The Making of Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Europe as an Invention of Tradition

Ulrich Wyrwa advocates a strict divide between religious and racist hatred. Antisemites used distinctively medieval episodes of hatred of Jews and motifs of anti-Judaism to legitimise the worldview they had developed in response to their own bewilderment in the face of the disruption of the social and political order. In that sense, Wyrwa sees antisemitism as an “invented tradition” and rejects the idea of medieval roots of modern antisemitism.