Distinguished historian Ivan Marcus makes five main arguments in his provocatively titled new book, How The West Became Antisemitic. The first is that historians have underappreciated the role of Jewish people (both real and imagined) in the development of medieval Europe. The second is that medieval Jews and Christians marshaled competing claims to divine chosenness. Marcus’s third claim is that in response to calls to retake the Holy Land from the “infidels” — calls that gave rise to the Crusades — Christians increasingly identified Jews as the more proximate “enemy from within.” His fourth claim suggests that with coerced conversions to Christianity, a conception of immutable, bodily Jewishness emerged. Lastly, Marcus argues that medieval anti-Jewish ideas serve as the foundation for and are structurally similar to modern antisemitism.
Marcus’s impeccably detailed account begins in the early ninth century, when Emperor Charlemagne encouraged the migration of Jews to his empire for economic reasons. For the next several centuries, Marcus claims, Jews and Christians lived alongside each other with only occasional hostilities. Gradually, Europe began to villainize Jews, giving rise to a range of anti-Christian actions. This reflects a dispute over divine chosenness, which both Jews and Christians claimed exclusively.
Because many of the accusations against Jews were erroneous, Marcus calls these supposed perpetrators the “imagined Jew,” a projection of Christian anti-Judaism. European Christians increasingly defined themselves in direct opposition to Jews. Jews were understood as ugly, whereas Christians were beautiful.
Although some claims — such as accusations of ritual murder — were wholly fictitious, other claims of anti-Christian activity by Jews are likely based in reality. One distinctive example discussed at length in the book is “latrine blasphemy.” For medieval Christians, all bodily fluids were profane. Thus, urinating or defecating on or near Christian icons, such as a statue of the Virgin Mary, is especially insulting if the real presence of the figure is understood to inhere in the icon. Some Christians claimed that Jews desecrated Christian icons, usually acquired as collateral for financial loans, by bringing them into latrines. A source records Jews farting at Christians when given the ultimatum to convert to Christianity or be put to death. Latrine blasphemy demonstrates Jews’ knowledge of Christian religious practices, and shows their agency in a period when they had limited political or social power.
As coerced conversions to Christianity proliferated, the notion that Jewishness was unchangeable even via conversion began to emerge. This reflects a body-based conception of Jewishness that resulted from the idea that Jews, a deviant, internal enemy, are categorically different from Christians.
Marcus’s historical narrative culminates with a theoretical argument. Scholars have long debated the relationship between premodern forms of Jew-hatred and antisemitism. Some scholars argue that antisemitism is an exclusively modern phenomenon because it relies on modern ideas of race. This view also often explains premodern Jew-hatred as based on theological or doctrinal issues. In contrast, Marcus argues that modern antisemitism is the historical successor of medieval antisemitism. Modern antisemitic concepts have been substituted for medieval ones. As a striking example, the belief that the Jew is the enemy within society and has permanent Jewishness is shared by both fifteenth-century Christians who refused to accept Jewish converts and the Nazis. Thus, Marcus suggests, understanding the forces that gave rise to the structure of antisemitism helps us understand, and combat, antisemitism today.
Brian Hillman is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Towson University.
