In the wake of the devastating First World War, leaders of the victorious powers reconfigured the European continent, resulting in new understandings of nation, state, and citizenship. Religious identity, symbols, and practice became tools for politicians and church leaders alike to appropriate as instruments to define national belonging, often to the detriment of those outside the faith tradition.
Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars places the interaction between religion and ethnonationalism – a particular articulation of nationalism based upon an imagined ethnic community – at the centre of its analysis, offering a new lens through which to analyze how nationalism, ethnicity, and race became markers of inclusion and exclusion. Those who did not embrace the same ethnonationalist vision faced ostracization and persecution, with Jews experiencing pervasive exclusion and violence as centuries of antisemitic Christian rhetoric intertwined with right-wing nationalist extremism. The thread of antisemitism as a manifestation of ethnonationalism is woven through each of the essays, along with the ways in which individuals sought to critique religious ethnonationalism and the violence it inspired.
With case studies from the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Croatia, Ukraine, and Romania, Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars thoroughly explores the confluence of religion, race, ethnicity, and antisemitism that led to the annihilative destruction of the Second World War and the Holocaust, challenging readers to identify and confront the inherent dangers of narrowly defined ideologies.

Kevin P. Spicer is James J. Kenneally Professor of History at Stonehill College.

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Rebecca Carter-Chand is director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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“This important collection of essays adds a welcome dimension to our understanding of antisemitism in the interwar period and provides a challenge for those who believe that religious faith has something positive to contribute to politics and society.” Canadian Slavonic Papers

“The tension [of a ‘dualistic view of antisemitism’], weaves through many chapters [and] deserves special emphasis and examination. Such an approach could help create a better understanding of the dynamics of the ethnicization of religion. One will find more than enough stimulus [for future research] here.” European History Quarterly

“Kevin Spicer and Rebecca Carter-Chand have assembled an impressive range of contributors for this book, many of whom are recognized scholars in their particular fields. The term ethnonationalism is woefully underutilized by historians, and this book is a strong argument in favour of its insertion into established narratives about nationalism and antisemitism in the interwar period.” Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University and author of Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation

“The project is ambitious … each part reminds historians that the combination of religion, ethnic identity, and antisemitism were a constant in the vast majority of the cases included in this volume. The book ends with an exceptional overview of the major themes encountered in the essays [that] poignantly reminds us that Christianity, ethnonationalism, and antisemitism combined in a lethal way in the 1930’s and 1940’s, that this dangerous mixture still exists in today’s society, and that this should encourage further research.” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations