The three concepts have very different, often conflicting contents, yet all three ultimately lead to the same outcome: opposition to the Jewish people. Let’s analyze these three concepts.

Anti-Judaism

 The first concept to appear in history, lasting almost two millennia, is anti-Judaism. It is a phenomenon of a religious nature: Jews were considered those who did not accept the Christian Revelation. Since they were not Christians, they were seen as not knowing the true good, not being in God's grace, and therefore considered evil. This same concept was applied to adherents of other religions different from Christianity, especially Muslims, who were the most well-known.

Even in dialectal expressions, "Turk" (meaning Muslim) stood for "evil and lacking in charity." In Verga's The House by the Medlar Tree, a woman says, "we are not among the Turks" to mean that we are not lacking in charity and solidarity.

A very clear example of this attitude can be seen illustrated by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice: the Jewish merchant is depicted as embodying wickedness and cruelty, contrasted with the virtue of the Christian merchant, while the heroine is the Jewish daughter who betrays her father, against the natural order of life. Since it was believed that the TRUE Christian religion coincided with goodness, the struggle was between good (the Christian merchant) and evil (the Jew). The daughter who has the strength to leave her father (evil) to adhere to good then becomes the example to follow.

It was not a matter of race (genetics) but of religion, so a converted Jew was no longer a Jew but became a Christian. Moreover, Jews were still considered God’s chosen people, and even Jesus, Mary, and the apostles were Jewish.

This attitude has now completely disappeared: almost no one today would support such a view because the Christian mentality has radically evolved towards tolerance, understanding, and even collaboration with other religions. For example, the phrase "perfidious Jews" was removed from the Good Friday celebration.

Anti-Semitism

In the 19th century, however, anti-Semitism began, which is something entirely different. It emerged with the rise of nationalism, which was sometimes quite extreme. A state began to coincide with a nation, that is, with a community of language and culture. Now, the fact that Jews were a dispersed nation across various states became incompatible with the state-nation identification.

A significant example is the Dreyfus case. Dreyfus, an officer in the French army, had relatives in Germany: could he really be considered a true Frenchman? He seemed unreliable, and the accusations of espionage in favor of Germany seemed very likely, leading to his condemnation, later contested by Zola’s famous "J'accuse."

In short, Jews were seen as foreigners, even if they were born in the country and had lived there for many generations, because they were not part of the national community (the wandering Jew).

True anti-Semitism, however, arises when nationality is considered a genetic fact, leading to racism, which was later taken to its extreme and insane consequences by Nazism. Jews then became enemies of humanity and, in particular, of the Aryan race: a kind of infection, subhumans. Initially, the idea was to expel them from the country and possibly deport them to other places (there was even talk, strangely enough, of Madagascar); in a way, anti-Semites supported what was later called Zionism, the idea of a separate homeland for the Jews.

Later, however, due to the practical impossibility of such a solution, it culminated in the "final solution," that is, the physical elimination of the entire Jewish population, resulting in the deaths of about six million Jews.

Thus, this conception is entirely different from that of anti-Judaism. The wickedness of Jews was no longer based on a religious fact but on genetics: it didn’t matter if Jews maintained their religion, converted to Christianity, or followed no religion at all, which was the most common case at the time.

This view has now disappeared. It may still be held by a few isolated neo-Nazi groups, but the extreme and absurd consequences to which Nazism led it have practically erased it from history.

It should be noted that anti-Semitism is unknown in the Arab world, which has never experienced either racism or extreme nationalism (except perhaps in Turkey). Islamic Sunnah represents a community of believers without differences in race or nationality. Jews, like Christians, are considered Ahl al-Kitab (People of the Book), who can follow their religion or convert to Islam, in which case they are accepted without prejudice, just as it once was in the Christian world.

Anti-Zionism

Zionism is the idea of forming a Jewish community in the original land, Palestine (Zion is the ancient name of Jerusalem). In fact, throughout history, small Jewish communities had always formed in Palestine. The return to the Promised Land was primarily motivated by the desire to regain national identity. During the age of positivism, most Jews of bourgeois origin had abandoned religious beliefs and were increasingly integrating into the national communities where they lived. During World War I, they participated in the sweeping nationalism of the various nations and fought in opposing armies. Thus, within a few generations, Jewish identity could have disappeared. So, the idea of what was defined as a Jewish home (not a state) in Palestine emerged, and a certain number of Jews actually moved to Palestine.

The terrible persecutions of Nazism and the Holocaust completely changed the perspective: Jews moved to Palestine not to avoid assimilation but to feel safe, no longer depending on the goodwill of rulers and peoples as they had for millennia. Thus, the State of Israel was formed, the state of the descendants of Israel (Jacob, as we commonly say), a people, not a religion.

With Zionism, anti-Zionism also arose. First of all, the Jews settled in a land inhabited by Arabs who, naturally, did not accept the situation. From this came an endless conflict that has lasted for 75 years and has recently taken a more tragic and bloody turn.

Anti-Zionism also emerged in Europe. From the extreme left, Israel is seen as a tool, a vanguard of colonialism, even though it is unclear how Israel could promote Western domination; in fact, it is certainly a great difficulty for Western relations with Arabs. This idea has also spread in Arab countries that see Israel as a spearhead of the USA, so the fight against Zionism comes to be seen as a fight against the West (against the great Satan and the little Satans, according to Khomeini’s theory).

In reality, however, religion is not at all the unifying factor of Israel. The majority of Israelis are not religious, even though the number of fundamentalists has increased recently, mainly due to high birth rates. But no one today identifies an Israeli as a believer in that religion.

Currently, the Jewish religion consists of a large number of currents and sects, making it difficult to define its characteristics: there are those who believe that God gave them Palestine and those who consider it illegal. They somewhat resemble the American evangelical sects: there's everything and its opposite.

Anti-Zionism, therefore, is entirely different from anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. It is not a religious issue, nor a genetic or racial one, but a political one. Israelis are seen as invaders, an expression of the West, who should be pushed back, and Palestine should be liberated from the Jordan River to the sea, meaning Israel must be destroyed.

However, since Jews around the world generally support the existence of Israel, the fight also extends to all Jews. It's true that not all Jews support Israel today, but it’s important to clarify that being against certain political choices of any Israeli government does not mean being against the existence of Israel, which is precisely what Zionism is.

There are, however, small Jewish groups that are against the very existence of Israel, usually for religious reasons. The most famous are the Neturei Karta, who, according to a particular interpretation of biblical writings, believe that it is not permissible to form a Jewish state.

In conclusion, we can say that anti-Judaism was a religious issue, anti-Semitism a racial one, and anti-Zionism a political one, but in all three cases, ultimately, the villains to be fought end up being the Jewish people in general.