Jacob Sivak
It was just reported that the California legislature passed a bill making it the first state to recognize Jewish identity as an ethnicity, as well as a religion. Proponents of the bill believe that the change will make it possible to better track antisemitism in the state, particularly in light of the spike in antisemitism that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
I was under the impression that the ethnic version of antisemitism (often used interchangeably with race) was a development that accompanied the European Enlightenment and the 19th century rise of modern nationalism. Indeed, the term antisemitism itself is relatively new, coined by the German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879. Authors such as the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Not In God’s Name), note that during the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion, while in the 19th century, they began to be hated for their race.
It turns out that the racial/ethnic form of anti-Jewish prejudice goes back to at least the 15th century, a time when Spanish and Portuguese Jews had to either flee or convert to Christianity. Those who converted, the “new Christians,” were subject to ethnic discrimination based on the laws of Limpieza de Sangre (“purity of blood”).
For example, Jews could not participate in trade guilds, hold public office, or attend universities, and these and other restrictions remained in force well into the 1800s. But I was astonished to learn from a recently published book, Jesuit Kaddish (2020), that for more than 400 years, until 1946, anyone with Jewish ancestry could not be a Jesuit!
Jesuit Kaddish is an effort to atone for centuries of hostility by Jesuits toward the Jewish people and Judaism. It describes the hostility, but also the Jesuit contribution to Nostra aetate, the 1965 Vatican II document condemning antisemitism and rejecting the charge of collective Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. An appendix lists 15 Jesuits honored by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, as Righteous Among the Nations — non-Jews who risked or lost their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The author, James Bernauer, is an academic and a Jesuit (SJ, Society of Jesus), a religious order of men within the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1540 by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the Jesuits have a global reach in such areas as education, missionary work, and social justice.
Ironically, the Jesuit prohibition on accepting Christians with Jewish ancestry (this was later defined as going back five generations), was enacted 50 years after the Jesuit order was created, after a number of “new Christians” had risen to prominence in its ranks. Interestingly, those with Muslim ancestry were also banned from becoming Jesuits, but the restriction on Muslims was removed in 1923, while those with Jewish connections had to wait until 1946.
Bernauer’s book is a sincere effort to come to terms with Jesuit history and the Jews. He writes “…it was the Jews of the Holocaust who helped teach the Jesuits the need to honor human dignity and religious pluralism.” However, that the restriction on Jewish ancestry was only removed after the tragedy of the Holocaust, more than 400 years after it was imposed, is an indication of the depth to which prejudice can affect human behavior.
As to whether antisemitism has a religious and/or an ethnic basis, I agree with Mika Ahuvia (Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, University of Washington, 2025), who notes that antisemitism is not really about the Jewish religion or Jewish ethnicity. It is about Jews as outsiders and their traditional role as scapegoats, particularly during times of crisis.
This is the true source of antisemitism, and understanding it is the first step in countering it. After all, the Jesuit ban on those with Jewish backgrounds was all about reducing competition for power and influence within the order, not ethnicity.
*Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/09/02/is-being-jewish-ethnicity-religion-jesuit-view/
