Anti-semitism. What Is It? What Is Its

¶ … anti-Semitism. What is it? What is its historical development? Why has it persisted until the present day? What has been the role of Christianity in the continuation of anti-Semitism? Michel Molloy's text Experiencing World Religions offers powerful testimony, over the course of its eighth chapter, as to the plurality and diversity of the Jewish tradition, from the ideological conflicts between the Pharisees and Sadducees in ancient Israel, to the differences in levels of adherence to the Mosaic commandments between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews today.

(Molloy, 2002) Perhaps the one unifying force for all Jews, over much of the modern age, has been the status of Judaism as a persecuted religion and the collective status of the Jews as a persecuted people. Unlike other ethnic groups peoples, the Jewish people have often been persecuted for their religious beliefs alone, namely their refusal to accept the dominant religion of the home nation they resided in.

Yet although Judaism is technically a religion, Jews are also often treated as a 'race,' for even people of Jewish origin who are atheists or converts have also been condemned for the religion of their Jewish ancestors. (Telushkin, 1991) For instance, during the Holocaust, people were killed simply because they had a Jewish grandfather or grandmother. According to Tracey Rich of the website Judaism 101, "Jews are clearly not a race. Race is a genetic distinction, and [unlike the term Jewish] refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits.

You can't change your race; it's in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to," but a gentile can convert to Judaism. In fact, it was the religious diversity and ferment of religious debate within Judaism that gave birth to Christianity as a separate religion, as opposed to a sect of Judaism. "The New Testament depiction of Jesus suggests that he was largely a law-abiding and highly nationalistic Jew, and a man with strong ethical concerns.

Like many of Judaism's great rabbis, he saw love of neighbor as religion's central demand. Though many Christians are under the impression that he opposed Judaism's emphasis on law, in actuality he criticized anyone who advocated dropping it. 'Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law [the Torah] or the Prophets,' he [Jesus] declared to his early disciples." (Telushkin, 1991) However, as Christianity became a new religion, it began to define itself against Judaism rather than of it.

Michael Fitzgerald observed that in the first two centuries there does not appear to be much opposition on the part of Christians or Jews to the status of Jesus as a human person, as opposed to a Messiah. Then, from the third century onwards, as the Christian faith in the divinity of Christ became more articulated in what we would call today salvation-oriented or messianic terms, as opposed to emphasizing Jesus' teachings, the distance between Judaism and Christianity as religions began to grow.

(Fitzgerald, 2001) After the year 1000, persecution of Jews increased astronomically, as the political dissolution and decay of the Roman Empire caused economic and military turmoil through the former provinces.

Still, some Jewish sages, writing between the 12th and 14th centuries, could speak of Jesus as a "saint," as one who "served to prepare the whole world for the veneration of God in the communion of hearts." (Fizgerald, 2001) But even while there may have been respect for Jesus in within Judaism, and respect for the religion of Judaism amongst some Christians, the pattern.