Definition of Anti semitism

Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. In a 2005 U.S. governmental report, antisemitism is defined as "hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity." A person who holds such views is called an "antisemite". Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs, state police, or even military attacks on entire Jewish communities. Extreme instances of persecution include the pogroms which preceded the First Crusade in 1096, the expulsion from England in 1290, the massacres of Spanish Jews in 1391, the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the expulsion from Portugal in 1497, various Russian pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, and the Final Solution by Hitler's Germany and official Soviet anti-Jewish policies.