An Analysis of Modern and Medieval Anti-Semitism

If someone described to you a plot about Zionist Jews planning to subvert the accepted authority figures and replace them in a puppet, one-world government for the sake of Jews everywhere, you'd probably think you were being told a modern Illuminati-style conspiracy theory. The internet especially is rank with these types of rumors and theories, but amazingly, they are really nothing new to civilization. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's beliefs that the world is controlled by Zionist plots and conspiracies are the stuff of the Medieval era and beyond - and has affected deportations, apartheids and wholesale slaughters.

Among the most popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was the fear of the Spanish conversos - those Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity during the Reconquista. In 1492, the reconquest of Spain was complete, and the invading Moors had finally been driven out after half a millennium of constant warfare between the native Iberian Spaniards and the invading Muslims - and the conflict has left a lasting impact on the culture there. To this day, several factions, including the terrorist Osama bin-Laden, refer to the fall of southern Spain, known as Andalusia, as the "tragedy of al-Andalus," and yearn for a chance to retake the Iberian Peninsula.

Naturally, as with any mass-scale integration of seeming foreigners into a closely knit community, there was a great deal of suspicion toward the conversos. This was not entirely without merit however, as the primarily Jewish converts, whom the majority of the ire was directed at, often declared themselves to be the only "True" Christians. With their direct blood connection to Jesus Christ, they felt that anyone else was the true outsider - and this affected their day to day dealings.

Resentment began to grow between the two factions of Christians - the Jewish conversos often speaking down to their Spanish comrades, and the others growing jealous of their rapid acceleration through the social ladder. Many of them received high posts in government, especially assisting the king and queen of Spain as advisers.

As is the case today, coupled with their basic envy, many people fell into gossip mongering that perpetuating absurd theories like a massive conspiracy of Jews who did not earnestly convert to Christianity, who were secretly practicing Judaism while they took advantage of their Christian station in life. Some conspiracies even told of the Pope being secretly surrounded by Jews and conversos who sought to overthrow the entire Papacy.

The hard times for Jews were not unique to Spain, however; Elizabethan England was just as difficult, especially considering the mass deportation from mainland Britain ordered of the Semitic peoples. Those few that managed to find a post, such as the famed Dr. Lopez, whom many see as the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, were under even harsher levels of scrutiny for their alleged conversion first to Catholicism, then to Protestantism.

The panic that was felt across the Iberian Peninsula led the Spaniards and Catholics there to become convinced that a massive Zionist-Jewish conspiracy was afoot, hellbent on usurping all that was Christian, and replace it with a Jewish Europe. As a direct response, the Spanish Inquisition was formed with the intent to find out which Jews were authentic in their conversion, and which weren't.

Sources:

Crisis Magazine
Millersville University
Associated Content: The Truth Behind the Spanish Inquisition
Associated Content: The Spanish Inquisition's "Professionalism" Set It Apart