A lasting impact on society
Created by Charlie Whitmore,
According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the definition of Anti-Semitism is as follows: “Anti Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The history of the persecution goes back a very long time but the relevant information that begins to lead up to the Holocaust begins when the Romans conquered the Jewish state of Judea and set up a puppet state. During this time Jesus began to develop a large following and many enemies, and, when he was crucified, a divide between Christianity and Judeaism began to form.
A new form of hatred began to form as many believed Jesus’s death was the Jews fault. The turmoil in the region came to a climax in 70 CE during the Jewish Roman wars. Jerusalem was completely destroyed, as well as the Second Temple, the holy place of Judea. The Romans slaughtered roughly 111,000 Jews and the rest fled to other lands throughout Europe and Africa. This marked the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora, which is a key point in the history of Anti-Semitism. Rome renamed the Jewish state of Judea to Palestine.
At this time, the Jews became fragmented and fled to separate sections of Europe and Africa where they became small minority groups and were prone to discrimination. In Europe the Jews were victims of many Pogroms – which are violent mob riots and mass murders- solely with the goal of murdering Jewish Ghettos and settlements. An example of this mob violence was in the first crusade in which a fragment of the people’s crusade a group of peasants who rose up to join the crusades whom were often hard to command decided rather than to join the war effort they rampaged through Germany murdering Jews and efforts made by Christians to save the Jews in their local communities were relatively unsuccessful even though the Catholic church condemned these massacres it didn’t stop the violence. Many of these Pogroms were justified by using the Jews as scapegoats such as causing the black death or being to blame for the Crucifixion because a section of the Gospel was interpreted as the Jewish crowd being the blame for the Crucifixion due to their compliance with the Romans.
From 1900-1938, Anti-Semetism saw a historic uptick. When the Nazis began to gain influence over Germany and neighboring countries, they took advantage of the long standing Anti-Semetic feelings throughout Europe to gain support from those who were already Anti-Semetic and they made the Jews Scapegoats for other problems making anti-semetism more widespread uniting them under the Swastika
Eugenics is defined as “the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.” Leading up to the 1900’s, the Jews were always seen as a religious group. The Nazis used Eugenics to define the Jews as a racial group, which ended up with the Nazis claiming that the Jews were an inferior Race. Some of their supporters, like a group of the Poles, already held Anti-Semetic beliefs, and when the Nazi’s used race theory to describe the Jews, that was a major turning point in crimes and human rights violations committed against the Jews.
The influence of the Nazi Party shaped the public’s perspective of the Jews as a whole leading up to the Holocaust.
The Holocaust saw the most persecution of Jews in human history. They were forced onto trains by the Schutzstaffel(SS) and the German military and were then deported to Concentration Camps. The Jews were treated as subhumans and, shockingly, the rest of the world didn’t know.
When Elie Wiesel arrived in Auschwitz, a veteran inmate warned him of the dangers to come; “Over there. Do you see the chimney over there? Do you see it? And the flames, do you see them?” (Yes, we saw the flames.)”
“Over there, that’s where they will take you. Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand? You sons of bitches. Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned! Burned to a cinder! Turned into ashes!” His anger changed into fury. We stood stunned, petrified.
The propaganda and misinformation spread by the Nazis led to the most horrific mass-murder in human history. For almost a hundred years, there has been an ongoing border dispute between Israel and Palestine. There have been several clashes between the two since 1948 due to the fact that for a long time, almost all of the Arab states did not support a Jewish state. This hostility recently culminated on October 7th when Hamas – which is a Palestinian terrorist organization -attacked Israel, they fired missiles at Israel. They marched their troops across the border and attacked Jewish civilians and took hostages. With Hamas hiding among the densely populated Gaza city and hiding weapons in places near civilians like hospitals, Schools, UN buildings and mosques, this conflict has been nothing but bloody and violent. Many people point the blame for this on Israel. The conflict is ongoing and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, as neither side is backing down.
You would think, after that horrific loss of life and human rights violation during the holocaust, that Anti-Semitism would cease to exist. However, especially in these last few months, Anti-Semitism has been on the rise. According to ADL, they’ve seen a three-hundred and thirty seven percent increase in Anti-Semitic acts since the start of October. Social Media has played a huge role in worsening Anti-Semitism. The anonymity online makes it a breeding ground for people who want to spread hate, misinformation and violence across a huge platform. The other thing that makes social media such a threat is how many people use it. When huge extremist groups get taken down, other groups will come in and take their place.
Artifact Statement
Judaism will prevail
Our artifact is called The Wheel of Time. This symbolizes how it covers many different time periods. We built an artifact to represent Anti Semitism throughout the ages. We used the box to signify the four eras we break down into parts of anti semitism including: Ancient times, medieval times, holocaust, and lastly, modern.
We used wood for the sides and box because it’s a strong material. We used a plastic turntable to help turn our time line so people could see each era without moving around the table. We decided to create a timeline because we wanted people to see how long Anti-Semitism has been prevalent in society. We wanted to Symbolize how the strength of the Jews will continue to fight against Anti-Semitism by elevating the Star of David over the Swastika.
To capture the viewers attention, we added bold titles for each time period and then added smaller and more informative captions below. The lights around the base of the artifact and the Star of David symbolize hope as well as providing a more enjoyable viewing experience. Color choice was a key factor, and the black on the base and on the box symbolize the many dark years the Jews have experienced.
Our artifact commemorates the fact that the battle against Anti-Semitism has been a major issue in society for so long, and we’re still fighting against it today. When someone sees our monument, we want them to feel empathy and to feel a sense of sorrow for all the Jews that suffered. When someone sees our artifact, we want them to feel the lasting impact Anti-Semitism has had on the world.
Personal Reflections
It was then, and it is now
Charlie Whitmore, The Fenn School, Class of 2025
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
~Henry Ford
My name is Charlie Whitmore, and my role is to work on the artifact. I worked really hard on my artifact with little help from my partner. Some of the major themes in my experience are perseverance and hard work. I persevered through many challenges and found a solution. For example the first time I tried to secure my Star of David, the model magic didn’t hold up. So I decided to try styrofoam because I thought it would be sturdier and it worked.
I began the project as a lion cub but by the end of my journey I Blossomed into a proud alpha lion. I began this troublesome and difficult journey by creating a frame for my artifact. It started with a box on a wooden base. From this humble beginning, me and my group created a beautiful artifact with our perseverance and great attitudes. I painted this frame a dark black to show how soulless anti semitism is. The blue star of David demonstrates how Judaism will rise above all the hate. My partner was not the most helpful. He slacked off and I did most of the work. This project has shown me that antisemitism isn’t just a monster of the past, it is a monster that follows us all and will always be here. We have to rise above its ugliness. We all have to beat antisemitism.
This project has informed me and hopefully others on how horrible antisemitism is and how it is still around today. I now know about the harsh life Jewish people endured during the holocaust and the harsh life Jewish people endur today. Creating symbolism from such a real and broad topic was difficult. I really had to think about anti semitism as a whole and what it means. Some things that helped me bring my ideas to life is Mr. Kraii, he helped me work out the kinks in my ideas and make them possible.
This project helped me see the truth. Antisemitsm was then.
But antisemitism is now, too.
Finding Purpose
Marco Racanelli, The Fenn School, Class of 2025
My name is Marco Racanelli, and my role is to work a bit on the artifact and mainly the artist statement. My major theme was observation. Observation was my major theme because to write the Artist statement you have to know and look at the artifact very often. Communication is also a very important theme when writing the artist statement because Charlie is the person who mainly worked on the artifact and knows more about it than me, so he has to communicate with me about parts of the artifact that I don’t know but parts that he knows more about.
I was the person who actually took the pictures of everyone working together. The pictures of Charlie are when he was gluing the titles of every single era of antisemitism. Modern, Ancient, Holocaust, and Medieval. The pictures of Jimmy were when he was writing the script. But the pictures are just showing everyone working on their roles. We used pictures on the artifact of moments that happened in each of the eras. But the era that matters the most is modern because it’s the current day and the pictures we used was the problem in Israel and there was also a problem on social media where people were saying hate comments about Jewish people.
Before this project I knew that antisemitism was a thing back then when the Holocaust occurred but I never knew that it was still bad today. It’s not as bad as the Holocaust because they killed millions of people in the Holocaust but because of social media people were able to make terrible comments about Jewish people without people knowing who the people were who were making comments.
After the project I realized how bad antisemitism was and how it’s still clearly around today. The most recent known antisemitic problem was the problem that was happening in Israel with Palestinians.
A Tale as Old as Time
Jimmy McLaughlin, The Fenn School, Class of 2025
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
-Robert A. Heinlein
My name is Jimmy McLaughlin, and I was in charge of writing and editing our documentary. For me, teamwork was a huge part of making this project a success. The whole time, you’re working closely together against a deadline to try and create an artifact and documentary that come together to help viewers understand different parts of the holocaust. You needed to be able to trust that your partners were on task so you could finish the work you needed to.
From the start, we knew this was going to be a challenge, especially the artifact. Anti-Semitism spans a huge chunk of time and isn’t just one event, which makes it difficult to explain in a short video and make a model for. After we contemplated several ideas, we decided that we would cover four different time periods: the ancient origins of Anti-Semitism, Medieval Anti-Semitism, Holocaust era Anti-Semitism, and contemporary Anti-Semitsm.
Now that we had a plan, we needed to figure out how we could make an artifact that represented those four time periods. Eventually, we settled on a box where each side displayed a different time. The hardest part of building the artifact was figuring out a way to make it spin. Charlie and I tried different configurations of legos and discs, but nothing worked. To get our artifact to be able to spin, we ended up using two discs to make a lazy Susan. The documentary was straightforward, but very tedious. Eben and I spent lots of time revising and editing the script as well as sourcing countless images and video clips to finish off our documentary.
For me, this project shed light on some of the things we don’t realize about Anti-Semitism. The whole museum exhibit was specifically about the holocaust, however, our project ranged from 70 BCE to 2024. Most of the general information we learned leading up to the project was about the discrimination against Jews in Nazi Germany. However, after finishing the project, I have learned so much more. History makes Anti-Semitism seem like a problem of the past, when in reality, it has never gone away. Social media has enabled hate speech en masse, and when extremist groups get banned, there are many more to take their place.
Being able to work with a team for this long really helped me open up to others ideas and get better at working with others.
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