Timeline of State-Sanctioned Anti-Semitism

This article presents a timeline of anti-semitism sanctioned by various states from 1700 onwards.

1700s

1800s

1860s

• 1862: In the USA, General Ulysses S. Grant expels all Jews from his military district (an area now comprising Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee) during the American Civil War, claiming he did it to stop the illegal smuggling of Cotton. The measure was hugely controversial and reversed by President Abraham Lincoln.

1900s

1920s

• 1924: The government of the USA imposes massive quotas for immigration, some of which target Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe.

1930s

• 1936 - 1944: The government of Costa Rica restricts immigration for Jews coming into Costa Rica.
• 1937: The government of Mexico restricts immigration from certain countries, notably Poland, in a possible move to prevent Jewish immigration.
• 1937 - 1950: The government of Brazil denies 16,000 visas to Jews attempting to escape persecuation by the Nazis.
• 1938 - 1946: The government of Argentina restricts Jewish immigration.
• 1939: The German Ocean Liner MS St. Louis carries 937 Jewish refugees out of Nazi Germany to protect them from anti-semitic persecution. The governments of Cuba, the United States and Canada refuse to take any refugees. Whilst the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands agreed to take some refugees. 254 refugees from the ship perished in the Holocaust.

1940s

• 1944: The government of the USA creates various bureaucratic difficulties for Jewish refugees. Research into this subject indicates that between 190,000 and 200,000 Jews could've been saved from the Holocaust had these measures not been in place.

1970s

• 1976 - 1983: During the military dictatorship of Argentina, numerous government officials and soldiers hold anti-semitic beliefs and begin to believe in a conspiracy to create a second Israel in Argentina. Despite being about 1% of Argentina's population, Jews made up 12% of the victims of executions.

2000s