Pre-Holocaust Anti-Semitic Art

1. A Jewish couple with an obligatory Jewish badge in yellow ring form on their clothes. Medieval church leaders dictated that Jews in all Christian lands should be publically differentiated from the rest of the population and thereby stigmatized. “Worms.” Germany, 16th century.

2. “Satan Binds the Eyes of the Jews” from Le Breviari D’Amor by Matfre Ermengald of Beziers. France, 14th century. The image shows Satan blinding the eyes of the Jews from the idea of Jesus and Christianity.

3. Manticore from the Salisbury Bestiary, 13th century

4. A 15th-century German woodcut showing an alleged host desecration. 1) In the first panel the hosts are stolen; 2) in the second the hosts bleed when pierced by a Jew; 3) in the third the Jews are arrested; 4) and in the fourth they are burned alive.

5. Racial anti-Semitic caricature (France, 1898)

6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, New York An illustration of Psalm 52, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” a detail from the Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg, circa 1340

7. Painting of the Jewish blood libel myth, housed in Sandomierz Cathedral, “Ritual Murder,” by de Prevot, 1708