124-643: The Slánský trial (officially Proces s vedením protistátního spikleneckého centra v čele s Rudolfem Slánským English: "Trial of the Leadership of the Anti-State Conspiracy Centre Headed by Rudolf Slánský") was a 1952 antisemitic show trial against fourteen members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), including many high-ranking officials. Several charges, including high treason, were announced against
248-500: A Jew upon baptism ." From the perspective of racial antisemitism, however, "the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism.[...] From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews[...] Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews,
372-533: A Jewish majority in the land that would allow them to gain statehood. The Arab inhabitants of Ottoman Palestine who saw the Zionist Jews of the first aliyah settle next to them were not associated with a national movement at the end of the 19th century. Historically, Palestine had never been administered or recognized as a distinct province by any of its Muslim rulers. Starting in 1882, the Ottomans issued
496-554: A Semitic language. Though 'antisemitism' could be construed as prejudice against people who speak other Semitic languages, this is not how the term is commonly used. The term may be spelled with or without a hyphen (antisemitism or anti-Semitism). Many scholars and institutions favor the unhyphenated form. Shmuel Almog argued, "If you use the hyphenated form, you consider the words 'Semitism', 'Semite', 'Semitic' as meaningful ... [I]n antisemitic parlance, 'Semites' really stands for Jews, just that." Emil Fackenheim supported
620-712: A collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence—which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews." Elaborating on Fein's definition, Dietz Bering of the University of Cologne writes that, to antisemites, "Jews are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Jews have to be seen not as individuals but as
744-442: A collective. (2) Jews remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Jews bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the anti-Semites feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Jewish character." For Swiss historian Sonja Weinberg , as distinct from economic and religious anti-Judaism , antisemitism in its specifically modern form shows conceptual innovation,
868-619: A compromise with the Arabs, but none proved possible. The peasant-led 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine broke out in the context of increased Jewish migration to Palestine and the plight of the rural native fallāḥīn . It sparked following the murder of three Jewish drivers on April 15, 1936, whose funeral led rapidly spreading disturbances. The revolt began with a general strike among Palestinian Arabs on April 19, 1936, which escalated into intercommunal violence. The brutal suppression of
992-713: A filthy time"), which he felt downplayed Margolius' complicity with the Stalinist regime. David Hertl on the other hand emphasised the mystery of Rudolf Margolius inclusion in the trial in his recent Czech interview program, The Youngest Hanged in the Trial with the Slánský Group was Rudolf Margolius. But Why Him, is a Mystery to Historians. ( Nejmladším oběšeným v procesu se skupinou Slánského byl Rudolf Margolius. Proč zrovna on, je ale pro historiky záhadou. ) broadcast on Czech Radio Plus, December 1, 2022. The Slánský trial
1116-588: A garrison of troops on the Suez Canal until 1945. Lebanon became an independent state in 1943, but French troops did not withdraw until 1946, the same year Syria won its independence from France. In 1945, at British prompting, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia , Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen formed the Arab League to coordinate policy among the Arab states. Iraq and Transjordan coordinated closely, signing
1240-502: A longtime collaborator and personal friend, who was the second-in-command of the party. The others were picked to convey a clear threat to different groups in the state bureaucracy. A couple of them (Šváb, Reicin) were brutal sadists, conveniently added for a more realistic show. Those put on trial confessed to all crimes (under duress or after torture) and were sentenced to punishment. Slánský attempted suicide while in prison. The people of Czechoslovakia signed petitions asking for death for
1364-583: A misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy ) that it refers to racist hatred directed at " Semitic people " in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept . Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a " scientific-sounding term " for Judenhass ( lit. ' Jew-hatred ' ), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone. The word "Semitic"
SECTION 10
#17327728863911488-617: A misnomer. The word Judeophobia first appeared in his pamphlet " Auto-Emancipation ", published anonymously in German in September 1882, where it was described as an irrational fear or hatred of Jews. According to Pinsker, this irrational fear was an inherited predisposition. Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind, not merely to certain races... Judeophobia
1612-679: A mutual defence treaty, while Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia feared that Transjordan would annex part or all of Palestine and use it as a stepping stone to attack or undermine Syria, Lebanon, and the Hijaz . On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution "recommending to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations
1736-414: A non-religious perspective ) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "Jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit). He accused the Jews of a worldwide conspiracy against non-Jews, called for resistance against "this foreign power", and claimed that "there will be absolutely no public office, even
1860-419: A people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism . In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism , a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism ,
1984-412: A person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions . The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by
2108-700: A potential precursor to the genocide of Jews in the Soviet bloc. He asked the United Nations to launch an investigation into the alleged genocide of Jews in the Soviet bloc. In Commentary , Peter Meyer wrote that "the Prague trial with its lurid tale of a 'Zionist conspiracy' recalled the Czarist-invented and Nazi-popularized legend of the Elders of Zion". David Ben-Gurion, speaking hypothetically in
2232-438: A refuge. Most Zionists do not believe that antisemitism can be combatted with education or other means. The contextual approach treats antisemitism as a type of racism and focuses on the historical context in which hatred of Jews emerges. Some contextualists restrict the use of "antisemitism" to refer exclusively to the era of modern racism, treating anti-Judaism as a separate phenomenon. Historian David Engel has challenged
2356-481: A resort to "science" to defend itself, new functional forms, and organisational differences. It was anti-liberal, racialist and nationalist. It promoted the myth that Jews conspired to 'judaise' the world ; it served to consolidate social identity; it channeled dissatisfactions among victims of the capitalist system; and it was used as a conservative cultural code to fight emancipation and liberalism. In 2003, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky developed what he called
2480-618: A so-called "Morgenthau Plan" (not to be confused with the contemporaneous Morgenthau Plan for German heavy industry) to commit espionage and sabotage against Czechoslovakia for the US in exchange for American support for Israel. Czechoslovakia was seen as especially pro-Zionist due to their armament support for Israel during the Palestine War . In actuality, most of the defendants were known to be ardent anti-Zionists. The trial of Rudolf Slánský and 13 other high-ranking Communists (11 of whom,
2604-410: A standard different from that applied to others, and they are accused of "cosmic evil". Thus, "it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic" unless this hatred or persecution displays one of the two features specific to antisemitism. There have been a number of efforts by international and governmental bodies to define antisemitism formally. In 2005,
SECTION 20
#17327728863912728-539: A state of Israel is a racist endeavor, can be a manifestation of antisemitism—as can applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. The EUMC working definition was adopted by the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism in 2010, by
2852-780: A stop to the escalating violence. The first phase of the war took place from the United Nations General Assembly vote for the Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947 until the termination of the British Mandate and Israeli proclamation of statehood on 14 May 1948. During this period the Jewish and Arab communities of the British Mandate clashed, while the British organised their withdrawal and intervened only occasionally. In
2976-591: A stream of prohibitions against Jewish settlement and land purchases in Palestine. However, due to the inefficiency of Ottoman bureaucracies, these restriction had little effect. Due to bribes, the Ottoman authorities often supported the Jewish settlers in disputes over land and settlement. Until the 1910s, Zionists encountered little violence, as the Arabs lacked political awareness and were disorganized. Between 1909 and 1914, this changed, as Arabs killed 12 Jewish settlement guards and Arab nationalism, and opposition to
3100-602: A thinly disguised antisemitic campaign in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin , began in the fall of 1948. In the year before Stalin's death in 1953 another Soviet antisemitic campaign, the Doctors' Plot , began to unfold. During this period, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee 's leadership was murdered and antisemitic purges spread to other countries in the Soviet's Eastern Bloc . The trial
3224-577: A variety of distinct sectors around the coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria . The Army of the Holy War , under Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni 's command, came from Egypt with several hundred men. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply
3348-411: Is a Jewish state , expressions of anti-Zionist positions could harbour antisemitic sentiments. Natan Sharansky describes the "3D" test to determine the existence of such antisemitism: demonizing Israel, the double standard of criticizing Israel disproportionately to other countries, and delegitimizing Israel's right to exist . Due to the root word Semite , the term is prone to being invoked as
3472-447: Is a major source about the trial. L'Aveu (1970), a film based on London's book, was directed by Costa-Gavras and starred Yves Montand and Simone Signoret . The Slánský trial is also a key element of the book Under a Cruel Star . A memoir by Heda Margolius Kovály , the book follows the life of a Jewish woman, starting with her escape from a concentration camp during World War II, up until her departure from Czechoslovakia after
3596-481: Is a need to shoot, we will shoot. We have already been through times when there was a need to shoot people – people who were even closer to us." This last comment referred to an earlier moment in Israel's recent history where he first warned and then approved firing on the right-wing paramilitary group Irgun . A majority of the cabinet opposed Ben-Gurion's view, including Golda Meir and Pinhas Lavon . Lavon observed in
3720-423: Is a psychic disorder. As a psychic disorder, it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable... Thus have Judaism and Jew-hatred passed through history for centuries as inseparable companions... Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and represented Jew-hatred as based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw
3844-616: Is the subject of the documentary A Trial in Prague , directed by Zuzana Justman (2000, 83 min). On 22 March 2018, it was announced that insolvency administrators discovered 8.5 hours of original footage from the trial at a factory near Prague. The film was heavily damaged, and restoration is expected to take several years, to be paid for by the Ministry of Culture . Le Procès – Prague 1952 , an 1hr 10min French documentary film by Ruth Zylberman for ARTE France & Pernel Media had
Slánský trial - Misplaced Pages Continue
3968-578: The Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest. In the period before World War II , when animosity towards Jews was far more commonplace, it was not uncommon for a person, an organization, or a political party to self-identify as an antisemite or antisemitic. The early Zionist pioneer Leon Pinsker , a professional physician, preferred the clinical-sounding term Judeophobia to antisemitism, which he regarded as
4092-576: The Balfour Declaration in November 1917, it was designated as a "national home for the Jewish people", with the stipulation that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Several factors influenced the decision to support Zionism. Zionist lobbying, led by Chaim Weizmann , played a significant role, along with religious and humanitarian motivations. The fact that
4216-471: The Balfour Declaration . As the numbers and strength of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) grew, tensions between the Jewish and Arab communities deepened. Significant bouts of violence happened during the 1920 Jerusalem Riots , as well as in 1921 and 1929 . In addition to the emerging Palestinian Arab nationalism, the violence also drew on religious inspirations, such as the accusation that
4340-780: The February 1948 coup , carried out by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union . According to literature scholar Peter Steiner, the one-party Communist state had to find or conjure up imaginary enemies from within to justify its continuing existence; this was the motive for show trials . After the 1948 Tito–Stalin split , a sequence of high-level political trials against alleged Titoist and Western imperialist elements were held in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Albania, but these trials were not overtly antisemitic. The anti-cosmopolitan campaign ,
4464-616: The Fundamental Rights Agency ), an agency of the European Union , developed a more detailed working definition , which stated: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." It also adds that "such manifestations could also target
4588-658: The Jerusalem area, including Bethlehem , with 100,000 Jews and an equal number of Palestinian Arabs, was to become a corpus separatum , to be administered by the UN. The residents in the UN-administered territory were given the right to choose to be citizens of either of the new states. The Jewish leadership accepted the partition plan as "the indispensable minimum", glad to gain international recognition but sorry that they did not receive more. The representatives of
4712-890: The Spanish Inquisition , and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine , between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire , between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair , between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II ; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies . Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe . However, since
4836-868: The United States Department of State in 2017, in the Operational Hate Crime Guidance of the UK College of Policing in 2014 and by the UK's Campaign Against Antisemitism . In 2016, the working definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance . IHRA's Working definition of antisemitism is among the most controversial documents related to opposition to antisemitism, and critics argue that it has been used to censor criticism of Israel. In response to
4960-542: The United States Department of State stated that "while there is no universally accepted definition, there is a generally clear understanding of what the term encompasses." For the purposes of its 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism, the term was considered to mean "hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity." In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now
5084-700: The Warsaw Pact countries invasion of 1968 . Kovály's husband, Rudolf Margolius , a fellow Holocaust survivor, was one of the 11 men executed during the Slánský trial. More encompassing information is available in the more recent book Hitler, Stalin and I , an interview of Heda Margolius Kovály by Helena Třeštíková published in 2018. Martin Wein was critical of the positive image of Margolius in Kovály's book and in other media ( Igor Lukes described him as "a clean man in
Slánský trial - Misplaced Pages Continue
5208-670: The " Semites " as a race ]." Psychologist Avner Falk similarly writes: "The German word antisemitisch was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan's false ideas about how ' Semitic races ' were inferior to ' Aryan races ' ". Pseudoscientific theories concerning race , civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in Europe in
5332-431: The "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country. So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte , and Wilhelm Scherer used
5456-467: The "origins of anti-Semitic prejudices are rooted in different historical periods." König asserts that differences in the chronology of different antisemitic prejudices and the irregular distribution of such prejudices over different segments of the population create "serious difficulties in the definition of the different kinds of anti-Semitism." These difficulties may contribute to the existence of different taxonomies that have been developed to categorize
5580-450: The "three D" test to distinguish antisemitism from criticism of Israel, giving delegitimization , demonization, and double standards as a litmus test for the former. Bernard Lewis , writing in 2006, defined antisemitism as a special case of prejudice, hatred, or persecution directed against people who are in some way different from the rest. According to Lewis, antisemitism is marked by two distinct features: Jews are judged according to
5704-642: The Arab population, such as occurred at Lydda and Ramle and the Battle of Haifa , led to the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians , with most of their urban areas being depopulated and destroyed . This violence and dispossession of the Palestinians is known today as the Nakba ( Arabic for "the disaster") and resulted in the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem . The 1948 War came as
5828-649: The Arab state would also have an enclave in Jaffa , which had an Arab-majority population and provided the Arab state with a port on the Mediterranean. With about 32% of the population, the Jews were allocated 56% of the territory (most of it the Negev desert). It contained 499,000 Jews and 438,000 Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs were allocated 42% of the land, which had a population of 818,000 Palestinian Arabs and 10,000 Jews. In consideration of its religious significance,
5952-519: The Arab states. The result of his analysis was Plan Dalet , which was put in place at the start of April, and which marked the war's second phase, in which the Haganah took the offensive. The first operation, Nachshon , was directed at lifting the blockade on Jerusalem . In the last week of March, 136 supply trucks had tried to reach Jerusalem; only 41 had made it. The Arab attacks on communications and roads had intensified. The convoys' failure and
6076-635: The Arabs of Palestine supported the Ottoman fight against the Allied Powers also contributed. Additionally, the British believed that a British-backed state would help defend the Suez Canal . At that time, the Arab Hashemites did not seem opposed to Jewish rule over Palestine. After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine , which required it to implement
6200-709: The British Empire in Egypt. The war briefly halted Jewish-Arab friction. The British invaded the land in 1915 and 1916 after two unsuccessful Ottoman attacks on Sinai. They were assisted by the Arab tribes in Hejaz, led by the Hashemites , and promised them sovereignty over the Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was excluded from the promise, initially intended to be a joint British-French domain. After
6324-470: The Christian foundation on which the modern antisemitic edifice rests and invoke political antisemitism, cultural antisemitism, racism or racial antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and the like." William Nicholls draws a distinction between religious antisemitism and modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds: "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion [...] a Jew ceased to be
SECTION 50
#17327728863916448-578: The Czechoslovak Communist regime, they had command responsibility for crimes committed by it. Wein further commented that the three reprieved defendants all came from an upper-class background, while all of the middle-class and working-class defendants were executed. He hypothesizes that this was because if an upper-class person was a traitor to the Communist Party, he was not a traitor to his class. According to Stephen Norwood ,
6572-511: The Haganah and Palmach, perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre , killing at least 107 Arab villagers, including women and children. The event was widely publicized and had a deep effect on the Arab population's morale, greatly contributing to the Palestinian expulsion and flight . At the same time, the first large-scale operation of the Arab Liberation Army ended in a debacle, as they were roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek . Their Druze allies left them through defection. As part of Plan Dalet,
6696-417: The Haganah, Palmach and Irgun captured the urban centers of Tiberias , Haifa (See: Battle of Haifa ), Safed , Beisan , Jaffa , and Acre , violently expelling more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs. The British had essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation pushed the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but their preparation was not completed, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn
6820-436: The Holocaust. Hannah Arendt criticized this approach, writing that it provoked "the uncomfortable question: 'Why the Jews of all people?' ... with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility." Zionist thinkers and antisemites draw different conclusions from what they perceive as the eternal hatred of Jews; according to antisemites, it proves the inferiority of Jews, while for Zionists it means that Jews need their own state as
6944-404: The Jewish population was ordered to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was disrupted by general conditions of insecurity. Up to 100,000 Arabs from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres to the east. David Ben-Gurion ordered Yigal Yadin to plan for the announced intervention of
7068-404: The Jewish race." After 1945 victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany , and particularly after the full extent of the Nazi genocide against the Jews became known, the term antisemitism acquired pejorative connotations. This marked a full circle shift in usage, from an era just decades earlier when "Jew" was used as a pejorative term. Yehuda Bauer wrote in 1984: "There are no anti-Semites in
7192-409: The Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev and North of Galilee was more critical. This caused the US to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, and the Arab League began to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could end the partition. The British decided on 7 February 1948 to support Transjordan's annexation of the Arab part of Palestine. While
7316-428: The Jewish settlements of Galilee , and Operation Kilshon . This created an Israeli-controlled front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir and Abdullah I, followed by the Kfar Etzion massacre on 13 May by the Arab Legion, led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless. On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared
7440-505: The Jews for an encyclopedia of sins . The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus ; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity . In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease . Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism ; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan ; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood
7564-419: The Jews intended to take over the Temple Mount . Despite Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, leading Palestinian families continued to sell land to Zionists throughout the period. At least one quarter of members of the Palestinian Arab Executive benefited financially from such purchases, including the mayor of Jerusalem and the al-Husayni family . The Zionist leaders intermittently attempted to reach
SECTION 60
#17327728863917688-635: The Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection. Jeffrey Goldberg , 2015. Louis Harap , writing in the 1980s, separated "economic antisemitism" and merges "political" and "nationalistic" antisemitism into "ideological antisemitism". Harap also adds a category of "social antisemitism". Religious antisemitism , also known as anti-Judaism, is antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs. In theory, antisemitism and attacks against individual Jews would stop if Jews stopped practicing Judaism or changed their public faith, especially by conversion to
7812-440: The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab League firmly opposed the UN action and rejected its authority in the matter, arguing that the partition plan was unfair to the Arabs because of the population balance at that time. The Arabs rejected the partition, not because it was supposedly unfair, but because their leaders rejected any form of partition. They held "that the rule of Palestine should revert to its inhabitants, in accordance with
7936-491: The Slánský trial was the "clearest illustration yet of state-sponsored antisemitism in the Soviet bloc" and "a secularized version of the Spanish Inquisition's racialized antisemitism", because it insisted on that Jewish origin was an indelible defect which would pass to all descendents (similar to the guilt of Jewish deicide ). Artur London , one of the survivors of the trial, eventually moved to France, where he published his memoirs in 1968. His book L'Aveu ("The Confession"),
8060-462: The Soviet Union's goal was "to deflect the world's attention from the sordid execution of the innocent [Slánský trial defendants] in Prague". The Israeli-American scholar Martin Wein observed that although Slánský was not guilty of the charges he was forced to admit, he was guilty of mass murder as a high-level functionary in the Communist government. In Wein's opinion, because all of the defendants (except Simone and Margolius) occupied high positions in
8184-411: The Zionist enterprise, increased. In 1911, Arabs attempted to thwart the establishment of a Jewish settlement in the Jezreel Valley, and the dispute resulted in the death of one Arab man and a Jewish guard. The Arabs called the Jews the "new Crusaders", and anti-Zionist (and, occasionally, anti-Semitic ) rhetoric flourished. During the war, Palestine served as the frontline between the Ottoman Empire and
8308-405: The Zionist forces switched to the offensive in April 1948. In anticipation of an invasion by Arab armies, they enacted Plan Dalet , an operation aimed at securing territory for the establishment of a Jewish state. The second phase of the war began on 14 May 1948, with the termination of the British Mandate and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel . The following morning,
8432-400: The actions of an individual Jewish person or group; denying the Holocaust or accusing Jews or Israel of exaggerating it; and accusing Jews of dual loyalty or a greater allegiance to Israel than their own country. It also lists ways in which attacking Israel could be antisemitic, and states that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of
8556-409: The adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union", UN General Assembly Resolution 181(II) . This was an attempt to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict by partitioning Palestine into "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem". Each state would comprise three major sections;
8680-452: The alleged traitors. Apropos of the conspiracy theories of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , prosecutors claimed that a "Zionist-Imperialist" summit had taken place in Washington DC in April 1947 with President Harry S. Truman , undersecretary of state Dean Acheson , former treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. , David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharret in attendance. The prosecution charged that defendants were acting in accordance with
8804-418: The ancient homeland. The first wave of Zionist immigration, dubbed the First Aliyah , lasted from 1882 to 1903. Some 30,000 Jews, mostly from the Russian Empire , reached Ottoman Palestine. They were driven both by the Zionist idea and by the wave of antisemitism in Europe, especially in the Russian Empire, which came in the form of brutal pogroms . They wanted to establish Jewish agricultural settlements and
8928-607: The bipolarity that is at the heart of the problem of antisemitism". The Associated Press and its accompanying AP Stylebook adopted the unhyphenated spelling in 2021. Style guides for other news organizations such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal later adopted this spelling as well. It has also been adopted by many Holocaust museums , such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem . Though
9052-427: The city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, al-Husayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah 's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those in
9176-462: The concept of anti-Judaism , which is distinct from antisemitism itself. There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution . On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide , which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although
9300-456: The culmination of 30 years of friction between Jews and Arabs during the period of British rule of Palestine when, under the terms of the League of Nations mandate held by the British, conditions intended to lead to the creation of a Jewish National Home in the area were created. Zionism formed in Europe as the national movement of the Jewish people. It sought to reestablish Jewish statehood in
9424-465: The defendants admitted their guilt and requested death. On the last day of the trial, Rudolf Slánský , General Secretary of the KSČ, and other leading party members were pronounced guilty. Eleven, including Slánský, were hanged at Pankrác Prison in Prague on 3 December, and three (Artur London, Eugen Löbl and Vavro Hajdů) were sentenced to life imprisonment . The state prosecutor at the trial in Prague
9548-432: The discussion that an attempt to detain members of Maki would result in greater, not lesser influence for the party. The cabinet, by a vote of 13–7, voted for an alternate proposal which permitted "the employment of all means at the government's disposal, in the framework of the existing law and of laws yet to be passed, to deny Maki the opportunity to take public action, without declaring it an organization that exists outside
9672-527: The downfall of Judaism, a phenomenon that negates everything purely human and noble." This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of " Antisemitismus " which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow
9796-496: The early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world , largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories , which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories . In recent times, the idea that there is a variation of antisemitism known as " new antisemitism " has emerged on several occasions. According to this view, since Israel
9920-727: The end of the war, the State of Israel had captured about 78% of former territory of the mandate, the Kingdom of Jordan had captured and later annexed the area that became the West Bank , and Egypt had captured the Gaza Strip . The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements , which established the Green Line demarcating these territories. During the war, massacres and acts of terror were conducted by and against both sides . A campaign of massacres and violence against
10044-578: The establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel , to be known as the State of Israel . Both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin , immediately recognised the new state, while the Arab League refused to accept the UN Partition Plan, proclaimed the right of self-determination for the Arabs across the whole of Palestine, and maintained that
10168-437: The financial canards: Abraham Foxman describes six facets of the financial canards: Gerald Krefetz summarizes the myth as "[Jews] control the banks, the money supply, the economy, and businesses—of the community, of the country, of the world". Krefetz gives, as illustrations, many slurs and proverbs (in several different languages) which suggest that Jews are stingy, or greedy, or miserly, or aggressive bargainers. During
10292-402: The first being the 1947–1948 civil war , which began on 30 November 1947, a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine , which planned for the division of the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states. During this period the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence. Initially on the defensive,
10416-499: The first two months of the Civil War, around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured, and by the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000. From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised. A number of Arab Liberation Army regiments infiltrated Palestine, each active in
10540-509: The forms of antisemitism. The forms identified are substantially the same; it is primarily the number of forms and their definitions that differ. Bernard Lazare , writing in the 1890s, identified three forms of antisemitism: Christian antisemitism , economic antisemitism, and ethnologic antisemitism. William Brustein names four categories: religious, racial, economic, and political. The Roman Catholic historian Edward Flannery distinguished four varieties of antisemitism: Europe has blamed
10664-420: The general definition of antisemitism is hostility or prejudice against Jews, and, according to Olaf Blaschke , has become an "umbrella term for negative stereotypes about Jews", a number of authorities have developed more formal definitions. Writing in 1987, Holocaust scholar and City University of New York professor Helen Fein defined it as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as
10788-581: The group on the grounds of allegedly conspiring against the Czechoslovak Republic . General Secretary of the KSČ Rudolf Slánský was the alleged leader of the conspirators. All fourteen defendants were found guilty of crimes that they did not commit. Eleven of them were sentenced to death and executed; the remaining three received life sentences. After World War II, Czechoslovakia initially enjoyed limited democracy . This changed with
10912-591: The highest one, which the Jews will not have usurped". This followed his 1862 book Die Judenspiegel ( A Mirror to the Jews ) in which he argued that "Judaism must cease to exist if humanity is to commence", demanding both that Judaism be dissolved as a "religious-denominational sect" but also subject to criticism "as a race, a civil and social entity". In the introductions to the first through fourth editions of Der Judenspiegel, Marr denied that he intended to preach Jew-hatred, but instead to help "the Jews reach their full human potential" which could happen only "through
11036-466: The important conclusion, that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses, just as we give up contending against every other inherited predisposition. In the aftermath of the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, German propaganda minister Goebbels announced: "The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of
11160-681: The late 19th century. For example, Karl Lueger , the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna , skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage. In its 1910 obituary of Lueger, The New York Times notes that Lueger was "Chairman of the Christian Social Union of the Parliament and of the Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. In 1895, A. C. Cuza organized
11284-580: The law." Defense of the American Jewish Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg surged in November and December 1952 and was organized by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union —confirmation of which occurred with the publication of KGB documents obtained by Alexander Vassiliev in 2011. Proponents of clemency argued that the Rosenbergs were actually "innocent Jewish peace activists". According to American historian Ronald Radosh ,
11408-472: The lead prosecutor said, were "of Jewish origin") began on 20 November 1952. They were charged with being Titoists and Zionists . Those tried with Slánský were Bedřich Geminder , Otto Šling , André Simone , Karel Šváb , Otto Fischl , Rudolf Margolius , Vladimir Clementis , Ludvik Frejka , Bedřich Reicin , Artur London , Eugen Löbl [ cs ; de ] , Josef Frank and Vavro Hajdů [ cs ] . The trial lasted eight days. Many of
11532-563: The loss of Jewish armoured vehicles had shaken the Yishuv leaders' confidence. 1,500 men from Haganah's Givati brigade and Palmach 's Harel brigade conducted sorties to free up the route to the city between 5 April and 20 April. The operation was successful, and two months' worth of foodstuffs were trucked into Jerusalem for distribution to the Jewish population. The operation's success was aided by al-Husayni's death in combat. During this time, paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi , supported by
11656-668: The most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France . The underlying premise of economic antisemitism is that Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews. Linking Jews and money underpins the most damaging and lasting antisemitic canards . Antisemites claim that Jews control
11780-626: The new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear." Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin , who published the first French translation of the Protocols , combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont , one of
11904-957: The nineteenth century, Jews were described as "scurrilous, stupid, and tight-fisted", but after the Jewish Emancipation and the rise of Jews to the middle- or upper-class in Europe were portrayed as "clever, devious, and manipulative financiers out to dominate [world finances]". 1947%E2%80%931949 Palestine war 1949 Armistice Agreements : [REDACTED] Yishuv (before 14 May 1948 ) [REDACTED] Israel (after 14 May 1948) Before 26 May 1948: After 26 May 1948: Foreign volunteers: [REDACTED] United Kingdom Arabs : c. 2,000 initially, rising to 70,000, of which: Military engagements Massacres and civilian attacks 1948 Arab–Israeli War Southern front Central and Jerusalem front Northern front International Massacres Biological warfare The 1948 Palestine war
12028-601: The official or right religion. However, in some cases, discrimination continues after conversion, as in the case of Marranos (Christianized Jews in Spain and Portugal) in the late 15th century and 16th century, who were suspected of secretly practising Judaism or Jewish customs. Although the origins of antisemitism are rooted in the Judeo-Christian conflict, other forms of antisemitism have developed in modern times. Frederick Schweitzer asserts that "most scholars ignore
12152-475: The outset the term "anti-Semitism" bore special racial connotations and meant specifically prejudice against Jews . The term has been described as confusing, for in modern usage 'Semitic' designates a language group, not a race. In this sense, the term is a misnomer, since there are many speakers of Semitic languages (e.g., Arabs , Ethiopians , and Arameans ) who are not the objects of antisemitic prejudices, while there are many Jews who do not speak Hebrew ,
12276-457: The overwhelming evidence against them and because of their shame and guilt. Many Czechoslovak citizens were in favor of harsh measures against the supposed traitors. Czech poet Ivan Skála [ cs ] called for "a dog's death for [such] dogs" ( Czech : Psovi psí smrt! ). After the deaths of both Stalin and Gottwald in March 1953, the harshness of the persecutions slowly decreased, and
12400-643: The perceived lack of clarity in the IHRA definition, two new definitions of antisemitism were published in 2021, the Nexus Document in February 2021 and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in March 2021. In 1879, Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (Anti-Semitic League). Identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe during
12524-591: The project to define antisemitism, arguing that it essentializes Jewish history as one of persecution and discrimination. Engel argues that the term "antisemitism" is not useful in historical analysis because it implies that there are links between anti-Jewish prejudices expressed in different contexts, without evidence of such a connection. Antisemitism manifests itself in a variety of ways. René König mentions social antisemitism, economic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and political antisemitism as examples. König points out that these different forms demonstrate that
12648-652: The provisions of ... the Charter of the United Nations". According to Article 73b of the Charter, the UN should develop self-government of the peoples in a territory under its administration. In the immediate aftermath of the UN's approval of the partition plan, explosions of joy in the Jewish community were counterbalanced by discontent in the Arab community. Soon after, violence broke out and became more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast upon each other, resulting in dozens killed on both sides. The sanguinary impasse persisted as no force intervened to put
12772-672: The revolt by the British significantly weakened the Palestinian Arabs in advance of the 1948 war. Particularly after the White Paper of 1939 , the Zionist paramilitary organizations Irgun , Lehi , and Haganah carried out a campaign of acts of terror and sabotage against British rule. Among these attacks was the 1946 King David Hotel bombing carried out by the Irgun which killed 91 people. Following World War II,
12896-498: The second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase "the Jews are our misfortune" which would later be widely used by Nazis . According to Falk, Treitschke uses the term "Semitic" almost synonymously with "Jewish", in contrast to Renan's use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria. According to philologist Jonathan M. Hess ,
13020-471: The son and granddaughter of Rudolf Margolius , both executed after the trial, and the three children of Artur London , sentenced to life imprisonment. Antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews . This sentiment is a form of racism , and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite . Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as
13144-421: The state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity," but that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It provided contemporary examples of ways in which antisemitism may manifest itself, including promoting the harming of Jews in the name of an ideology or religion; promoting negative stereotypes of Jews; holding Jews collectively responsible for
13268-552: The surrounding Arab armies invaded Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . The Egyptians advanced in the south-east while the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands. Syria and Lebanon fought with the Israeli forces in the north. The newly formed Israel Defense Forces managed to halt the Arab forces and in the following months began pushing them back and capturing territory. By
13392-540: The surrounding Arab states were emerging from mandatory rule. Transjordan , under the Hashemite ruler Abdullah I , gained independence from Britain in 1946 and was called Jordan in 1949, but remained under heavy British influence. Egypt gained nominal independence in 1922, but Britain continued to exert a strong influence on it until the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 limited Britain's presence to
13516-550: The term Antisemiten in the January issue of Neue Freie Presse . The Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old. ' " The word "antisemitism"
13640-625: The term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death , between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of
13764-542: The term was originally used by its authors to "stress the radical difference between their own 'antisemitism' and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism." In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet ( The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from
13888-584: The tide of the war. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I . He did not intend to create a Palestinian Arab-run state, as he hoped to annex much of Mandatory Palestine. Playing both sides, he was in contact with the Jewish authorities and the Arab League. Preparing for Arab intervention from neighbouring states, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure
14012-428: The trial was released in 1953; Steiner described it as "an utterly indigestible book, crammed with so many names, dates, and particulars that I had a hard time finishing it and remembering all the details." Raphael Lemkin considered the trial an example of judicial murder and, along with the fabrication of evidence to claim Jewish doctors were plotting to kill Soviet officials (the spuriously alleged Doctors' Plot ),
14136-743: The unhyphenated spelling, in order to "[dispel] the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes." Others endorsing an unhyphenated term for the same reason include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance , historian Deborah Lipstadt , Padraic O'Hare, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College ; and historians Yehuda Bauer and James Carroll . According to Carroll, who first cites O'Hare and Bauer on "the existence of something called 'Semitism ' ", "the hyphenated word thus reflects
14260-575: The victims of the trial quietly received amnesty one by one, including those who had survived the Prague Trial. Later, the official historiography of the Communist Party was rather quiet on the trial, vaguely putting blame on errors that happened as a result of a " cult of personality ." Many other political trials followed on, sending many innocent victims to jail and hard labour in the Jáchymov uranium mines and labour camps. The full transcript of
14384-472: The wake of both the Doctors Plot trial and the Slánský trial, considered suppressing Maki , the Israeli communist party. In internal discussions, Ben-Gurion suggested he would favor this even to the point of throwing communist activists in concentration camps, though he spoke of this as being a potential response rather than an imminent necessity. "If there is a need to build camps, we will do it. If there
14508-455: The world finances, a theory promoted in the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and later repeated by Henry Ford and his The Dearborn Independent . In the modern era, such myths continue to be spread in books such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews published by the Nation of Islam and on the internet. Derek Penslar writes that there are two components to
14632-406: The world premiere at FIPADOC International Documentary Festival, Biarritz, France on January 18, 2022. The new documentary made from the Slánský trial film and audio archives found by chance in 2018 in a warehouse in the suburb of Prague served as a starting point for the film. The director tells the trial through the descendants of three of the condemned: the daughter and grandson of Rudolf Slánský ,
14756-581: The world ... Nobody says, 'I am anti-Semitic.' You cannot, after Hitler. The word has gone out of fashion." The study of antisemitism has become politically controversial because of differing interpretations of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. There are two competing views of antisemitism, eternalism, and contextualism. The eternalist view sees antisemitism as separate from other forms of racism and prejudice and an exceptionalist, transhistorical force teleologically culminating in
14880-404: Was Josef Urválek . A Czech worker sent to attend the trial reported that the defendants did not display any emotion. He wondered why they were not afraid for their lives. On 14 December 1952, a few days after the execution, Zdeněk Nejedlý , Minister of Education, denied rumors that the confessions had been obtained with torture or drugs. Instead, the defendants admitted to their crimes because of
15004-477: Was borrowed into English from German in 1881. Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!" The related term " philosemitism " was used by 1881. From
15128-641: Was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages — Aramaic , Arabic , Hebrew and others—allegedly spoken by the descendants of Biblical figure Sem , son of Noah . The origin of "antisemitic" terminologies is found in the responses of orientalist Moritz Steinschneider to the views of orientalist Ernest Renan . Historian Alex Bein writes: "The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his 'anti-Semitic prejudices' [i.e., his derogation of
15252-489: Was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine . During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the State of Israel , and over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled . It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict . The war had two main phases,
15376-706: Was orchestrated (and the subsequent terror staged in Czechoslovakia ) on the order of Moscow leadership by Soviet advisors, who were invited by Rudolf Slánský and Klement Gottwald , with the help of the Czechoslovak State Security personnel following the László Rajk trial in Budapest in September 1949. Klement Gottwald, president of Czechoslovakia and leader of the Communist Party, feared being purged and decided to sacrifice Slánský,
#390609