19th Century Anti- Semitic Thought

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Eric Ren The term anti-Semitism is prejudice or hatred of, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. Along the nineteenth century there is a surge in the ideologies pertaining to anti-Semitic thought. Factors that led to the development of such thought come in many varieties. While there are many, I would argue the most important ones would consist of the following, the Dreyfus affair, nationalism, and the economic status of the Jews. In 1894 the biggest news in France was the conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a general of Jewish decent accused of treason and was sentenced to life imprisonment. While accused of giving French military information to the German embassy in France he was sentenced to imprisonment in a French colony, Devil's Island. After new evidence led towards a new suspect, high military generals suppressed the information and framed Dreyfus. The conviction was led by a group of Anti-Semites, most notably Edouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole. So during the Dreyfus Affair of late 1800's, anti-Semitism was on the rise already. The framing of Dreyfus is an example of political corruption led by the grievous of racism. This event most notably drew a line across the political and social platform of France, while also that of Western Europe at the time. The split consisted of the people who sided with Dreyfus versus those who were called anti-Dreyfusards consisting mostly of anti-Semites. As I would argue the Dreyfus affair was a major event in the development of anti-Semitism because of its political ramifications that created more anti-Semites. It was obvious that the Jews were the minority of France (also all of Europe) and most people that sided with Dreyfus were of Jewish faith considering that the other small percent were righteous men. On the other
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