The History & Application of Antisemitism in Europe & the U.S.. Part Three: The Fight for Recognition & Emancipation.

Emancipation for Jews in nineteenth century Europe meant freedom from persecution and acceptance. Too long strangers in the towns & cities where they lived and worked, for Jews to be accorded the same rights as Christians had been a long held dream, and it was a dream worth fighting for.

Photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash.

“…in political warfare…/…racism was calculated to be a more powerful ally than any paid agent or organisation of fifth columnists,” wrote Hannah Arendt, and then later affirming that the “old misconception of racism as an exaggerated form of nationalism is still given currency,” statements that remain pertinent even all these decades after that was written.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1).

The rights of man & emancipation of the Jews

In 1896, in his book ‘The Jewish State,’ Theodore Herzl expressed his desire for Jews to be able to live in a country where they would not be designated ‘strangers.’