Ancient antisemitism, part one

Ancient antisemitism, part one: "Ancient anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is the idea that people who speak a Semitic language -e.g., the Arabs and the Jews- belong to an inferior race. This nineteenth-century idea is mistaken, because there is no link between language and race; besides, the concept of 'race' is epistemologically weak and probably senseless.

Anti-Semitism has ancient roots. In the age of the Crusades (1095-1291), the Europeans started to regard the Muslim Arabs -which they had first admired- as the enemies of Christianity, and the Christian anti-Judaic polemic dates back to the first or second century CE. But aversion of Arabs and Jews is not a Christian invention. The Romans described their emperor Philippus Arabs (244-249), who was of Arabian descent, in denigratory terms; and Greek and Roman authors describe the Jews in words that are, in a sense, shockingly modern.

Their ideas about Judaism are the subject of the present article. In this first part, several anti-Semitic incidents are described; in the second part, we will discuss the ideas of those who hated the Jews.

The first incidents
For anti-Semitism to arise, the Jews had to be a recognizable minority in a foreign state. Because they worshipped only one God, they were always recognizable; and they became a minority in a foreign state during the Babylonian exile. From the sixth century"