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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antisemitism by country | 11/15 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_by_country | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:35:42.435843+00:00 | kb-cron |
At the end of the 16th century and thereafter, not one year passed without a blood libel trial against Jews in Poland, trials which always ended with the execution of Jewish victims in a heinous manner... In the 1650s the Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth (The Deluge) and the Chmielnicki uprising of the Cossacks resulted in depopulation of the Commonwealth, as over 30% of the ~10 million population perished or emigrated. In the related 1648–55 pogroms led by the Ukrainian uprising against Polish nobility (szlachta), during which approximately 100,000 Jews were slaughtered, Polish and Ruthenian peasants often participated in killing Jews. The besieged szlachta, who were also decimated in the territories where the uprising happened, typically abandoned the loyal peasantry, townsfolk, and the Jews renting their land, in violation of "rental" contracts. In the aftermath of the Deluge and Chmielnicki Uprising, many Jews fled to the less turbulent Netherlands, which had granted the Jews a protective charter in 1619. From then until the Nazi deportations in 1942, the Netherlands remained a tolerant haven for Jews in Europe, exceeding the tolerance extant in all other European countries, and becoming one of the few Jewish havens until the 19th century social and political reforms throughout much of Europe. Many Jews fled to England, open to Jews since the mid-17th century, where Jews were not typically persecuted.
In a reversal of roles that is common in Jewish history, the victorious Poles now vented their wrath upon the hapless Jews of the area, accusing them of collaborating with the Cossack invader!... The Jews, reeling from almost five years of constant hell, abandoned their Polish communities and institutions... Throughout the 16th to 18th centuries, many of the szlachta mistreated peasantry, townsfolk and Jews. Threat of mob violence was a spectre over the Jewish communities in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time. On one occasion in 1696, a mob threatened to massacre the Jewish community of Posin, Vitebsk. The mob accused the Jews of murdering a Pole. At the last moment, a peasant woman emerged with the victim's clothes and confessed to the murder. One notable example of riots against Polish Jews is 1716, during which many Jews lost their lives. On the other hand, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a relative haven for Jews when compared to the partitions of Poland and the PLC's destruction in 1795 (see Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, below). Anti-Jewish sentiments continued to be present in Poland, even after the country regained its independence. One notable manifestation of these attitudes includes numerus clausus rules imposed, by almost all Polish universities in 1937.
In Poland, the semidictatorial government of Piłsudski and his successors, pressured by an increasingly vocal opposition on the radical and fascist right, implemented many anti-Semitic policies tending in a similar direction, while still others were on the official and semiofficial agenda when war descended in 1939.... In the 1930s the realm of official and semiofficial discrimination expanded to encompass limits on Jewish export firms... and, increasingly, on university admission itself. In 1921–22 some 25 percent of Polish university students were Jewish, but in 1938–39 their proportion had fallen to 8 percent. While there are many examples of Polish support and help for the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, there are numerous examples of antisemitic incidents, and the Jewish population was certain of the indifference towards their fate from the Christian Poles. The Polish Institute for National Memory identified 24 pogroms against Jews during World War II, the most notable occurring at the massacre in Jedwabne in 1941. After World War II, remaining anti-Jewish sentiments were used by the Communist party or individual politicians to achieve political goals, which peaked in the March 1968 events. These sentiments started to diminish only with the collapse of the communist rule in 1989, which resulted in a re-examination of events between Jewish and Christian Poles, with a number of incidents, like the massacre at Jedwabne, being discussed openly. Violent antisemitism in the 21st century is marginal compared to elsewhere, but there are few Jews remaining in Poland. Still, according to 2005 research by B'nai Briths Anti-Defamation League, Poland remains among the European countries (with others being Italy, Spain and Germany) with the largest percentages of people holding antisemitic views.
=== Spain ===
The first major persecution of Jews in Spain occurred on December 30, 1066, when the Jews were expelled from Granada and nearly 3,000 Jews were killed during the Granada massacre when they did not leave. This was the first persecution of Jews by the Muslims on the Peninsula under Islamic rule.