Donald Trump Is Flirting With Anti-Semitism—and History Shows What's Next
The historical parallels all led to violence.
When Donald Trump tweeted out an image of the Star of David and a pile of money to symbolize Hillary Clinton’s “corruption,” he was doing more than flirting with the juvenile fascists who hang around at alt-right websites or hide behind the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Critics were quick to accuse Trump of anti-Semitism, with some then offering as proof of Trump’s calumny images of Jews wearing yellow Stars of David in Nazi-era Europe. Others offered parallels between Trump and two of America’s most famous 20th century anti-Semites: Henry Ford, who saw “the international Jew” as the world’s greatest threat; and Charles Lindbergh, who admired Adolf Hitler and his ability to safeguard white civilization from the “Asiatic” threat.
While 20th century anti-Semitism is the type of virulent hatred of Jews with which most people are familiar, it is crucial to remember that Hitler’s “Final Solution” for eradicating the Jewish people and their religion from Europe did not spring ex nihilo from the pages of Mein Kampf. Western European anti-Semitism has its roots deep in the soil of European civilization. In fact, it is difficult to understand anti-Semitism in Western Europe without understanding the role that Christians and Christianity played in promulgating that fear of “the Jew.” What follows is only a small part of the history of anti-Semitism, and does not take into account how anti-Semitism was promulgated and institutionalized in Eastern Europe and the modern-day Middle East.
While anti-Semitism is often argued to be a misnomer because “Semitic” people include other peoples besides Jews, I’m using the term “anti-Semitism” in accordance with the distinction that historians such as Gavin Langmuir have made. For the sake of argument, anti-Semitism is an “irrational fear and/or hatred” of Jews. Anti-Judaism is an objection to the Jewish religion, the kind of objections that a religious scholar may have. But when Donald Trump equates the Star of David with money, that is not anti-Judaism; it’s anti-Semitism. There is nothing rational in the tying together of symbols associated with Israel and corruption, unless one is looking at the sheer irrational fear and hatred at the base of anti-Semitism.
So, how is that irrational fear of Jews tied to Christianity? Christian attitudes toward the body are complicated. Jesus assumed the flesh of a man and then became spirit. In the Book of Genesis, Eve’s sin in eating from the tree of knowledge was to reveal to humanity its carnality and thus, its mortality. That fear of death drives many of the reasons that Christians seek to avoid “sin,” and why sin often gets projected onto those who lie outside the community.
In an attempt to understand how Jesus could be both man and God at the same time, medieval writers concerned themselves with such questions as “did Jesus shit?” and “did Jesus cry?” (Both questions are answered in the Malleus Maleficarum.) But because the ultimate form of spiritual life was seen to be practiced by he (and it was “he”) who needed his body the least, the human body and its attendant needs and desires were denigrated, denied, and even labeled as the parts of the human body most susceptible to the temptations of evil and Satan.
The failure of Jews to convert to Christianity was a source of consternation. While the official papal policy was that Jews were under the protection of the Pope, increasingly, Jews became targets of restrictions imposed by secular rulers, burdensome taxes, and, beginning in the twelfth century, as the focus of paranoid beliefs that did more to affirm the Christian belief in the sanctity of the crucifixion of Christ rather than actual practices of Jewish communities. Jews were seen as less spiritual as Christians. Lacking spirit, they were more “of the body.” And, as such, they were more prone to evil, corruption of the flesh, and sin.
In the 12th century in England, a young boy named William was found dead in the town of Norwich. One of the local monks asserted that Norwich’s Jewish community had crucified William as a re-creation of the passion of Christ. Of course the Jews had nothing to do with William’s death, but the belief that the Jews would believe that there was something so “magic” about Christ’s death that they would seek to repeat it served to strengthen Christian belief. And, of course, it also lead to persecution of Jewish communities, and continued to do so for many years until the Jews were expelled from England in 1290.
