Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust [Paperback]

Robert Michael (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1403974721 | ISBN-13: 978-1403974723 | Publication Date: October 3, 2006 | Edition: 1st

Although Christianity's precise influence on the Holocaust cannot be determined and the Christian churches did not themselves perpetrate the Final Solution, Robert Michael argues in Holy Hatred that the two millennia of Christian ideas and prejudices and their impact on Christians' behavior appear to be the major basis of antisemitism and of the apex of antisemitism, the Holocaust.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A praiseworthy achievement--a model of its kind."--Paul R. Bartrop, Honorary Research Fellow, The Faculty of Arts, Deakin University, and Head of History, Bialik College
 
"Holy Hatred is a masterful, beautifully written study of how Christianity and the churches shaped and sustained a lethal antisemitism for almost two millennia. Future studies of the Holocaust or of antisemitism will have to address Michael's work."--Eunice G. Pollack, University of North Texas
 
 "Following in the footsteps of Poliakov and Flannery, this book offers a powerful description of Christianity's intimate involvement with Judeophobia and anti-Semitism from the gospels forward."--Peter J. Haas, Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, and Director, The Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies, Case Western Reserve University
 
"If anyone still remains ignorant of the Christian origins of anti-Semitism--ancient and modern--and its contribution to the Holocaust, this book will remedy that bliss: clearly, and in comprehensive detail."--Richard Elliott Sherwin, Professor, Bar-Ilan University

About the Author

Robert Michael is Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Listed in Who's Who in America, Professor Michael was a 1997 recipient of the American Historical Association's James Harvey Robinson Prize for the "most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history." A founder of the scholarly e-mail lists H-Antisemitism and H-W-Civ, Dr. Michael has published more than fifty articles and ten books on the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust.

 

http://jewdysseos.blogspot.com/
http://jewdysseos.wordpress.com/

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403974721
• ISBN-13: 978-1403974723
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #604,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Important Book!, October 24, 2011

By 

The Librarian (Manassas, Virginia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust (Paperback)

In this age of historic revisionism, it is important that Professors of History step forward and write books such as this that set the historical record straight.

Professor Robert Michael has stepped forward and smacked aside the lies and propaganda spread by modern day Catholics and Protestants that Christians can somehow be held blameless for the Holocaust and even more shocking the claim by Pope Benedict XVI that atheists were to blame for the atrocities committed by Hitler's Nazi regime.

Professor Michael covers approximately 1,900 years of Christian history and documents quite extensively the violence and the anti-Semitic propaganda that the Christians (starting with the Catholic Church) inflicted against the Jews for centuries and how it influenced Hitler and helped give rise to Hitler's policies.

Nearly every Nazi administrative order-from yellow stars to ghettos from defamations to deportations, from round ups to slaughters-had a precedent in the Christian West. Millions of Jews were murdered by Christians in Europe before Hitler was even a twinkle in his Mother's eye.

I give just two examples from Professor Michael's book:

1. Approximately 100,000 Jews were killed in the time period between 1298 and 1303 in Austria and Central Germany when Christians falsely accused the Jews of profaning a Host wafer. There was no proof that a Host was even TOUCHED by a Jew. There was no trial. There was merely mob justice by Christians who were doing "God's will".

2. In Spain in 1390 Ferant Martinez (a deputy for the Bishop of Seville) demanded the destruction of Jews and Judaism. His angry, anti-Semitic sermons instigated a movement that spread through most of Spain and led to approximately 50,000 Jews being brutally murdered and thousands more forced to convert to Christianity. And of course any conversos (Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity) who were suspected of practicing their old religion secretly, were arrested by the Inquisition and tortured.

In addition to mass killings and deportations, both the Protestant and Catholic Churches filled Europe with anti-Semitic books, religious pamphlets and newspapers. They also created political parties which preached a very overt, racist and vicious brand of anti-Semitism to the voting public in Austria, Germany, France and other European nations.

Adolph Hitler (a Roman Catholic) grew up in this environment and was surrounded by anti-Semitic religious leaders, anti-Semitic political leaders, anti-Semitic radio broadcasts and anti-Semitic newspapers. The dominant political party in Austria during Hitler's youth was the Christian Social Party which was very vocal and insistent about it's anti-Semitic views.

The Nazi conception of the Jew as less than human, or inhuman, was based on the Christian conception of the Jew as a traitor, murderer, plague, pollution, filth, devil and insect, which prepared both killers and victims for the Jews literal destruction. Jewish deaths at the hands of Christians before 1933 amounted to millions.

The majority of both Protestants and Catholics endorsed the Nazi regime. Conditioned by a centuries long theological and racist Christian tradition hostile to the Jews, German lay Christians and Churches supported the Third Reich and it's anti-Semitic policies.

Robert Michael uses one historical fact after another to prove that Christian theological anti-Semitism and Christian racist anti-Semitism provided the most important roots of the Holocaust.

He also points out the fact that the Catholic Church has never put Hitler's written works on the index of forbidden books, nor has he or any other Catholic who participated in the final solution even been officially excommunicated from the Church for war crimes.

Everyone should read this book. It sets the record straight. It pushes aside all the historic revisionism and propaganda. It makes certain that the truth is told.