Antisemitism is not about anything “wrong” with Jews; it is about prejudice, fear, and scapegoating in the societies around them. Jews have repeatedly been turned into a convenient “explanation” for complex problems, which feeds cycles of hatred and violence.
What antisemitism is
Antisemitism is hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews as Jews, whether expressed in religious, racial, political, or conspiracy terms. It has been called “the longest hatred” because it has appeared in many societies for over two millennia, changing its language and justifications but keeping the same core anti‑Jewish hostility.
Historical religious roots
In much of Christian history, church leaders promoted the idea that Jews were collectively responsible for killing Jesus, which branded Jews as enemies of the dominant faith and justified exclusion, forced conversion, and violence. Supersessionist beliefs in both Christianity and Islam (the claim that the newer religion replaces Judaism) also fueled pressure on Jews to abandon their faith and made their refusal a focus of resentment.
Scapegoating and conspiracy myths
During crises like wars, plagues, or economic collapses, Jews were often blamed for catastrophes they had nothing to do with, such as being accused of poisoning wells during the Black Death or undermining nations from within. Over time this turned into elaborate conspiracy myths that simultaneously claim Jews control finance, media, or politics and yet also portray them as perpetual outsiders threatening “normal” society.
“Otherness” and minority status
Jewish communities frequently kept distinct religious and cultural practices, sometimes by choice and sometimes because laws forced them into separate neighborhoods or occupations, which made them visible “outsiders.” Any small, visible minority can become a target, but Jews were particularly vulnerable because their difference was framed as religious, ethnic, and later “racial,” making them a permanent “other” in the eyes of bigots.
Modern racial and political antisemitism
In the 19th and 20th centuries, antisemitism was recast in racial and ideological terms, claiming Jews were an inferior or dangerous “race” and blaming them simultaneously for both capitalism and communism. This racialized hatred reached its most extreme form in Nazi Germany, where Jews were portrayed as the ultimate source of national problems and systematically persecuted and murdered in the Holocaust.
If this question is coming from something you’ve experienced personally, it may help to talk through that specific situation; the reasons above describe the hatred, but none of them justify it.