page_title: Racial antisemitism
hierarchical_section_title: Racial antisemitism
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Ausstellung "Der ewige Jude" im Deutschen Museum, 7.-8.11.1937
context_page_description: Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race or ethnic group that has inherent traits or characteristics that are in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from that of the rest of society. The abhorrence may be expressed in the form of stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as being a threat in some way to the values or safety of society. Racial antisemitism could be seen as worse than religious antisemitism because for religious antisemites conversion was an option and once converted the 'Jew' was gone. With racial antisemitism a Jew could not get rid of their Jewishness.
  The premise of racial antisemitism is that Jews are a distinct racial or ethnic group, compared to religious antisemitism, which is prejudice against Jews and Judaism on the basis of their religion. According to William Nichols, religious antisemitism may be distinguished from modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion ... a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism."
context_section_description: Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race or ethnic group that has inherent traits or characteristics that are in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from that of the rest of society. The abhorrence may be expressed in the form of stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as being a threat in some way to the values or safety of society. Racial antisemitism could be seen as worse than religious antisemitism because for religious antisemites conversion was an option and once converted the 'Jew' was gone. With racial antisemitism a Jew could not get rid of their Jewishness. 
  The premise of racial antisemitism is that Jews are a distinct racial or ethnic group, compared to religious antisemitism, which is prejudice against Jews and Judaism on the basis of their religion. According to William Nichols, religious antisemitism may be distinguished from modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion ... a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "Now the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism ... . From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews... Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving  behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."
  In the context of the Industrial Revolution, following the emancipation of the Jews and the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment), many Jews rapidly urbanized and experienced a period of greater social mobility. With the decreasing role of religion in public life and the simultaneous tempering of religious antisemitism, a combination of growing nationalism, the rise of eugenics, resentment of the socio-economic success of the Jews, and the influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe to Central Europe, soon led to the newer, and often more virulent, racist antisemitism.
  Scientific racism, the ideology that genetics played a role in group behavior and characteristics, was highly respected and accepted as fact between 1870 and 1940. It was not only antisemites who believed in race science but highly educated Jews, among others, as well. This acceptance of race science made it possible for antisemites to clothe their hatred of Jews in scientific theory.
  The logic of racial antisemitism was extended in Nazi Germany, where racial antisemitic ideas were turned into laws, which looked at the "blood" or ethnicity  of people, rather than their current religious affiliations, and their subsequent fate would be determined purely on that basis. When added to its views on the Jewish racial traits which Nazi pseudoscience devised, the logic of racial antisemitism led to the Holocaust as a way to eradicate conjured up "Jewish traits" from the world.
caption: A fragment of the Nazi antisemitic propaganda film Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") which demonstrates "typical" physical features of the Jews
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