In the
Middle Ages Antisemitism in Europe was religious. Though not part of
Roman Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the
clergy, have held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus, a practice originated by
Melito of Sardis.
During the
High Middle Ages in Europe there was full-scale persecution in many places, with
blood libels, expulsions,
forced conversions and
massacres. An underlying source of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. Jews were frequently massacred and exiled from various European countries.
The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the
Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. The Crusades were followed by expulsions, including in 1290,
the banishing of all English Jews; in 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and, in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of the expelled Jews fled to Poland.
As the
Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating more than a half of the population, Jews were taken as
scapegoats. Rumors spread that they caused the disease by deliberately
poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence in the
Black Death persecutions. Although
Pope Clement VItried to protect them by the July 6, 1348
papal bull and another 1348 bull, several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in
Strasbourg, where the plague hadn't yet affected the city.
Jews in India faced no persecution from Hindus from the time they migrated to India, but they were subjugated by Christian missionaries during the
Goa Inquisition from the year 1552. Portuguese invaders in the South India committed massive atrocities on South Indian Jewry in the 17th century
In the 19th and (before the end of the second World War) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good anti-Semitism" and "bad anti-Semitism".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews
