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How the West Became Antisemitic: Jews and the Formation of Europe, 800–1500
An examination of how the Jews—real and imagined—so challenged the Christian majority in medieval Europe that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways
In medieval Europe, Jews were not passive victims of the Christian community, as is often assumed, but rather were startlingly assertive, forming a Jewish civilization within Latin Christian society. Both Jews and Christians considered themselves to be God’s chosen people. These dueling claims fueled the rise of both cultures as they became rivals for supremacy. In How the West Became Antisemitic, Ivan Marcus shows how Christian and Jewish competition in medieval Europe laid the foundation for modern antisemitism.
Marcus explains that Jews accepted Christians as misguided practitioners of their ancestral customs, but regarded Christianity as idolatry. Christians, on the other hand, looked at Jews themselves—not Judaism—as despised. They directed their hatred at a real and imagined theoretically subordinate, but sometimes assertive, an implacable “enemy within.” In their view, Jews were permanently and physically Jewish—impossible to convert to Christianity. Thus Christians came to hate Jews first for religious reasons, and eventually for racial ones. Even when Jews no longer lived among them, medieval Christians could not forget their former neighbors. Modern antisemitism, based on the imagined Jew as powerful and world dominating, is a transformation of this medieval hatred.
A sweeping and well-documented history of the rivalry between Jewish and Christian civilizations during the making of Europe, How the West Became Antisemitic is an ambitious new interpretation of the medieval world and its impact on modernity.
In medieval Europe, Jews were not passive victims of the Christian community, as is often assumed, but rather were startlingly assertive, forming a Jewish civilization within Latin Christian society. Both Jews and Christians considered themselves to be God’s chosen people. These dueling claims fueled the rise of both cultures as they became rivals for supremacy. In How the West Became Antisemitic, Ivan Marcus shows how Christian and Jewish competition in medieval Europe laid the foundation for modern antisemitism.
Marcus explains that Jews accepted Christians as misguided practitioners of their ancestral customs, but regarded Christianity as idolatry. Christians, on the other hand, looked at Jews themselves—not Judaism—as despised. They directed their hatred at a real and imagined theoretically subordinate, but sometimes assertive, an implacable “enemy within.” In their view, Jews were permanently and physically Jewish—impossible to convert to Christianity. Thus Christians came to hate Jews first for religious reasons, and eventually for racial ones. Even when Jews no longer lived among them, medieval Christians could not forget their former neighbors. Modern antisemitism, based on the imagined Jew as powerful and world dominating, is a transformation of this medieval hatred.
A sweeping and well-documented history of the rivalry between Jewish and Christian civilizations during the making of Europe, How the West Became Antisemitic is an ambitious new interpretation of the medieval world and its impact on modernity.
371 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 11, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 30, 2024
This was very good. Sharp medievalist scholarship, untainted by any particular agenda, except for perhaps the usual scholarly give-and-take with rival accounts or theories. As a relative newcomer to the subject, there was lots that I found fascinating here, not least the many accounts of how medieval Jews—often stereotyped as passive victims of persecution and expulsions—could be quite deft at striking back, if only (often) polemically or symbolically. But to reiterate—this is not some kind of of-the-moment popular history, and it has only a relatively short chapter about the connection between medieval and contemporary antisemitism. For what it is, though, it is very much worth the time.
December 8, 2025
A bloated and redundant article. Half the page count is notes, indices, bibliography etc. One-third of the actual text is a regrettable fixation on feces, urine, semen, and blood. Another third of the book unfortunately takes up the cause that Jewish behavior itself could've warranted antisemitism. The last third of the book reiterates the initial undeveloped assertion that western antisemitism rests upon the inverted hierarchy of the mutually exclusive Jewish and Christian claims to righteousness, the role of the internal/near enemy contrasted by the distant enemy of the crusaders, and the perceived inalterable nature of the Jewish condition. An interesting discussion of the relative academic merits of terms for historic antisemitism practices or outbursts obscures that hardly twelve pages are dedicated to the relation of this historical western antisemitism to anything that grew out of it.
June 7, 2026
Completely fascinating, and highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of Jews in Europe.
The popular narrative of Jewish persecution in Europe, whether told by Jews or Gentiles, often flattens the story into a simple story - Jews were quietly minding their own affairs until Christians, animated by irrational hatred and antisemitism, suddenly turned on them. That account preserves the reality of Jewish suffering, but, according to Marcus, it also risks producing Jews as “perfect victims,” stripping them of agency and reducing a long, complex history into something morally tidy but historically wrong.
Marcus begins with the theological substrate that governed much of medieval Christian thinking about Jews: Augustine of Hippo. Augustine, the towering architect of much of the Latin Christian imagination, argued that Jews should not be killed or forcibly converted. Rather, they should be dispersed, subordinated, and protected within Christian society as living witnesses to Christian truth. This Augustinian doctrine shaped much of Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe.
So how did the West become truly antisemitic in the way we see in the 10th century onwards? Marcus’s central claim is that medieval anti-Judaism did not arise from Christian doctrine alone. It emerged from a deeper structural antagonism between two religious civilizations, each advancing rival claims to divine election. Medieval Jews were not passive and weak, but fashioned a resilient civilization within Latin Christendom, sustained their own exegetical and polemical traditions, mocked Christian theological pretensions, and refused, intellectually and spiritually, to acquiesce fully to Christian domination.
One of the book’s most arresting sections concerns the ferocity of Jewish anti-Christian polemic. Jewish texts could be very caustic, profane, and sacrilegious toward Christian beliefs and symbols, and often give reasons for Jews to limit interactions with Christians. Marcus gives particular attention to latrine blasphemy, namely the use of bodily fluids and excremental imagery to degrade Christian sacred figures and practices. It is ugly stuff.
The Crusades then become a pivotal moment. Christians, inflamed by the call to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims, increasingly identified Jews as a proximate “enemy within.” Marcus also stresses a point too often forgotten - despite their second-class status, Jews were frequently protected by popes, bishops, kings, and emperors. The reasons were both theological and practical. Augustinian doctrine required that Jews survive within Christian lands, while rulers benefited from Jewish economic activity and taxation. For these reasons, the original crusading call was not intended as a mandate to murder Jews. But, as Marcus suggests, Urban II’s failure to explicitly prohibit attacks on Jews, unlike some previous papal statements, may have helped create the conditions in which crusaders identified Jews as a nearby “enemy within” before marching east to fight more distant infidels.
From there, Jews became increasingly racialized. Christian writers scrutinized supposedly immutable Jewish characteristics, including darker complexion, while some Jewish texts themselves interpreted such bodily features through the lens of exile and the destruction of Jerusalem.
Altogether, a fascinating book. Definitely tricky to write as it can be perceived as some form of victim blaming, but Marcus wades into it quite dexterously. Highly recommended.
The popular narrative of Jewish persecution in Europe, whether told by Jews or Gentiles, often flattens the story into a simple story - Jews were quietly minding their own affairs until Christians, animated by irrational hatred and antisemitism, suddenly turned on them. That account preserves the reality of Jewish suffering, but, according to Marcus, it also risks producing Jews as “perfect victims,” stripping them of agency and reducing a long, complex history into something morally tidy but historically wrong.
Marcus begins with the theological substrate that governed much of medieval Christian thinking about Jews: Augustine of Hippo. Augustine, the towering architect of much of the Latin Christian imagination, argued that Jews should not be killed or forcibly converted. Rather, they should be dispersed, subordinated, and protected within Christian society as living witnesses to Christian truth. This Augustinian doctrine shaped much of Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe.
So how did the West become truly antisemitic in the way we see in the 10th century onwards? Marcus’s central claim is that medieval anti-Judaism did not arise from Christian doctrine alone. It emerged from a deeper structural antagonism between two religious civilizations, each advancing rival claims to divine election. Medieval Jews were not passive and weak, but fashioned a resilient civilization within Latin Christendom, sustained their own exegetical and polemical traditions, mocked Christian theological pretensions, and refused, intellectually and spiritually, to acquiesce fully to Christian domination.
One of the book’s most arresting sections concerns the ferocity of Jewish anti-Christian polemic. Jewish texts could be very caustic, profane, and sacrilegious toward Christian beliefs and symbols, and often give reasons for Jews to limit interactions with Christians. Marcus gives particular attention to latrine blasphemy, namely the use of bodily fluids and excremental imagery to degrade Christian sacred figures and practices. It is ugly stuff.
The Crusades then become a pivotal moment. Christians, inflamed by the call to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims, increasingly identified Jews as a proximate “enemy within.” Marcus also stresses a point too often forgotten - despite their second-class status, Jews were frequently protected by popes, bishops, kings, and emperors. The reasons were both theological and practical. Augustinian doctrine required that Jews survive within Christian lands, while rulers benefited from Jewish economic activity and taxation. For these reasons, the original crusading call was not intended as a mandate to murder Jews. But, as Marcus suggests, Urban II’s failure to explicitly prohibit attacks on Jews, unlike some previous papal statements, may have helped create the conditions in which crusaders identified Jews as a nearby “enemy within” before marching east to fight more distant infidels.
From there, Jews became increasingly racialized. Christian writers scrutinized supposedly immutable Jewish characteristics, including darker complexion, while some Jewish texts themselves interpreted such bodily features through the lens of exile and the destruction of Jerusalem.
Altogether, a fascinating book. Definitely tricky to write as it can be perceived as some form of victim blaming, but Marcus wades into it quite dexterously. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews