In October 2012, I was invited to give a research seminar paper on anti-Jewish propaganda produced in the late medieval and early modern Iberian world at an Australian university. The title of the paper included the term “antisemitic propaganda” and the terms “antisemitic” and “antisemitism” were used a few times during the paper. In the question and answer session that followed the paper, several academics in the audience—historians of twentieth-century Europe—vigorously questioned the appropriateness of using the concept of “antisemitism” in a pre-modern context. I was forcefully reminded that antisemitism is a “racial hatred of Jews,” linked to the rise of “scientific racism” in the nineteenth century. Therefore, whilst “modern” hatred of Jews is racial, pre-modern hatred of Jews was distinguished and defined by its purely religious character. It was the height of absurdity, a terrible anachronism even, for a historian to use the concept of “antisemitism” in a medieval or early modern context.

Such a reaction will not come as a surprise to historians who have worked on the subject of anti-Jewish sentiment and propaganda in medieval Christian Europe. “Antisemitism” is certainly a nineteenth-century term that defies any facile attempt to define it. Kenneth L. Marcus has articulated the crux of the problem:

In a twenty-first-century context, “antisemitism” has been used to define, alternatively, a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the existence of a Jewish homeland (the State of Israel), criticism of Zionism as an ideology and movement, or indeed sometimes even criticism of Israeli government policies in Gaza and the West Bank. Some writers have even argued that these now constitute a “new” form of “antisemitism,” adding another layer of complexity to the problem of defining “antisemitism.” Even if it is reduced to its vaguest (and most imperfect) definition as “a hatred of Jews,” the use of “antisemitism” is problematic. Does it merely mean a hatred of Jews defined as a specific racial/ethnic group?