Overview

Throughout the history of the Western world, Jews have suffered various forms of exclusion, stigmatisation, and discrimination that have forced them always to be aware of their very particular situation. The Jews became a community under siege and, as Shlomo Sand argues, Judaism was shaped by the hostile gaze of Christian civilization. While the forms of hostility endured by the Jews have varied over the centuries, it is impossible to understand twentieth century anti-Judaism, or Jewish identity itself, without taking account of the sediments of mental hatred, fuelled by religious belief, which have survived the passage of time. While antisemitism is the term commonly used today, Sand prefers ‘Judeophobia’, which predates the appearance of ‘antisemitism’ and is more precise. Looking back over the centuries, he seeks to identify some of the stages in the age-old, incandescent hatred of the Jews and tries to understand what remains today of this trenchant hostility. He also questions whether Zionism, born as a distressed response to modern Judeophobia, has ended up mirroring it. To what extent has Zionism inherited the ideological foundations that have always been characteristic of the persecutors of the Jews? This concise history of anti-Jewish hatred will be of great interest to anyone concerned with one of the most insidious and persistent features of Western civilization.

Full Product Details

Author:   Shlomo Sand (Tel Aviv University) ,  Robin Mackay
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Imprint:   Polity Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.40cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.20cm
Weight:   0.284kg
ISBN:  

9781509570775

ISBN 10:   1509570772
Pages:   144
Publication Date:   06 February 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Available To Order  
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

Table of Contents

1. A Subjective Text 2. Curbing Jewish Proselytism 3. “People-Race” or Religious Community? 4. The Origins of “Judeo-Christian” Europe 5. Humanism and Foreigners, from Erasmus to Voltaire 6. Revolution, Emancipation, and Nationality 7. The Jews, between Capitalism and Socialism 8. Racialization, Democratization, and Emigration 9. The Dreyfus Affair and the Birth of Zionism 10. The Extermination of the “Jewish Race” 11. The Rebirth of the “Jewish Race”? 12. Who is Jewish? From Fingerprints to DNA 13. The 1967 War and “Ancestral Rights” 14. Judeophobia on the Wane? 15. Is Anti-Zionism the New “Anti-Semitism”? Afterword 1. A Subjective Text 2. Curbing Jewish Proselytism 3. “People-Race” or Religious Community? 4. The Origins of “Judeo-Christian” Europe 5. Humanism and Foreigners, from Erasmus to Voltaire 6. Revolution, Emancipation, and Nationality 7. The Jews, between Capitalism and Socialism 8. Racialization, Democratization, and Emigration 9. The Dreyfus Affair and the Birth of Zionism 10. The Extermination of the “Jewish Race” 11. The Rebirth of the “Jewish Race”? 12. Who is Jewish? From Fingerprints to DNA 13. The 1967 War and “Ancestral Rights” 14. Judeophobia on the Wane? 15. Is Anti-Zionism the New “Anti-Semitism”? Afterword

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Author Information

Shlomo Sand is Emeritus Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. His many books include The Invention of the Jewish People (2008), The Invention of the Land of Israel (2012), How I Stopped Being a Jew (2013), A Brief Global History of the Left (2023) and Israel-Palestine.

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