this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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Hello. I’m having trouble understanding several things related to antisemitism (such as anti-communism, Nazism, Zionism…) and it’s because I don’t actually understand how antisemitism itself functions. The explanations I can find online tend to be idealist.

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[–] pyromaiden@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 week ago

Jews have been the most consistent target of scapegoating in Europe due to their strange (relatively speaking) languages, customs, faiths, values, and cultures when compared to those of their host countries.

The poor Jews were criminals & freeloaders while the rich Jews were conspirators & manipulators.

The only people you could trust were your own nation; especially if they were Christian and doubly so if they were aristocrats, bougies, or clergy who were the only ones keeping the Jews in check and stopping them from taking over.

This was an almost entirely European phenomenon that was later imported to the Islamic world; particularly in areas that had been colonized.

In short: xenophobia used to dismiss the need for reform & distracting from real issues by uniting the common people against a manufactured foe. This tactic would be adopted by fascists later on.