ABSTRACT
In Christianity, Judaism has been regarded as an important and long-existent form of opposition to Christian faith. While this has given Judaism a position of importance in the Christian mind, the importance has been dreaded as a constant threat. Consequently, Christianity contains beliefs in the constant existence of Jewish threatening activities. This belief in the formidable extent of Jewish thought and activity survived belief in Christianity and took new forms in the post-Christian emergence of apparently secular beliefs. Thus the emergence of secular political systems has produced a new apparently secular form of antisemitism. Any participation of individual Jews in the new secular forms of society and any minor forms of power-assumption by individual Jews have assumed an air of power assumption by Jews as a whole. The welcome given by Jews to new areas of participation and freedom in general society has been interpreted as a dangerous plot to take over the non-Jewish world. Thus post-religious antisemitism, while arising from the previous religious antisemitism, has acquired new characteristics which are even more dangerous.
