Anti-Semitism—The Bigotry Whose Form Changes, but Whose Essence Doesn’t

This picture taken in 1942 shows Jewish deportees in the Drancy transit camp, their last stop before the German concentration camps. -/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Our divided political environment has generated many charges of bigotry. One of the most important tasks is to define anti-Semitism. To accomplish this, I concentrate on both the group definition and the causes.

Who Is Jewish?

Jews are generally regarded as an ethnoreligious group or a spiritual version of an extended family in which members are related by blood and/or religion. Occasionally outsiders join, in which case the “adoption” is accomplished by conversion.