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280 BCE
Alexandria
The very earliest documented antisemitism can be traced back to Alexandria. Antisemitism in Alexandria began in the 3rd century BCE. Alexandria was the home to the largest Jewish community in the entirety of the world. An Egyptian priest and historian, Manetho wrote scathingly of the Jews and the antisemitic elements of his works were repeated in works of other historians of his time. -
38
Attacks in Alexandria
Attacks on Jews in 38 CE resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews in Alexandria. These deaths were attributed to the portrayal of Jews as misanthropes and to them being viewed as separate to society. -
70
Roman Empire
Antisemitism in the Roman Empire began in 19 CE when Emperor Tiberius expelled the Jews from Rome. Romans then banned the reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem after the destruction of it in 70 CE by Titus. They then imposed a tax on Jews to finance the Temple of Jupiter in Rome. The Jewish Talmud states that the Romans were "killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils". -
300
Late Roman Empire
Antisemitism in the Roman Empire escalated in the later stages of the Roman Empire after the Empire's conversion to Christianity. Literature was hostile towards Jews and Romans began attacking and burning synagogues. Marriage between a Christian and a Jew was made illegal in the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine introduced a law that it was illegal to convert from Christianity to Judaism, Jews were banned from civil service, army and legal profession and were blamed for the death of Jesus. -
1096
Middle Ages and Crusades
During the Middle Ages persecution of Jews was common, antisemitic practices included blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and killings. Antisemitism in the Middle Ages reached a climax during the Crusades. A German Crusade in 1096 destroyed two Jewish communities and during the second crusade in 1147 Jews in France were the subjects of frequent killings and atrocities. The first large-scale persecution after the First Crusade saw thousands of Jews killed by Rintfleisch knights in 1298. -
1347
The Black Death
As the Black Death spread across Europe, Jews were used as scapegoats and blamed for poisoning wells. 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg as a result of this. -
1492
Spain and Portugal
In the late 1400s, Ferdinand II and Isabella I instituted the Spanish Inquisition. In 1492 Ferdinand II and Isabella I expelled Jews from Spain. A riot in 1506 resulted in the deaths of up to four or five thousand Jews, and the execution of the leaders of the riot by King Manuel. -
Prussia
Frederick II of Prussia limited the number of Jews allowed to live in Breslau to only ten so-called "protected" Jewish families and encouraged a similar practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750, he forced these "protected" Jews to either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin. -
Russia
Between 1918 and 1921 between 100,000 and 150,000 Jews were slaughtered. -
Nazi Germany
Following World War I Nazism and antisemitic views arose in Germany expressed by Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime sought the systematic exclusion of Jews from national life. Jews were demonized as the driving force of both International Marxism and Capitalism. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 outlawed marriage or sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews. As Nazi occupation extended eastwards in World War II, antisemitic propaganda spread with it. -
The Holocaust
On 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, deputed to find a "final solution" to the "Jewish problem". Of the eleven million who were targeted, some six million men, women and children were killed by the Nazis between 1942 and 1945. To implement this horrific plan, Jews were transported to purpose-built extermination camps in occupied Poland, where they were killed in gas chambers. Extermination camps were located at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibór and Treblinka.
