The anguish of the Jews : twenty-three centuries of antisemitism

A history of antisemitism, from the Hellenistic period to post-World War II, written by a Catholic priest. Dwells on the deterioration in Christian-Jewish relations in the 1st-3rd centuries, noting that both leaders of the Early Church and of Judaism contributed to it. Nevertheless, it is only since the legalization of Christianity by Constantine that it is possible to speak about Christian antisemitism, the first portent of which was the deicide accusation. While there was a reduction in antisemitism in the early Middle Ages, there was an upsurge in the late medieval and early modern periods, largely in reaction to Jewish economic activities, especially usury. Anti-religious and anti-ecclesiastical movements and forces of the modern era (e.g. rationalism, atheism, racism, and communism) tended to aggravate antisemitism rather than "solve the Jewish question". Dwells on the Nazi Holocaust, and on antisemitism in the postwar USSR and USA.