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7 BCE
7th Century Banishment
Muhammad expelled Jewish tribes "Banu Qaynuqa" and "Banu Nadir" from Medina. The "Banu Qurayza" tribe was slaughtered and the Jewish settlement of Khaybar was ransacked. All three tribes had previously agreed to a peace treaty with Muhammad, but they broke the treaty and sided with each other in rebellion. The "Banu Qurayza" not only sided with opposing leaders such as "The Quraish", but also waged war against Muhammad. -
629
Repercussions of the Byzantine-Sasasian War
Jews from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Galilee, Damascus, and even Cyprus united to form an army against Tyre. They were invited by the 4,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city to surprise- massacre the Christians on Easter night. The Jewish invaders destroyed the churches around Tyre, an act which the Christians killed two thousand of their Jewish prisoners. -
1095
The Crusades
Pope Urban II made a general appeal to the Christians of Europe to take up the cross and sword and liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, beginning what was later known as the Crusades. The religious fervor that drove men, and later even children, on the Crusades was to have direct consequences for Jews. The Crusader army, which more closely resembled a mob, swept through Jewish communities looting, raping and massacring Jews as they went. Thus the pogrom was born. -
1298
Rintfleisch's Torment
Rindfleisch was a Franconian knight who instigated the massacre of up to 100,000 Jews in Southern and Central Germany. Rindfleisch claimed a divine mission to exterminate "the accursed race of the Jews" following a rumor of desecration of the host. The "desecration of the host" was a medieval superstition which maintained that Jews defiled the communion wafer with blood. It's now believed that the wafers were attacked by a brownish-red fungus that looked like blood. -
1545
The Jews and Their Lies
Martin Luther, the founder of the 16th century Reformation and Protestantism, wrote a pamphlet in 1545 called ''The Jews and Their Lies", claiming that Jews thirsted for Christian blood. It also urged the slaying of the Jews. The Nazis reprinted it in 1935. Some scholars felt that these attacks marked the transition from anti-Judaism to anti-Semitism. -
First Use of "Antisemitism"
The term "antisemitism" was made popular by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879 to describe "the hatred or hostility towards Jews". His thesis was that Jews were conspiring to run the state and should be excluded from citizenship. In Russia, czarist secret police published a forged collection of documents that became known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It told of a secret plot by rabbis to take over the world. -
The Dreyfus Affair
Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew who was a captain in the French Army, was falsely accused and convicted of selling military secrets to the Germans. When evidence was discovered that Dreyfus was innocent, it was quickly covered up by French Officers of the General Staff who wanted to blame the crime on a Jew. Although Dreyfus was eventually vindicated, “The Dreyfus Affair,” as it became known, showed how deep-rooted and pervasive anti-Semitism was in France. -
Kishinev Pogroms
Kishinev was a town in Moldavia, now called Chisinau. In 1903 and again in 1905, anti-Jewish pogroms broke out in Kishinev and surrounding villages. The first Kishinev pogrom began with a blood libel in February of 1903. A peasant found the corpse of Mikhail Rybachenko, aged 14, bruised and covered with stab wounds, in a garden. The murder fueled wild rumors that he had been killed by local Jews in need of his Christian blood in order to prepare their matzot. -
Russia's Troubles
In Russia, although most Jews themselves were extremely poor, they were blamed for all the problems of the Russian peasantry. Pogroms were instigated by the czarist secret police. In 1905, Russia’s loss in the Russo-Japanese War moved the government to incite a bloody pogrom in Kishinev. Between 1917 and 1921, after the Russian Revolution, more than 500 Jewish communities in the Ukraine were wiped out in pogroms. About 60,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered. -
Russian Pogroms
Violent, anti-Jewish riots called pogroms were typically by the local non-Jewish population against their Jewish neighbors. Pogroms were often encouraged by the government and police forces. In part of the Russian Revolution, an estimated 1,326 pogroms were believed to have taken place across Ukraine. This left nearly half a million Ukrainian Jews homeless and killed an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 people between 1918 and 1921. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was a massive national Pogrom conducted by the Nazis against the Jews in Germany and Austria. Thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed. It was called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered windowpanes that carpeted German streets. The violence was done by the S.A. (Sturm Abteilung - Storm troopers) the SS (Schutzstaffel) and party branches. There were a series of regulations that humiliated, robbed and isolated the Jews. -
Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a mass shooting that occurred at Tree of Life – or L'Simcha Congregation[a] in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania while Shabbat morning services were being held. Eleven people were killed, and seven were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers was arrested and charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes.
