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Anti-Jewish boycotts

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Anti-Jewish boycotts are organized boycotts directed against Jewish people to exclude them economical, political or cultural life. Antisemitic boycotts are often regarded as a manifestation of popular antisemitism.[1]

19th and early 20th century boycotts

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In Hungary, agitation for boycotts began in 1875 with an antisemitic speech from Győző Istóczy in the Hungarian House of Representatives.[2][3] From the 1880s there were calls in some of the Catholic press for Jews to be boycotted.[4] The government passed laws limiting Jewish economic activity from 1938 onwards.[5]

In Russia, after a series of anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, towards that end in 1880 they were forbidden from purchasing land or taking mortgages (see the May Laws). Quotas limited Jewish access to educational institutions and from 1892 they were banned from participation in local elections and could constitute no more than 10% of company shareholders.[6]

Nazi SA paramilitaries outside Israel's Department Store in Berlin, holding signs saying: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews"

In 19th century Austria, Karl Lueger, an antisemitic mayor of Vienna who inspired Hitler,[7] campaigned for a boycott of Jewish businesses as a last resort for his party.[8] Jews were only allowed to live in Vienna from 1840. An organization called the Antisemitenbund campaigned against Jewish civil rights since 1919. Austrian campaigns tended to heighten around Christmas and became effective from 1932.[9]

In Ireland, Father John Creagh in Limerick campaigned against the town's small Jewish community in 1904, leading to a boycott of Jewish businesses and the departure of the Jewish population from the town.[10]

In Ukraine, there was a boycott of Jews in Galicia, alleging Jewish support for Poland, while Poles in Galicia boycotted Jews for supporting Ukraine.[1] In 1921, the German student union, the Deutschen Hochschulring, barred Jews from membership. Since the bar was racial, it included Jews who had converted to Christianity.[11] The bar was challenged by the government leading to a referendum in which 76% of students voted for the exclusion.[11]

In Quebec, French-Canadian nationalists organized boycotts of Jews in the thirties.[12]

Fascist boycotts

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The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany took place on 1 April 1933 as a response to the Jewish boycott of German goods which had started soon after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on 30 January 1933.[13]

It was the first of many measures against the Jews of Germany, which ultimately culminated in the "Final Solution". It was a state-managed campaign of ever-increasing harassment, arrests, systematic pillaging, forced transfer of ownership to Nazi party activists (managed by the Chamber of Commerce), and ultimately murder of owners defined as "Jews". In Berlin alone, there were 50,000 Jewish owned businesses.[14] By 1945 they all had Aryan owners.

In Poland, the Endeks (founded by Roman Dmowski) organized boycotts of Jewish businesses across Poland.[15] Polish universities placed growing limits on the number of Jews allowed to attend,[16] (see numerus clausus) and increasingly forced them to sit separately from non-Jewish students, a practice known as "Ghetto benches" which became law in 1937. In 1936 Prime Minister Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski called for "economic struggle" and "economic boycott of the Jews became formal government policy from June 4, 1936".[17][18] Kosher slaughter was banned in Poland in 1936, in Germany in 1930[19] following the similar legislation enacted in many other European countries.

In the US, Nazi supporters, such as Father Charles Coughlin (an Irish immigrant), agitated for a boycott of Jewish businesses. Coughlin's radio show attracted tens of millions of listeners and his supporters organized "Buy Christian" campaigns and attacked Jews.[20] Ivy League Universities restricted the numbers of Jews allowed admission.[21]

Anti-Zionist boycotts

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See also: Boycotts of Israel
Countries that participated in the Arab League boycott of Israel up to 1987
  Full boycott since 1948
  Joined full boycott later
  Only primary boycott
  Non-member states of Arab League participating in certain years
  Israel (target of boycott)

In Palestine, the Arab leadership organized boycotts of Jewish businesses from 1929 onwards, with violence often directed at Arabs who did business with Jews.[22] A series of riots in Egypt described by one British Embassy official as "clearly anti-Jewish" occurred in 1945, starting on the date of the Balfour Declaration. In the following weeks, the Egyptian press attacked Egyptian Jews as capitalists, white-slave traders, and other slurs while calling for a boycott of Jewish goods. Later in 1945, the Arab League began a boycott of Jewish businesses in British Mandatory Palestine.[23]

In the 2000s, the BDS movement, which advocates for a total boycott of Israeli products, is regarded by some Jewish civil rights organizations (such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center), as well as pro-Israel organizations and scholars as driven by antisemitism.[24][25][26] This has been disputed by the BDS movement itself and Jewish supporters of BDS.[27][28][29]

A large number of activist groups around the world have heeded BDS' call and are advocating for boycotts of Israel.[30] The specific objective of Israel boycotts varies; the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement calls for boycotts of Israel "until it meets its obligations under international law",[31] and the purpose of the Arab League's boycott of Israel was to prevent Arab states and others from contributing to Israel's economy.[32]

Other Boycotts

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People in some Muslim countries have boycotted Western businesses, especially American ones such as Starbucks, McDonald's and Coca-Cola, reflecting anger at Western governments' support for Israel.[33][34][35][36][37]

Campaigners in Derry, Northern Ireland persuaded O'Neills to remove Puma products because of the sports brand's sponsoring of the Israeli Football Association.[38] Starbucks was targeted in Keighley, West Yorkshire, with protesters smashing the shop's windows, following the corporation's decision to sue the Starbuck Workers United union after the labour organisation posted on social media support for Palestine.[39] On 6 March, Chile announced it was blocking Israeli firms from participating in Santiago's International Air and Space Fair.[40] The City Council of Brussels banned public procurement of products made in illegal Israel settlements.[41]

Direct action was taken at arms factories in the United States and the United Kingdom that supplied arms to Israel, such as Lockheed Martin,[42][43] General Dynamics,[44] Textron,[45] Boeing,[46] Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman.[47] For instance, on 10 November 2023, trade unionists in Rochester, Kent, blocked the entrances to a BAE Systems factory, stating the facility manufactured military aircraft components used to bomb Gaza;[48] and on 16 November, Palestine Action occupied a Leonardo factory in Southampton, stopping production.[49] ZIM was barred from entering ports in Malaysia.[50]

As part of the Arab opposition to the increasing Jewish presence in Mandatory Palestine, some Arab leaders sought to orchestrate anti-Jewish boycotts from 1922.[51] The original boycott forswore any dealings with any Jewish-owned business operating in Mandatory Palestine. Palestinian Arabs "who were found to have broken the boycott ... were physically attacked by their brethren and their merchandise damaged" when Palestinian Arabs rioted in Jerusalem in 1929.[52] Another, stricter boycott was imposed on Jewish businesses following the riots that called on all of Arabs in the region to abide by its terms. The Arab Executive Committee of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress called for a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, and in 1934 the Arab Labor Federation conducted a boycott as well as an organized picketing of Jewish businesses. In 1936, the Palestinian Arab leadership called on another boycott and threatened those who did not respect the boycott with violence. However, this boycott was unsuccessful as Jewish lawyers, physicians, and hospitals were too heavily integrated into Palestinian society.[51]

See also

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Legend:
  Israel
  Countries that reject passports from Israel
  Countries that reject passports from Israel and any other passport which contain Israeli stamps or visas

References

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  1. ^ a b "Anti-Semitism: Anti-Jewish Boycotts". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  2. ^ Árpád Welker. "BETWEEN EMANCIPATION AND ANTISEMITISM: JEWISH PRESENCE IN PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS IN HUNGARY 1867–1884". The first appearance of political antisemitism in Hungary was, as mentioned earlier, the speech of Győző Istóczy in the House of Representatives in 1875.
  3. ^ Herbert A. Strauss (1 January 1993). Austria - Hungary - Poland - Russia. Walter de Gruyter. p. 873. ISBN 978-3-11-088329-9.
  4. ^ Szabó, Miloslav (9 July 2012). ""Because words are not deeds." Antisemitic Practice and Nationality Policies in Upper Hungary around 1900". Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  5. ^ L. Braham, Randolph. "The Christian Churches of Hungary and the Holocaust" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  6. ^ "MAY LAWS". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  7. ^ Fareed Zacharia, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Norton, 2003, 2007, p. 60
  8. ^ John W. Boyer (5 May 1995). Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press. p. 379. ISBN 978-0-226-06956-2.
  9. ^ Bruce F. Pauley, "From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism," (North Carolina, 1992), page 201.
  10. ^ Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland by Dermot Keogh, Chapter 2
  11. ^ a b Rubenstein, Richard L.; Roth, John K. (2003). "5. Rational Antisemitism". Approaches to Auschwitz: the Holocaust and its legacy (2nd ed.). Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-0664223533.
  12. ^ Abella, Irving; Bialystok, Franklin (1996). "Canada: Before the Holocaust". In Wyman, David S.; Rosenzveig, Charles H. (eds.). The World Reacts to the Holocaust. The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 751–753. ISBN 978-0801849695.
  13. ^ Berel Lang, Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence, p.132
  14. ^ Kreutzmüller, Christoph (2012). Final Sale – The Destruction of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin 1930–1945. Metropol-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86331-080-6.
  15. ^ Cang, Joel (1939). "The Opposition Parties in Poland and Their Attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish Question". Jewish Social Studies. 1 (2): 241–256.
  16. ^ No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939. Hebrew Union College Press, 1997. Page 6.
  17. ^ Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939 By Joseph Marcus page 366, Mouton 1983
  18. ^ "Here and Now: The Vision of the Jewish Labor Bund in Interwar Poland". Institute for Jewish Research. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  19. ^ Bauer, Yehuda (1974). "Prelude of the Holocaust". My Brother's Keeper – A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1929-1939. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. [...] Polish laws against ritual slaughter (shehita) enacted in April 1936 and, in a final and drastic form, in March 1939.
  20. ^ "CHARLES E. COUGHLIN". USHMM. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  21. ^ Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique: The American Left By Daniel Horowitz page 25 1998, Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
  22. ^ Feiler, Gil (1998). From Boycott to Economic Cooperation: The Political Economy of the Arab Boycott of Israel. Routledge. ISBN 978-0714644233.
  23. ^ Julius, Anthony (25 February 2010). Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (illustrated, reprint ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 481. ISBN 9780199297054. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  24. ^ "Simon Wiesenthal Center Report: BDS 'a Thinly-Veiled, Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic "Poison Pill."' The Algemeiner. 19 March 2013. 7 June 2013.
  25. ^ "Anti-Israel groups push product, performers boycott." USA Today. 17 March 2013. 8 June 2013.
  26. ^ "Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Resource Page." NGO Monitor. 14 July 2011. 1 June 2013.
  27. ^ "Poll finds alarming support for BDS among US Jews". www.israelhayom.com. Retrieved 2023-11-02.
  28. ^ "ON ANTI-SEMITISM". BDS. Retrieved 2023-11-02.
  29. ^ "FAQs". BDS Movement. Retrieved 2023-11-02.
  30. ^ Mitchell G. Bard; Jeff Dawson (Fall 2012). "Israel and the Campus: The Real Story" (PDF). AICE. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  31. ^ Tripp 2013, p. 125: the BDS organized urged 'various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law'
  32. ^ Turck 1977, p. 472.
  33. ^ "Malaysians boycotting McDonalds, Burger King over support to Israel, Palestine responds". WION. 4 November 2023. Archived from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  34. ^ "Libya's Fatwa House issues Fatwa to boycott pro-Israel companies". The Libya Observer. 6 November 2023. Archived from the original on 12 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  35. ^ "There is a new front in the Israel-Gaza war: The marketplace". The National. 6 November 2023. Archived from the original on 12 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  36. ^ "Israel-Gaza war: Indonesian clerics issue fatwa boycotting products linked to Israel and Zionism". South China Morning Post. 10 November 2023. Archived from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  37. ^ "Disillusion with the West amid Israeli strikes on Gaza fuels Arab boycott of brands". The National. 12 November 2023. Archived from the original on 13 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  38. ^ Mooney, Rory (10 November 2023). "O'Neill's agree to remove Puma items from Derry store". www.derrynow.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2023.
  39. ^ "The Lowdown: McDonald's and the pro-Palestinian protestors". restaurantonline.co.uk. 3 November 2023. Archived from the original on 19 November 2023.
  40. ^ "Chile bans Israeli firms from Latin America's largest aerospace fair". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 9 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  41. ^ "Belgian capital bans purchase of products made in Israeli settlements". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 29 March 2024. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  42. ^ "Lockheed Martin: Palestine protesters install blockade". BBC News. 25 November 2023. Archived from the original on 30 January 2024. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  43. ^ "Anti-war protesters block access to Lockheed Martin subsidiary in St. Paul". MPR News. 10 November 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  44. ^ "Pro-Palestinian Protest Outside General Dynamics". Daily Nebraskan. 10 November 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  45. ^ "Hundreds gather for another protest outside of Textron Headquarters". ABC6.com. 17 November 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  46. ^ "Hundreds call on Boeing to stop weapons supply to Israel". Wafa. 9 December 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  47. ^ "Protesters Are Targeting Defense Contractors That Bragged About Profits from Gaza". Vice. November 17, 2023. Archived from the original on November 26, 2023. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  48. ^ Luck, Flaminia (10 November 2023). "Israel-Gaza: Union members block arms factory in protest over conflict". BBC News. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023.
  49. ^ Simone, Carlo (16 November 2023). "Leonardo UK profile as Southampton factory roof occupied by Palestine Action". Daily Echo. Archived from the original on 19 January 2024. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  50. ^ "Malaysia bans Israel-flagged ships from its ports in response to Gaza war". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 24 January 2024. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  51. ^ a b Feiler, Gil. "Arab Boycott." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 54-57
  52. ^ Feiler, Gil. "From boycott to economic cooperation ...." Google Books. 2 September 2009.
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