Apr 20, 2020 3 min read

Holocaust Memorial Day, which this year is observed in Israel on April 21 (International Holocaust Memorial Day is Jan. 27) is meant to remind us of the Holocaust orchestrated by Nazi Germany that murdered some six million Jews during World War II. But throughout history, Holocaust-like pogroms against the Jews were commonplace.

In fact, they go all the way back to biblical times, to the death and afterlife of Jesus Christ and the conversion to Christianity of the Roman Emperor Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century. Constantine’s conversion made Christianity the favored religion of the Roman Empire, resulting in many thousands of Christian converts, but also resulting in an empire-wide backlash against the Jews, who were accused of killing Jesus Christ, the Messiah and founder of Christianity.

In some ways this was turning the tables. Before Constantine’s conversion, Christians were the persecuted minority, and many of their persecutors were Jews, who were angry that Christians were claiming Jesus was the Messiah. This led to ill will between the two religious camps, which grew exponentially in the years after Jesus died and resulted in Christian writers increasingly blaming the Jews for killing Jesus. Whereas Mark, the earliest Gospel, somewhat blames Pontius Pilate for Jesus’ death, with each later Gospel – Luke, Matthew and especially John – the Jewish people get more of the blame, so after Constantine’s conversion, the newly empowered Christian majority was ready for payback. The Jews had killed their God. (Actually, the Romans purposely killed Jesus.)

Under Constantine, laws were passed forbidding Jews from owning slaves – this at a time when slave-owning was not only an accepted practice, it was necessary to run a business – making Jews unable to compete economically with Christians or even Pagans. Likewise, during the Nazi Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, Jews were targeted economically and put out of business.

Laws were also passed making it illegal for Christians to convert to Judaism, and, in another foretaste of the Nazi Holocaust, it also became illegal for Christians to marry Jews. Still later, laws were passed making it illegal for Jews to build synagogues or repair damaged ones, which increasingly were damaged and destroyed because of state-sanctioned vandalism. Again, there’s that apt comparison to Kristallnacht, the “night of the broken glass,” in which Nazi mobs destroyed Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues.

And finally, as with Nazi Germany, Christian violence against Jews escalated to the point that Jews were persecuted and murdered on a regular basis.

Ensuring that the history of holocausts against the Jews will never be repeated is one reason for annually observing Holocaust Memorial Day. It is also the main reason for the creation of the state of Israel.