In 1882, Jewish author and statesman Nahum Sokolow wrote that the new concept of anti-Semitism had been introduced to replace the older religion-centered animosity towards Jews.
In his book "Eternal Hatred to the Eternal People,"* Sokolow surveys centuries of hatred towards the Jews, and shows that religion was the key element in setting the Jews apart from their surroundings and in fomenting hatred towards them.
However, Sokolow points out that the modern hatred of Jews is no longer based upon religion, but is an outgrowth of the nationalism and materialism that swept 19th century Europe.
The Age of Enlightenment ignited a process that gave rise to equality, individual rights, religious tolerance and democracy. These allowed the Jews to depart from their previously excluded communities and assimilate into the society in which they lived.
However, the new age also gave rise to nationalism, and as nationalist identities developed around the concept of shared ancient roots, a tendency to reject outsiders and foreigners also grew.
By adopting the concept of anti-Semitism rather then of anti-Judaism, Jews could still be excluded from society, vilified, and turned against.
With none of the old legal and religious barriers, a Jew could now enjoy equal rights, fulfill his civic obligations, and even become a valued member of a country's political, economic or cultural fields – as many Jews did in 19th century England, France, and Germany. Religion no longer mattered, and many Jews became as secular as the rest of European society.
Despite this, a Jew could still be differentiated on the basis of his blood lineage. No matter how accomplished a German-Jewish doctor, politician, author or musician became, he could never claim a blond Teuton chieftain as a forebear. With the rise of national chauvinism, Jews were once more seen as outsiders.
In Sokolow's words:
At first impression no fault can be found with the Jews of Germany, as most of them have given up their Jewish nationality and religion and have replaced their identity with equal rights (which are now also being questioned). But even there, in Germany, they are vilified: It is said that because they cannot consume large amounts of beer like true Germans, descendants of the Teutons, they are strangers to the German nation. They are faulted for having black hair, whereas the true Germans are blond; they are accused of having a crooked nose and a bent back.But the harshest accusation, the heaviest accusation, is that they are Semites. The haters of the Jews in Germany were aware of how weak Judaism as a religion was in Germany (whose Jewish population was mostly secular). Therefore, they did not define their hatred as anti-Jewish, but rather as anti-Semitic, as the imprint of Judaism in Germany was unfortunately no longer evident. But the Semitism, that is, the charge that they are not descendants of Japheth but rather of Shem, indicates an incurable affliction. This is because their origin is impossible to change: You cannot dig Shem out of his grave and make him into Japheth, nor can you make him into the ancient Teuton father that Germans see as their ancestor.
Writing sixty years before the atrocities of Auschwitz, Sokolow not only illuminates the circumstances that led to the birth of modern anti-Semitism, but also points to its horrible new nature: that being Jewish is incurable.
Earlier Jew haters could see conversion, whether forcible or willing, as a way out for Jews, who could become a Christian or a Muslim and thus end his pariah state. A modern anti-Semite no longer gives that option: Any attempt by the Jew to discard his heritage and assimilate into society, once a good thing, is now seen as an evil, an introduction of a foreign element into the "pure" nation.
This new line of 'no way out' thinking would be carried out to its conclusion in the Holocaust.
