiet and order in the entire German sphere of interest, a point of application for the resistance movement and a source of moral and physical pestilence.

For all these reasons a total cleansing is necessary and therefore to be carried out. Cases in which the date set cannot be observed will be reported to me in time, so that I can see to corrective action at an early date. All requests by other offices for changes or permits for exceptions to be made must be presented to me personally.

Heil Hilter!

H. Himmler

Expulsion of Moroccan Jews from European Neighborhoods (August 22, 1941)

Bulletin Officiel du Marco

Article 1. –Moroccan Jewish subjects occupying residential locations, in whatever capacity, in the European sectors of the municipalities, must evacuate the said locations within a month of the date of the publication of the present dahir in the Bulletin Officel, unless they can prove their having taken up residence prior to September 1, 1939....

Article 4. –Moroccan Jews residing in the European sectors of the municipalities prior to September 1, 1939, will evacuate their dwellings within a time period that will be set by executive order of Our Grand Vizier.

Article 6. –Infractions of the dispositions of the dahir and any attempted maneuver to obstruct them will be punished with a fine of 500 to 10,000 francs, in addition to the total amount of the rents. Furthermore the recalcitrant tenant can be expelled by administrative decision.

Governor General of Algeria Informs Chief Rabbi of Algiers of a numerus clausus for Jewish Children in Public Primary Schools (September 30, 1941)

Government General of Algeria, Office for Jewish Questions and Secret Societies
No. 343 QJ
Algiers, 30 September 1941, Monsieur Eisenbeth,
Chief Rabbi of Algiers
62, rue Constantine
Algiers

 

Monsieur Chief Rabbi,

You kindly asked me in your letter of September 21 what decision had been taken concerning the admission of Jewish children to the primary schools.

I have the honor to inform you that as I had informed you during a previous audience, a numerus clausus has been established for primary education, fixing the number in each school at 14 percent of the total student body. This numerus clausus will be applied to all new pupils from the next term.

However, in order to facilitate your organizing elementary Jewish instruction, I have decided not to apply temporarily this numerus clauses for pupils already in school. This postponement, in any case, will be in effect only until this coming December 31.

As of January 1, 1942, the figure of 14 percent will be valid for all Jewish pupils, and the elimination of all children over the figure will be immediately announced.

I can only urge you, therefore, to make the most of this delay for creating the schools that will be needed to receive the children who will find themselves in excess of the abovementioned numerus clausus.

Please accept, M. Chief Rabbi, the assurance of my highest consideration.

The Governor General
(signed:) WEYGAND

Directives by Lohse Concerning the Jews of Ostland, (August 13, 1941)
Ostland was one of the two administrative units of the German civil administration in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, headed by Alfred Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories; the other was Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Ostland included the three Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — as well as western Belorussia and the western Minsk district in Soviet Belorussia.

The Reichskommissar for Ostland
Secret!

Provisional Directives for the treatment of Jews in the area of the Reichskommissariat Ostland...

I.a. For the time being only such Jews who are citizens of the German Reich, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, of the former Republics of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, of the U.S.S.R. or of its component states, or stateless Jews, will be subject to these directives.

I.b. Other Jews of foreign citizenship, Mishlinge, and spouses of Jews who do not wish to share the fate of the Jewish spouses will be denied permission to leave the area of the R.K. Ostland as it is a military area. They are to be kept under surveillance. In addition they may be subjected to the following [measures] among others: Obligation to report daily, a ban on moving [from their place of residence], assignment to a specific dwelling, a ban on leaving the city area, limitations on moving about. If necessary they may be taken into police custody until a further decision is made...

IV. The Generalkommissar in whose areas a civil administration has been introduced will provide immediately for the following...

b) It will be decreed that Jews identify themselves by the wearing of constantly visible yellow six-cornered stars, at least 10cms across, on the left side of the chest and in the center of the back.

c) The following is forbidden to Jews:
1. To move from their locality or change their place of residence without the permission of the Gebietskommissar or Stadtskommissar.
2. The use of sidewalks, public transportation and automobiles.
3. The use of recreational facilities and institutions serving the public (resort areas and bathing facilities, parks and open spaces, playgrounds and athletic fields). 4. To attend theaters or movie houses, libraries or museums.
5. To attend schools of any type.
6. To possess automobiles or radios.
7. [Kosher] slaughtering.

d) Jewish doctors and dentists may treat or advise Jewish patients only. Where ghettos or camps are set up they will be distributed through them for the care of the inmates. Jewish druggists are permitted to practice their profession only in ghettos and camps, according to need. Drugstores previously managed by Jews are to be transferred, under trusteeship, to Aryan druggists.
Jewish veterinarians are forbidden to practice their profession.

e) Jews are forbidden the exercise of the professions and occupations listed below:
1. Attorney-at-law...
2. Banking, money-changing and pawnbroking.
3. Middleman and agents.
4. Trade in real estate.
5. Traveling peddlers.

f) The following is decreed for the handling of Jewish property:
1) General: The property of the Jewish population is to be confiscated and placed in safekeeping...
2) Compulsory Registration: All Jewish property is to be registered.
3) Compulsory Surrender: Jewish property is to be surrendered on special demand. The demand may be made by general proclamation or by order to certain individuals...

V. The following further measures are to be strived for vigorously, with due consideration for local, and particularly economic conditions.
a) The countryside is to be cleansed of Jews.
b) The Jews are to be removed from all trade, and especially from trade in agricultural products and other foodstuffs...
d) As far as possible the Jews are to be concentrated in cities or in sections of large cities, where the population is already predominantly Jewish. There, ghettos are to be established, and the Jews are to be prohibited from leaving these ghettos. In the ghettos the Jews are to receive only as much food as the rest of the population can spare, but not more than is required for their bare subsistence....
e) Jews fit for work will be drafted for forced labor as required....Payment for the work need not be based in performance, but should cover only the bare subsistence of the forced laborers and members of his family not capable of working, taking into account other monies at his disposal....
Distribution:
Reichskommissariat
Higher SS and Police Leader
Generalkommissar: Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Byelorussia.

Anti-Jewish laws in Tunisia during the period of Nazi rule (December 23, 1942)

Proclamation

It is International Jewry that wanted the war and prepared for it.

The inhabitants of the land of Tunisia–French, Italian, and Muslim–have suffered cruelly from the war on account of the aerial bombardment which struck the country in recent days.

Therefore, I have decided to impose an indemnity upon the wealth of the Tunisian Jews in the sum of 20 million francs for aid to the civilian victims of the bombardment. The distribution of the aid will be in the hands of a committee organized under the name of "Committee for Immediate Relief," which will come directly to the assistance of everyone who has personally suffered harm either to his person or his property due to the criminal Anglo-American aerial bombardment of unarmed civilians.

Consequently, all civilian inhabitants of Tunis, whether French, Italian, or Muslim, who have suffered damage because of the Anglo-American aggression, should come forward with a detailed request setting forth the damage incurred to the office of the aforementioned committee in the Center for National Relief in the Palais des Societes

Francaises, Avenue de Paris....
Tunis, December 23, 1942
- The Commander-in-Chief of the Axis Forces,
General von Arnim

Order by Himmler for the Liquidation of the Ghettos of Ostland (June 21, 1943)

Reichsfuehrer SS
Secret

To:
1. The Higher SS and Police Leader (Hoherer SS-und Polizeifuehrer Ostland)
2. Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (Chef des SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamtes)

1) I order that all Jews still remaining in ghettos in Ostland area be collected in concentration camps.
2) I prohibit the withdrawal of Jews from concentration camps for [outside] work from August 1, 1943...
4) Inmates of Jewish ghettos who are not required are to be evacuated to the East.
-signed H. Himmler

Antisemitism in Argentina (1919-1977)
Antisemitic incidents, both governmental and popular, have occurred in Argentina since the beginning of the 20th century when Jews started immigrating there in large numbers. The government-sponsored media at one time was filled with antisemitic references, and religious restrictions hindered Jewish practice, such as a 1943 ban on kosher meat and Jewish publications ordered by Minister Martinez Zuviria, who also authored best-selling antisemitic works. Police and government officials implemented harsh policies toward the Jews, such as the secret police under Gen. José Félix Uriburu in the 1930's. Also, government officials either explicitly or tacitly approved anti-Jewish violence, as in the pogrom of 1919, in which hundreds of Argentine Jews were killed, and the repression and kidnappings of the 1970's and 1980's. In the late 1970's, a talk show host on state-controlled television baited a Jewish guest and challenged his loyalty to Argentina: "If the Jews have been persecuted for 4,000 years, there must be some reason for it, don't you think? Why is it Jews are so greedy? Why are there no poor Jews? What are you first, Argentine or Jew?"

1919 A pogrom known as the Semana Tragica by police forces and rightwing agitators against Jews resulted in approximated 700 deaths, injury and damage to Jewish communal property.

1943 Anti-Jewish laws were enacted, including bans on kosher meat, and Jewish publications were enacted.

The New York Times reported that "alarm and even terror are beginning to spread in the Jewish quarter because for some time all gatherings of Colonel Peron's followers have been a signal for some action against Jews." (November 28, 1945)

1976 The military government issued the "Act for the Process of National Reorganization." The Act vowed "to establish the validity of Christian moral values...to ensure national security by eradicating subversion and the factors that abet it; [and to establish] an international place for Argentina in the Christian and Western world." The repression that resulted from this law targeted a disproportionate number of Jewish victims.

1977 Argentine President Videla stated that "a terrorist is not just someone with a gun or bomb but also someone who spreads ideas that are contrary to Western and Christian civilization."

Purges of Jewish Communal Leaders (Soviet Union 1949-1953)

Hundreds of Jewish activists, leaders and literary figures were arrested, reported missing, or killed. In the following excerpt from Khruschchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev acknowledged that Stalin ordered the death of the prominent Jewish actor, Mikhoels.

More typical was the cruel punishment of Mik-hoels, the greatest actor of the Yiddish theatre, a man of culture. They killed him like beasts. They killed him secretly. Then his murderers were rewarded and their victim was buried with honors. The mind reels at the thought! It was announced the Mikhoels had fallen in front of a truck. Actually, he was thrown in front of a truck....And who did it?

Stalin did it, or at least it was done on his instructions....I've tried to give Stalin his due and to acknowledge his merits, but there was no excuse for what, to my mind, was a major defect in his character–his hostile attitude toward the Jewish people. Stalin diminished the number of Jews in prominent positions in the Soviet hierarchy with a 1942 secret order. From 1937 to 1946, the number of Jews in the Supreme Soviet dropped from 47 (4.1%) to 5 (less than 1%). The number of Jews in the Soviet of Nationalities dropped during the same period from the 11th highest rank to the 26th. By 1961, the percentage of Jews in the Central Committee had dropped to .3% from almost 25 percent 40 years earlier. A quota system obtained in higher education. In 1948, Jews comprised one-third of the department of sciences at the University of Moscow; in 1964, 20 percent; in the late 1970's out of 500 admissions each year, less than five Jews were admitted. The following account of Milovan Djilas, a Yugoslav political leader familiar with Stalin, illustrates the official dimension to these quotas:

...A man of the apparatus of the CC [Central Committee] of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union boasted to me how Zhdanov had cleared all Jews out of the CC apparatus. The Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Army, Antonov, was accidentally discovered to be a Jew. Thus his illustrious career came to an end. The struggle against the ‘rootless' cosmopolitans in the USSR is in fact a concealed form of the struggle against Jewish intellectuals. During the war, antisemitism was more or less openly expressed in the army. There was a great deal of talk in 1948 in Moscow concerning the Hungarian CC (which, as is known, consisted mostly of Jews). Jews had also been allocated the main role in the Moscow trials. There are no more Jews in the public life of the USSR. They are citizens of a lower, the lowest, order. This same policy is now being applied in Eastern Europe against that handful of martyred people who survived Fascist extermination. And this was, is and will be done regardless of whether the Jews are bourgeois or socialist...

The Doctors' Plot and the Campaign Against "Cosmopolitanism," (1952-1953)

An antisemitic propaganda campaign climaxed with the Doctors' Plot and an uprising against "Cosmopolitanism." The following reports are from the State-controlled Soviet press.

Official Announcement of the Doctor's Plot, Pravda (January 13, 1953)

Some time ago, the agencies of state security uncovered a terrorist group of doctors who had made it their aim to cut short the lives of active public figures of the Soviet Union by means of sabotaged medical treatment....

The criminals confessed that they took advantage of Comrade A.A. Zhdanov's ailment by incorrectly diagnosing the illness and concealing an infarct of his myocardium and, by prescribing a regime contra-indicated for this serious ailment, killed Comrade A.A. Zhdanov. Investigation established that the criminals likewise cut short the life of Comrade A.S. Shcherbakov by incorrectly employing strong drugs in his treatment, treatment which was fatal to him, bringing about his death.

The criminal doctors sought, above all, to undermine the health of leading Soviet military personnel, to put them out of action and to thereby weaken the defense of the country....

...It has been established that all these homicidal doctors, who had become monsters in human form, tramping the sacred banner of science and desecrating the honor of scientists, were enrolled by foreign intelligence services as hired agents.

Most of the participants in the terrorist group (M.S. Vovsi, B.B. Kogan, A.I. Feldman, A.M. Grinshtein, Ya. G. Etinger and others) were connected with the international Jewish bourgeois nationalists organization, ‘Joint', established by American intelligence for the alleged purpose of providing material aid to Jews in other countries...

Article on Cosmopolitanism and the "Doctors Plot" Trud (February 18, 1953)

Cosmopolitanism is not just a hostile ideology. Cosmopolitanism is the savage struggle of the doomed classes against new social forces, against everything progressive....

It is not pure chance that the cosmopolitans and hardened bourgeois nationalists are given the most foul and filthy tasks by the instigators of war, including murder, espionage, sabotage, wrecking, even the assassination of the best representatives of the Russian nation. New evidence of this is the unmasking, by the organs of State security of the USSR, of a terrorist group of doctor-poisoners, enemies of the people, whose aim was to shorten the lives of active figures of the USSR.

Most members of the group–Vovsi, Kogan, Feldman, Grinshtein, Etinger and others–were linked with international Jewish bourgeois nationalist ‘Joint' organization created by the American intelligence service allegedly to give practical help to the Jews in other countries.

Within a month of Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, an announcement in Pravda acknowledged that the group of doctors had been arrested falsely and had been freed.

Measures Against Synagogues in Ukraine (1959)
The drive to destroy Jewish culture in the Soviet Union included the closure of synagogues and Hebrew schools. In 1926, there were 1,103 synagogues in the Soviet Union; by 1972, there were only 58. The following article is from the New York Times.

United Nations, NY June 18, 1959: The synagogue in a Ukrainian city was reliably reported today to have been closed by Soviet authorities last month in the Kremlin's campaign against the practice of the Jewish religion.

According to these reports all the Torahs (Books of Scripture) in the synagogue, situated in Chernigov, were confiscated. A delegation of Jews set out to seek the intervention of Dr. Yehudah Levin, rabbi of the Moscow congregation.

This followed the arrest last fall of a number of Jews in Chernovtsy, also in the Ukraine, including synagogue officials, on the charge that they had participated in ‘Zionist propaganda'. This was based on the fact that during the Passover celebration they participated in the traditional toast to ‘Next year in Jerusalem.'

So far as can be determined, the measures against the practice of the Jewish religion are inspired primarily by the Kremlin's belief that Soviet Jews are under the sway of ‘bourgeois Jewish nationalism', and thus are bound together. In other words, the campaign may be inspired by political motives rather than by the desire to crush the Jewish religion....

In Minsk, Belorussia, eight Jewish students were arrested and jailed last December for ‘having organized a Zionist cell'. A number of Jews in Kishinev, capital of the Moldavian Republic, were arrested for having violated a government decree and making mazot (unleavened bread) at a recent celebration of the Passover.

Resolution adopted at the World Islamic Congress on "Jews in Arab countries" (Sept. 22, 1967)
Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the World Islamic Congress met in Jordan and adopted a resolution stating that Jews in Arab lands should be classified as "aggressive combatants."

The congress is certain that the Jewish communities living in Islamic countries do not appreciate the Moslems' good treatment and protection over the centuries. They have encouraged world Zionism and the State of Israel to commit aggression against the peaceful Arabs, usurp their homelands, and violate the Islamic holy places of Palestine. The Congress declares that the Jews residing in Arab countries who contact the Zionist circles of the State of Israel do not deserve the protection and care which Islam provides for the free non-Moslem subjects living in Islamic countries. Moslem Islamic Governments should treat them as aggressive combatants. Similarly, the Islamic peoples, individually and collectively, should boycott them and treat them as deadly enemies.

The Government of Iraq Law No. 10 (Feb. 14, 1968)
This law was enacted shortly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Article I
Paragraph (6) of Article VII of Law No. 12 of 1951 as amended shall be cancelled and substituted by the following:

1. When this Law comes into force the Land Registration Departments, Waqf authorities and Notaries Public shall abstain from carrying out any transaction of sale of immovable properties belonging to the Jew, and abstain from carrying out on such properties any transactions which involves the transfer, donation, mortgage, liquidation, of joint ownership, selling by execution, making a lien as a security against a debt, bequest, rental for more than one year, causing an attachment or obligation. Also abstain from making any disposition of transaction which would result in such properties being transferred from the Jew's ownership even if the transaction is based on an irrevocable power of attorney...

Article II
(a) If the Minister of the Interior issues the necessary permit in accordance with any of the paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 of this Article, he may decide that the amounts due to the Jew be deposited in one of the banks. Each time, these amounts shall not be disbursed without the approval of the Minister or anyone who is authorized by him.

(b) The provisions of paragraph (a) above shall apply to all other transactions and dispositions which would result in sums being payable to a Jew as a consideration, excluding salaries and wages which do not exceed 100 Iraqi dinars per month. The official and semi-official departments, companies and establishments should not pay the amounts due to any Jew in respect of such transactions or dispositions, but inform the Minister of the Interior thereof.

Written in Baghdad on the 16th of Thi-l-qiada 1387, 14th of February 1968.
Ministers, Prime Minister, President of the Republic

Law of expropriation of Jewish property, Revolutionary Command Council of Libya (July 21, 1970)
Libya passed laws to recover money supposedly stolen by former Italian colonists, to which was appended an additional law claiming the property of Libyan Jews (called "Israelis").

In the Name of the People
The Revolutionary Command Council

In view of the constitutional notice dated 2 Shawal 1389, corresponding to December 11, 1969, and law no. 6 of 1961 making the assets of certain Israelis subject to sequestration...

Article 1. The funds and properties of the persons subject to the sequestration provided for law no. 6, of 1961 and law no. 57 of 1970 and whose names are listed in the attachment shall be restituted to the state....

The Revolutionary Command Council: /s/ Qadhdhafi, Mch. Magareif, Abdussalam Gallud, Moh. Gedei, Dr. Giuna Scriha, Moh. Rabihi. Promulgated on 18 Gemadi 1390, corresponding to July 31, 1970

Denial of Teaching of Hebrew in the Soviet Union (1971-1972)
The following correspondence between members of the Jewish community and Soviet authorities, as well as and articles in Soviet press, demonstrate that Soviet authorities forbade the teaching of Hebrew.

December 14, 1971:
To your letter in the matter of engaging in private teaching practice (teaching of the Hebrew language), the Moscow Municipal Finance Department informs you that the teaching of one or another language on the territory of the USSR is provided for by the study program which is established by the Ministry of Education of the USSR.

The teaching of the Hebrew language is not provided for by this program. In connection with this, engagement in private practice for teaching of this language is inadmissible. For permission for the right to teach the above-mentioned language, you should apply to the Ministry of Education of the USSR.
Dep. Head of the MOSGORF INUPRAVLENIA
signature Soboleva
Dep. Head of State Income Section
signature Loginov

January 7, 1972:
To the Minister of Cultural Furtseva E.A.
To the Director of the Office for the Export and Import of Books, "KNIGOEKSPORT"
To the Director of the Central Agency "SOYUZPECHAT" for foreign publications
From: Roginsky Vladmir Isaakovich
Moscow, 117415, Lobachevsky St, 48/87, apt. 16

I am a Jew and I have the natural desire to read books, magazines and newspapers in my national language–Hebrew. I would like to have a home library of literature in Hebrew, just as in every Russian family there is a home library of Russian literature.

In connection with this I beg you to inform me:
Where and how can I buy books in Hebrew?
Where and how can I subscribe or regularly purchase magazines and newspapers in Hebrew?
-Signature

January 14, 1972:
USSR Ministry of Communication
Central Agency "SOYUZPECHAT" for foreign publications
Moscow 1-11-, Bezbozhny Per. 19, block 16,
To: Com. Roginsky V.I.,

Dear Com. Roginsky,

"Soyuzpechat" does not receive foreign literature in the Hebrew language.

Deputy Director of the Agency
(Mitkevich E.) Signature
Moscow Municipal Council of the Workers'
Deputies
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MOSCOW MUNIPAL FINANCE COMMITTEE
103031 Moscow, Kuznetsky Bridge 16,
Tel. 228-45-24

June 12, 1972:
To your letter, sent by the Procurator's Office of the Cheremushkins Region concerning the Income received by you from giving private lessons to citizens in the Hebrew language and concerning registering you in connection with this as a payer of income tax, the Moscow Municipal Finance Administration informs you of the following: as it is known in our country Hebrew is not taught in government higher and intermediate institutes of learning or in general–education schools and, for this reason, has no state significance.

In addition you do not have the profession of a teacher of the abovementioned language and the legislation permits only teaching practice. Under these conditions the Cheremushkinsk Regional Finance Section cannot register you for payment of income tax.

Dep. Head of Administration, (P.P. Stefansky)
Dep. Head of State Income Section,(A.B. Loginov)

Reactions to Hebrew Teaching in the Soviet Press Izvestia December 24, 1976:

The Soviet public cannot accept that the Jewish nationalists want to use the Hebrew study groups for the propaganda of Zionist ideology, for the cultivation of the spirit of national exclusivity and of open racism.

Literaturnaya Gazeta February 8, 1978:

The [Hebrew] language, exhumed from Talmudic texts, has not yet become an effective instrument of literary and scientific creativity.

Policies and Statements of Prime Minister of Malaysia
Mohammed Mahahtir routinely has made antisemitic statements calling Jews "hooked-nose" speculators who "understand money instinctively." These attacks have been made even though no more than a few dozen Jews live in Malaysia.

1984 A visiting orchestra was banned because it was scheduled to play the music of Jewish composer Ernst Bloch.

1986 Mahatir informed the Non-Aligned Summit Conference in Zimbabwe that "the expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land 2000 years ago and the Nazi oppression of the Jews have taught them nothing. If at all, it has transformed the Jews into the monsters that they condemn so roundly in their propaganda material. They have been apt pupils of the late Dr. Goebbels...And incidentally we are Muslims, and the Jews are not happy to see the Muslims progress. The Jews robbed the Palestinians of everything, but in Malaysia they could not do so, hence they do this, depress the ringgit."

Bombing of Argentina Jewish Communal Building (1994)
In 1994, a bomb attack against the AMIA building, the Argentine Jewish community's central body, killed 85 people. (A previous terrorist attack in 1992 killed 29 at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.) Investigations into the bombing of the AMIA building have revealed likely complicity and involvement of local police officers. Among the arrested was the head of the provincial police force's grand auto theft division and a close advisor to the provincial police chief. Buenos Aires police also have been accused of Jewish cemetery desecration and an attempted bombing. Responding to the lack of progress of the investigation, the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1997 urged Argentina "to take all measures within its power to expedite the ongoing proceedings in connection with the 1992 and 1994 antisemitic attacks." The trial of the police officers is scheduled to begin in September 2001.

Blood Libel "Documentary" in Belarus (1997)
The "blood libel" accuses Jews of murdering Christians for ritual purposes. It has lasted from medieval times to the present day. State television of Belarus broadcast a "documentary" that included a 17th century "blood libel" story. The airing of the film coincided with the celebration of the saint's day of the Belarussian Orthodox Church, to which the majority of the population belongs.

Textbooks in Slovakia (April 1997) |
The Slovak Ministry of Education distributed to teachers 90,000 copies of The History of Slovakia and Slovaks, which minimizes Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. The book also claims that Jews were well treated in the concentration camps and that they fared better than the average Slovak during the war. In a section of another textbook, Literature for Grade 5, students are taught a version of the story of Jesus that has been repudiated by the Catholic Church:

By [Jesus's] teaching, he upset the Jewish religious officials, who asked the Roman prosecutor Pontius Pilate to sentence Jesus to death. However, Pilate found him innocent and wanted to release him. The crowd requested his death yet and thus had him crucified.

Palestinian Authority Television (October 13, 2000)
The following excerpt is from a sermon by Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, member of the Palestinian Authority Fatwa Council. It was broadcast over official Palestinian Authority Television.

Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them–and those who stand by them–they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims–because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization–and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearheads....

Political Discrimination in Yemen (February 2001)
Yemen officials recently blocked a Jew from running for political office, according to a report from Agence France Presse, reported below in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Jerusalem (JTA) Officials in Yemen rejected the candidacy of a Jewish man who wanted to run in the nation's Feb. 20 official elections, according to Agence France Press.

Yemen's election committee "rejected Ezer Ibrahim's application because he is a Jew, and municipal law stipulates that election candidates should be Muslims," a committee official told the French news agency.

Had his candidacy been upheld, he would have been the first Jew to run for political office in Yemen. Some 600 Jews live in that country.

Excerpts from Government Sponsored Newspaper, Al-Akhbar, in Egypt (2001)
Egypt's government-sponsored Al-Akhbar newspaper often prints articles and cartoons that denigrate Jews and trivialize the Holocaust. Examples follow:

The American Secretary of State did not hesitate to demonstrate humiliation and submission when he recently visited Israel; he stood humble, a Jewish yarmulke on his head, in front of the memorial of the false Holocaust of the Jews in WWII.... Certainly this cursed yarmulke causes whoever wears it to lose his righteousness, to forget justice, and to free himself of any wisdom or logic. February 27, 2001

...for the second time, thanks to Hitler, of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of this earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge was not enough. (April 25, 2001)

Speech of Syrian President Welcoming Pope John Paul II (May 2001)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made the following statements at a ceremony welcoming Pope John Paul II to Syria on May 5, 2001

...there are those who persist in keeping mankind on the path of the agony and torture [suffered by Jesus] . . . We witness [Israelis] murdering the principle of equality by claiming that God singled them out and desecrating the holy places of Islam and Christianity in Palestine. . . They are trying to damage and destroy all the principles of the monotheistic religions with the same mentality that led them to betray and torture Jesus and with the same mentality that led them to kill the prophet Muhammad.

The Syrian Minister of Defense on May 5, 2001 stated on LBC television that "if every Arab killed a Jew, no Jews would remain."

Conclusion

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan remarked in April 2000 that the World Conference Against Racism "must shine a spotlight on injustice wherever it lurks," including on the subject of antisemitism. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson expressed the same sentiment: "We cannot educate properly or plan effective strategies to combat the evils of racism, including antisemitism and xenophobia - still such potent forces in all societies - unless we learn lessons from the past."143
High Commissioner Robinson has promised "to make it a conference of actions not just words." These actions must be taken on the national level. World conferences are successful when they inspire member states to incorporate into their own legal systems the types of laws that not only reflect the lofty goals articulated in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also give effect to those goals so that they amount to more than mere words. Despite the acknowledgment at the international level that antisemitism is a form of prohibited intolerance, societies throughout history have inadequately addressed the means to eliminate antisemitism in their own lands.

The legacy of antisemitism, and antisemitic laws and actions, is complex and is manifested in diverse ways. The persistence and even resurgence of antisemitic actions, as described in this paper, is recognized by human rights experts and expert bodies. The persistence of antisemitism is also affirmed in the concluding comments of the various official expert and regional preparatory meetings held in preparation for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. These documents underscore the urgency of addressing the subject of antisemitism in the concluding declaration and program of action of the Durban World Conference.

In the United Nations, humankind has created an instrument to foster equal respect for all people, regardless of race, religion, or other status. The Durban World Conference offers the family of nations a means to fulfill this goal. The human rights instruments of the United Nations call for all forms of racism, discrimination, and xenophobia to be vigorously opposed.

The participants at the Durban World Conference should focus attention on ways to eradicate antisemitism, which too often has been used as a pretext for other forms of racism and intolerance. To combat the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, the participants in the World Conference should meet the challenge of Secretary-General Annan, who, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, called upon the member states "to denounce antisemitism in all of its manifestations."144 In the struggle to safeguard international human rights, peace, and security for all, the family of nations must answer the Secretary-General's charge, at all times and in all places, and for all people.

Submitted by:
Anthony Julius
Robert S. Rifkind
Jeffrey Weill
Felice D. Gaer

For the Jacob Blaustein Institute
for the Advancement of Human Rights

August 2001

 

Endnotes

1 UN press release SC/SM7345, April 3, 2000.
2 Charter of the United Nations (hereafter UN Charter), preamble.
3 UN Charter, Article 1:3.
4 American Jewish Year Book 2000, Vol. 100, (New York: The American Jewish Committee 2000)
5 The Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures is commonly referred to by Christians as the "Old Testament." The Christian Bible is commonly called by Christians the "New Testament."
6 Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), p. xv. 7 AS/Inf (2000) 4:31 March 2000.
8 As the UN Probes Prejudice: Observations on the United Nations Inquiry into Antisemitism and Other Forms of Religious and Racial Prejudice, (New York: The American Jewish Committee Institute of Human Relations, 1960), p. 15.
9 William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism, (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Publishers, 1995).
10 Both quoted in Hallo, et al., Heritage: Civilization and the Jews Source Reader, (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1984), pp. 76-79.
11 Origen.
12 St. Augustine.
13 See Supplement, S-6. Capitation Tax at Segovia (1304).
14 As the UN Probes Prejudice, p. 16.
15 See Jewish Virtual Library, us-israel.org/jsource/loc/Talmud.html.
16 Papal Bull of Pope Benedict XIII, 1415. See E.H. Lindo, The History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman, 1848), p. 123.
17 library.utoronto.ca/crrs/Pub/censures_of_sigonio/2.10.Cano-Sisto-Salm.html
18 See Supplement, S-2: Europe/Visigothic Code (Spain 596-611)/Title III.
19 See Supplement, S-8: Edict of Expulsion from Spain.
20 S.M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until the Present Day, Vol. 2, (New York: KTAV, New York, 1975), p. 14.
21 Khalid Duran, Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews, (New York: The Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding of the American Jewish Committee, New York, 2001), p. 112.
22 Surah V:82, quoted in Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York: Dorset Press) p. 104.
23 Steven Bayme, Understanding Jewish History: Texts and Commentaries, (New York: KTAV, 1997), p. 130.
24 Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 152.
25 Ibid. at 85.
26 Surah CIX:4-6, quoted in Pickthall, p. 452.
27 See Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews, Columbia University Press, New York, and The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1968.
28 Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary (1764), excerpted in Richard S. Levy, Antisemitism in the Modern World: An Anthology of Texts (Lexington, Massachusetts: DC Heath & Company, 1991) p. 41.
29 See, for example, J. Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, Stalin's Secret Pogrom, Yale University Press, 2001.
30 See Supplement, S-1: Theodosian Code/Law of Theodosius II.
31 See Supplement, S-5: Introduction of the Jewish-Badge in England (1217).
32 See Supplement, S-5: German Laws.
33 See Supplement, S-10: Yellow Badge Laws (16 C.).
34 See, for instance, Supplement, S-16: Regulations for the Execution of the Decree Concerning the Utilization of Jewish Property (1939).
35 See Supplement, S-11: Delineation of the Pale of Settlement (April 1835).
36 Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), p. 529. Also see Heskel M. Haddad, Jews of Arab and Islamic Countries: History, Problems, Solutions, (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1984), pp. 32-34.
37 Bayme, p. 312.
38 Bayme, p. 134.
39 As the UN Probes Prejudice, p. 16.
40 Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. II, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1893, 1939) fn. 463.
41 See Supplement, S-4: Charlemagne's "Capitulary for the Jews" (814).
42 See Supplement, S-7: Laws of King John I, 1412.
43 See Supplement, S-11: Chronology of Romanian Laws against Jews (1803-1873).
44 See Supplement, S-12: The May Laws (May 3, 1882).
45 See Supplement, S-12: Chronology of Antisemitic Laws in Russia in the Late Nineteenth Century.
46 See As the UN Probes Prejudice, p. 16.
47 See Supplement, S-6: Laws Enacted at Paris (August 18, 1306).
48 See Supplement, S-5: Las Siete Partidas/The Seven-Part Code (Castile, thirteenth C.).
49 University of Kansas on-line archives: ukans.edu/~medieval/melcher/matthias/old/log.started940506/mail-49.html
50 See Supplement, S-8: Edict of Expulsion from Spain (1492).
51 See Supplement, S-16: Fifth Decree Governing Reich Citizenship Law (September 27, 1938).
52 See Supplement, S-16: Decree Concerning the Utilization of Jewish Property (December 3, 1938).
53 See Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, (New York: HarperCollins, 1987) p.224; also see Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 (New York: Bantam Books, 1975) p. 64.
54 See Supplement, S-15: Reich Citizenship Law (1935).
55 Euroconf (2000) 7 final, para. 4.
56 E/CN.4/2001/21 (Report of the Special Rapporteur on Racial Discrimination).
57 Ibid., para. 37, quoting Declaration of Concern and Intent, AS/Inf (2000) 4.
58 WCR/RCONF/SANT/2000/L.1/Rev.4, paragraph 46.
59 Jewish Chronicle, January 17, 1997.
60 CERD/C/304/Add.39.
61 Report on Antisemitism in Argentina: 1998, DAIA, Argentinian Jewish Community Centers Association, June 2000. pp. 20-30.
62 JTA Daily News Bulletin, August 4, 1997.
63 E/CN.4/1998/79, January 14, 1998.
64 The Jerusalem Post, April 13, 1997.
65 AS/Inf (2000) 4 31 March 2000.
66 EKR, Federal Commission Against Racism, Antisemitism in Switzerland (2000).
67 Al-Arabi, October 22, 2000.
68 See Supplement, S-26, Excerpts from Government Sponsored Newspaper (2001).
69 Antisemitism World Report 1996, Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee, p. 273.
70 Gordon Alport, The Nature of Prejudice, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954.
71 Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, fsumonitor.com/stories/111700rnws2.shtml
72 Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, fsumonitor.com/stories/033001Russia.shtml
73 "Antisemitism in the World Today," Institute of Jewish Policy Research, axt.org.uk.
74 IbIbid.
75 Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, fsumonitor.com/stories/032801Russ2.shtml.
76 The Middle East Media & Research Institute, Special Dispatch 138, memri.org/sd/SP138.htmil, October 14, 2000.
77 MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 150, memri.org/sd/SP15000.html, November 6, 2000.
78 Antisemitism World Report 1996, Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee, p. 282.
79 Antisemitism World Report 1997, Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee, p. 56.
80 Antisemitism Worldwide, 1999-2000, United Kingdom, The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University.
81 CERD/C/58/Misc. 21/Rev. 4.
82 Toby Axelrod, "Current Trends in Rightwing Extremism in Germany," p. 2 (American Jewish Committee, Lawrence and Lee Ramer Center for German-Jewish Relations, April 4, 2001).
83 Ibid. at 3.
84 Ibid.
85 "Audit of Antisemitic Incidents," Anti-Defamation League, 2001.
86 See UNGA resolution 46/86.
87 Press Release SG/SM/6504/Rev. 1 25 March 1998.
88 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, A Dangerous Place, (New York: Little Brown & Co., 1978) p. 193.
89 "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," Saturday Review, XLVII, August 1967.
90 Moynihan, p. 191.
91 Judith H. Banki, "The UN's Anti-Zionism Resolution: Christian Responses," American Jewish Committee, Oct. 1976. p. 2.
92 President George Bush, Address to UN General Assembly, September 23, 1991.
93 Final Statement, Meeting sponsored by "Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan and the Bureau of the UN High Commission for Human Rights," under patronage of Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, February 5-8, 2001. See also Na'eem Jeenah, Mail & Guardian, Zionism is a Theory of Ethnic Cleansing and Racism, August 17, 2001.
94 See, for example, New York v. The Ocean Club, 602 F.Supp. 489 (1984).
95 As the UN Probes Prejudice, p. 15.
96 See Supplement, S-25: Policies and Statements of Prime Minister of Malaysia.
97 EUROCONF (2000) 7 final, para. 29.
98 OSCE Final Document, Lisbon 1992
99 Anthony Julius, T.S. Eliot Antisemitism and Literary Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 108, fn. 148.
100 UN Charter, Article 1(3).
101 UN Charter, Article 12(1)(b).
102 UN Charter, Article 55(c).
103 Felice Gaer, "Freedom of Religion or Belief," USIA Electronic Journal, October 1998. See also, American Jewish Yearbook, 1946-1947, Vol. 48 (Philadelphia, The American Jewish Publication Society, 1947), p. 426-428; N. Robinson, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights," New York, World Jewish Congress, 1958.
104 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 1, Article 2.
105 UDHR, Preamble.
106 UDHR, Article 3.
107 UDHR, Article 7.
108 UDHR, Article 18.
109 UDHR, Article 30.
110 Rene Cassin, "The Fight for Human Rights," on udhr50.org/history
111 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 2(1).
112 See ICCPR, Article 14(1) and Article 16.
113 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.4, 7 February 2000, 113.
114 Ibid.
115 ICCPR, Article 26.
116 ICCPR, Article 27.
117 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.4, 7 February 2000, 116.
118 Ibid. at 117.
119 UN Doc. E/CN.4/SR.897.
120 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (hereafter ICERD), Article 1(1).
121 E/CN.4/804.
122 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 3.
123 EUROCONF (2000) 1 final.
124 Ibid.
125 EUROCONF (2000) 7 final, Context.
126 EUROCONF (2000) 7, para. 22.
127 EUROCONF (2000) 7, para. 28.
128 EUROCONF (2000) 7, para. 29.
129 WCR/RCONF/SANT/2000/L.1/Rev.4, 20 December 2000, para. 46.
130 WCR/RCONF/SANT/2000/L.1/Rev.4, 20 December 2000, para.151.
131 A.CONF. 189/pc.2/2, 14 August 2000, para. 3.
132 A.CONF. 189/pc.2/2, 14 August 2000, para. 46.
133 A.CONF. 189/pc.2/2, 14 August 2000, para. 5.
134 unhchr.ch, Experts Meeting for Latin America and the Carribean, Final Document.
135 CHR Res. 1994/64. Par. 4.
136 A/49/677, Report to the General Assembly, para. 144.
137 E/CN.4/2001/21, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Racial Discrimination, para. 158.
138 Report to the Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/1998/79, para. 134.
139 A/CONF.189/PC.1/7, para. 55.
140 A/CONF.189/PC.1/7, para. 8.
141 A/CONF.189/PC.1/7, para. 29.
142 A/CONF.189/PC.1/7.
143 April 3, 2000, UN press release SC/SM7345.
144 UN Press Release SG/SM/6504, March 25, 1998.

 

Supplement Table of Contents

Theodosian Code(completed 438 under Emperor Theodosius II)

Laws of Constantine the Great, October 18, 315:
Laws of Constantius, August 13, 339:
A law of Theodosius II, January 31, 438:

Emperor Justinian's Novella 146 (553)
Justinian Code(completed 565 under Emperor Justinian I)

A Law of Justinian:

Visigothic Code (Spain, 586-711)
Councils of Toledo III-XVII (Spain, 589-694)

Toledo VI (638)
Toledo XII (681)
Pact of Umar (7th C.)
The Jews of Angevin England (7th to 13th C.)

The Laws of the Church about the Jews (7th C.)
Corpus Juris Canonici. Decretal V. vi (1198)
A General Release except for Jews. Faedera (1204)

Charlemagne's "Capitulary for the Jews" (814)
Obadiah the Proselyte on the treatment of the Jews of Baghdad under Al-Muqtadi (Iraq, 11th C.)
Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
Introduction of the Jew-Badge in England by King Henry III (Oxford, March 30th, 1217)
Orders of Confiscation (France, 1246)
German Laws (13th C.)

Provincial Council of Breslau (1267)
Schwabenspiegel

Las Siete Partidas / "The Seven-Part Code" (Castile, 13th C.)
Capitation Tax at Segovia (August 29, 1304)
Laws Enacted at Paris (August 18, 1306)
Provincial Council of Zamora (Spain, 1313)
Ecclesiastical Law (Germany, 15th C.)
Laws of King John I (Spain, 1412)
Papal Bull of Pope Benedict XIII (Spain, 1415)
Regulation of King John II (Spain,1481)
Edict of Expulsion from Spain (1492)
Yellow Badge Laws (16th C.)
Religious Restrictions in Yemen (17th C)
Edict against the Jews (Rome, 18th C)
Chronology of Romanian Laws against Jews (1803-1873)
A Russian Statute Concerning Jews in Rural Areas (1807)
Delineation of the Pale of Settlment (April 1835)
Motive for Establishing Jewish Schools (1844)
General Ulysses S. Grant's General Order No. 11 (United States, December 17, 1862)
The "May Laws" (Russia, May 3, 1882)
Discrimination in the Russian military (1882)
Chronology of Antisemitic Laws in Russia (Late 19th C.)
Chronology of Greek Laws against Jews (1880-1922)
A Twentieth-Century Yemenite Version of the Pact of Umar (1905)
Paraguay's Immigration Rules (late 1930s)
South African Quota Acts (1930 and 1937)
Report from a Baghdad School (October 3, 1934)
Japanese Policies and Attitudes (before and during World War II)
Racial Laws in Occuied Libya (1939)
Nazi Era Laws (1935-1945)

The Reich Citizenship Law (September 15, 1935)
Law for the Protection of German Blood And German Honor (September 15, 1935)
First Regulation to the Reich's Citizenship Law (Germany, 1935)
Fourth Decree Relating to the Reich Citizenship Law (July 25, 1938)
Fifth Decree Governing Reich Citizenship Law (September 27, 1938)
Decree Concerning the Utilization of JewishProperty (December 3, 1938)
Regulations for the Execution of the DecreeConcerning the Utilization of Jewish Property:
Implementation Order No. 1 for the Regulation of October 26, 1939 for the Introduction of Forced Labor for the Jewish Population in the Government-General (German Occupied Poland, December 11, 1939)
German Regulation for the Use of Railroad by Jews in the Government-General (Poland and surrounding occupied areas, January 26, 1940)
Policies Concerning Treatment of Jews in the Government-General (April 6, 1940)
Anti-Jewish laws in Vichy-controlled France (during World War II)
Ban on Jewish Emigration from the Government-General (November 23, 1940)
Memorandum to District Governors in the Government-General: Bolivia Visa Restriction (1940)
Antisemitic Legislation in Yugoslavia (1940)
Regulation on the Limitation of Schooling of Persons of Jewish Origin
Heydrich's Guidelines (Soviet Union, July 2, 1941)
Regulation on the Introduction of Forced Labor of the Jewish Population (August 16, 1941)
Resettlement Order (Government General, July 19, 1942)
Expulsion of Moroccan Jews from European Neighborhoods (August 22, 1941)
Governor General of Algeria Informs Chief Rabbi of Algiers of a numerus clausus for Jewish Children in Public Primary Schools (September 30, 1941)
Directives by Lohse Concerning the Jews of Ostland, (August 13, 1941)
Anti-Jewish laws in Tunisia during the period of Nazi rule (December 23, 1942)
Order by Himmler for the Liquidation of the Ghettos of Ostland (June 21, 1943)

Antisemitism in Argentina (1919-1977)
Purges of Jewish Communal Leaders (Soviet Union 1949-1953)
The Doctors' Plot and the Campaign Against "Cosmopolitanism," (1952-1953)

Official Announcement of the Doctor's Plot, Pravda (January 13, 1953)
Article on Cosmopolitanism and the "Doctors Plot" Trud (February 18, 1953)

Measures Against Synagogues in Ukraine (1959)
Resolution adopted at the World Islamic Congress on "Jews in Arab countries" (Sept. 22, 1967)
The Government of Iraq Law No. 10 (Feb. 14, 1968)
Law of expropriation of Jewish property, Revolutionary Command Council of Libya (July 21, 1970)
Denial of Teaching of Hebrew in the Soviet Union (1971-1972)

Reactions to Hebrew Teaching in the Soviet Press Izvestia December 24, 1976:
Literaturnaya Gazeta February 8, 1978:

Policies and Statements of Prime Minister of Malaysia
Bombing of Argentina Jewish Communal Building (1994)
Blood Libel "Documentary" in Belarus (1997)
Textbooks in Slovakia (April 1997)
Palestinian Authority Television (October 13, 2000)
Political Discrimination in Yemen (February 2001)
Excerpts from Government Sponsored Newspaper, Al-Akhbar, in Egypt (2001)
Speech of Syrian President Welcoming Pope John Paul II (May 2001)