Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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The theological origins of anti-semitism
JAMES CROSSLEY charts how anti Jewish sentiment developed from ancient days and the dawn of Christianity to the Middle Ages, the birth of Protestantism and the sinister era of of the Nazis
Persecution of Jews during the Black Death, unknown artist
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
TODAY, anti-semitism is typically understood as the belief that Jews are an inferior race. This form of anti-Jewish discrimination developed in the 18th and 19th centuries in influential strands of European nationalism. Here, Jews were not seen to share the same culture, language, religion, and history of a given nation. Jews could then be used as a convenient target of blame for a nation’s economic, social and political problems. Cliches about Jews were explained in pseudo-scientific terms as inherited racial behaviour.
Modern anti-semitism was also built on centuries of anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution that predated the rise of capitalism and modern nationalism.
Tracing their ancestry back through the Iron Age kingdoms of Judah and Israel, Jews as a recognisable group in the ancient world developed under various empires (eg, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman). Before the emergence of Christianity, Jews faced discrimination, expulsion and persecution. But this was not unusual for minority groups, religions or smaller territories.
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Political manipulation of history and exceptionalising of anti-semitism as a shield for Israeli war crimes are having a harmful effect on the fight against all racism and fuelling a cynicism that’s especially dangerous in today’s world, argue JULIA BARD and DAVID ROSENBERG
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