n Empire, for example, the devotion of Jews to their religion and special forms of worship was used as a pretext for political discrimination against them, and very few Jews were admitted to Roman citizenship.
             Different Theories and Applications of Anti-Semitism
             In Germany, the process of Jewish emancipation was completed with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. Although legal reforms put an end to discrimination on religious grounds, hostility, based on racism, grew. Racist theories that had been formulated during the preceding decades provided the basis for a new grouping of anti-Semitic political parties after the Franco-Prussian War and the economic crash of 1873.
             Anti-Semitic hostility became justified by the racist theory, first developed in Germany in the middle of the 19th century, that peoples of so-called Aryan (Sanskrit, "noble") stock are superior in physique and character to those of Semitic stock. The Nazis subsequently used the term "Aryan" to mean white and non-Jewish.
             Communist and Post-Communist Anti-Semitism
             In the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the imperial Russian legacy of Anti-Semitism apparently survived into the post-war period. As a religion, Judaism was unacceptable to orthodox Soviet Communism, as was Zionism, whether religious or secular. The Jewish press was suppressed, leading Yiddish writers were silenced, and educational opportunities for Jewish youths were curtailed. Emigration of Jews was made almost impossible; those applying for permission met with severe discrimination.
             Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Hinduism, particularly in the West, are defined by a mixture of a sense of allegiance to a people, however ill-defined, and allegiance to a set of religious and cultural practices. Although many have strong religious beliefs as well, that can often come second. It is the self-definition as part of a clear minority group with its own practices...