ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that differing approaches to the question of continuities and discontinuities, religion and secularization. It provides analogy between antisemitism and Islamophobia and their significance for European nation-states. The book presents studies of medieval Norway and modern Japan, both areas initially without a resident Jewish population. It deals with the significance of religion for medieval and modern antisemitism respectively. The book argues that northern Europe became the breeding ground for the radicalisation and racialisation of antisemitism, and offers Catholic antisemitism in Poland in the decades before the First World War. It analyses medieval continuities in contemporary popular culture with the example of Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. The book also provides evidence for the relevance of European antisemitism even in the Muslim world.
