| Anti-Semitism is a complicated and age-long phenomenon in the West. On one hand, Jewish Culture is an indispensable source for western culture. With a history of about four thousand years, the Jewish culture contributed Judaism—the essence of the Jewish tradition, as well as its daughter religion—Christianity, to the world and has played a significant role in shaping western mentality. On the other hand, the hatred, resentment and persecutions against the Jewish nation have never been ceased since more than two thousand years ago. Although the term "anti-Semitism" was coined about one hundred years ago in 1896, prejudice and unfair treatments of Jews have lasted for a much longer time, from the ancient times to the present-day, and reached its zenith in the Holocaust conducted by German dictator Hitler during World War II.Anti-Semitism has become a hot subject for research in the academic circle since the twentieth century, especially after World War II. Moreover, the studies of anti-Semitism which are carried out in the Western countries have grown into a mature branch of learning. In China, however, it was not until the 1980s that the earliest detailed studies of anti-Semitism started. Professor Xu Xin, an English professor at Nanjing University, is the most prominent Chinese scholar in the field of Jewish culture and anti-Semitism studies.This thesis is organized around three chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion surveying the rise and development of anti-Semitism, with an emphasis on the rationale behind it.Introduction offers a brief glimpse of the questions which this thesis will examine, research methods it employs, and its overall frame.Chapter One focuses on the religious roots of anti-Semitism. Jews have been regarded as the "strangers" by the gentiles for nearly two thousand years, due to their "stubborn" allegiance to the Jewish tradition, such as the practices of Judaism and the unique Jewish life style. The early religious hostility can be viewed as the origin of anti-Semitism, and has been intensified by the church fathers who aim at defeating their Jewish rivals. After the Middle Ages, Jews' demonic image has become prevailing in the Christianity-dominated Western culture.Chapter Two is about anti-Semitism in modern Europe. This thesis sees that anti-Jewish treatments still exist during this period, and develop further into a racial form. After the invention of the term "anti-Semitism", this old Jew-hatred has been systematized, and further intensified by Nazi, with their racist and eugenic theory.Chapter Three examines anti-Semitism in America. It is a miracle that American Jews has been an influential part of American elite with a seemingly powerful right for discourse. However, the "New World" also embraces the international transplantation of anti-Semitism while it opens a door to numerous European immigrants. After looking at the ideological anti-Semitism reflected in the cultural fields from a broader perspective, this chapter also presents a detailed account through a brief textual analysis of Henry James' The American Scene.Conclusion analyzes the wholeness and continuity of the Jewish culture, in respect to the theory of the adverse-effects of anti-Semitism by Xu Xin, and gives two kinds of explanations to the unique characteristic of the Jewish culture.
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