The terms "self-hating Jew", "self-loathing Jew", and "auto-antisemite" are pejorative terms used to describe Jews that oppose certain characteristics that the claimant considers core to Jewish identity.

Early claims of self-hate were used to describe Jews who had internalized antisemitic tropes. Recognition of the concept gained widespread currency after German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing published his 1930 book (), which sought to explain a perceived inclination among secular Jewish intellectuals towards inciting antisemitism by denouncing Judaism. The term was also used to describe Jewish people whose viewpoints, especially favoring Jewish assimilation, Jewish secularism, limousine liberalism, or anti-Judaism were perceived to reflect self-hatred.

In modern times the term has been used for political purposes as a form of weaponization of antisemitism to delegitimize anti-Zionist Jews or shield against criticism of the Israeli government.See: : "With increased attention being brought to Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights in the European press since the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000, US supporters of Israel sought to blame the poor reputation Israel was developing in the international community on the rise of a New Anti-Semitism. As this line of thinking went, Israel had been targeted for criticism not because of what it does to the Palestinians in violation of international law, but because of a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism that has roots in age-old hatreds of the past. Israel's critics, then, were hiding their thinly veiled animus toward the Jewish state behind anti-Zionist arguments and were not motivated by humanitarian they purported to be. To draw this equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Israel's supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti- Zionist Jews who reject Israel's attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as 'self-hating Jews,' which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement." : "Overwhelmingly, the term is used to designate people who are viewed as critical of Israeli policy — any Israeli policy. Overwhelmingly, too, these same Jews will defend their views about Israel, however controversial, and reject the idea that Jews must give the Israeli government a perpetual pass on all its activities. These are the not-so-surprising findings of a series of conversations I had last summer with various prominent Jews who have been labeled ‘self-hating’ more than once. Contrary to their critics’ disparagements, most of them struck me as quite secure in their Jewish identities." : "According to Joel Beinin, a Stanford University history professor and director of the Middle East Studies department at American University in Cairo, Egypt, the phrase “self-hating Jews” has “no useful meaning except as a propaganda slogan. It is used to declare illegitimate those Jews who hold opinions — usually about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict — with which those who deploy this term disagree. No one has the right or the stature to declare a single interpretation to be correct or authentic,” Beinin continued. “Dissent is part of the human reality. Dissent does not mean self-hate, and in fact, can be an expression of deep concern and even love of the tradition in question.” : "There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; “one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all,”Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position. But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as “self-hatred,” so that all possible cases are covered." : "Chomsky (1989) shows how Zionists have endeavoured ‘to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as “self-hatred”’ (1989, 433), a point echoed by Butler (2012)." : "Two points can be noted in these uses of self-hate, both of which serve to conflate right-wing Zionism with Jewish identity. The first is the simple dichotomy that is set up between those who agree with the writer, presented as on the side of the Jews in general, and the ‘enemy’, the close associate of the self-hater in the quotes above. In these accounts there are no legitimate differences of opinion among the Jews, there is simply a hawkish version of Zionism on the one side, representing the authentic Jewish voice, and the enemy on the other. Critics of military actions, advocates of a negotiated settlement, and those who state that the Palestinians have suffered injustice are presented as committing an act of aggression against the Jews by allying themselves with those who would kill the Jews, either the terrorists or the anti-Semites in general... The second is that rather than acknowledging that differences of opinion might derive from a specific analysis of the current Middle Eastern conflict, the quotes broaden the issue and present those they criticize as suffering a complex related to their Jewish identities as a whole, a complex which blinds them. Thus words such as ‘engulfed’ and ‘consumed’ are used, references are made to the history of the Jews outside Israel (the goyim overseer, the Diaspora mentality), and pathology is indicated by the words infected (used in two of the quotes above), malady, sick, and by Givet's ‘more solid’ psychological analysis... The extracts above illustrate how Jews who speak out for Palestinian rights are often portrayed as siding with those who would wish to destroy the Jews... Of course, who one defines as an enemy is subject to debate among many groups, but if one constructs this as obvious and unproblematic, then to sympathize with them must necessarily involve rejection of one's own identity, and, taken to its logical conclusion, as suicidal. Progress toward a negotiated settlement is obstructed when those in power refuse to debate the possibility that the Palestinians have suffered injustice, react to international criticism as if it were just another example of aggression against the Jews, and brand any discussion of this by Jews as self-hate." It is said to have become "something of a key term of opprobrium in and beyond Cold War-era debates about Zionism" with proponents claiming that some Jews may despise their entire identity due to their perception of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

History

In German The origins of terms such as "Jewish self-hatred" lie in the mid-19th century feuding between German Orthodox Jews of the Breslau seminary and Reform Jews. Each side accused the other of betraying Jewish identity, the Orthodox Jews accusing the Reform Jews of identifying more closely with German Protestantism and German nationalism than with Judaism.

According to Amos Elon, during 19th-century German-Jewish assimilation, conflicting pressures on sensitive and privileged or gifted young Jews produced "a reaction later known as 'Jewish self-hatred.' Its roots were not simply professional or political but emotional."Amos Elon,"The Pity of It All : a History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933," Metropolitan Books 2002, pp. 231-237. Elon uses the term "Jewish self-hatred" synonymously with Jewish antisemitism when he points out, "One of the most prominent Austrian anti-Semites was Otto Weininger, a brilliant young Jew who published 'Sex and Character', attacking Jews and women." Elon attributes Jewish antisemitism as a cause in the overall growth of antisemitism when he says, "(Weininger's) book inspired the typical Viennese adage that anti-Semitism did not really get serious until it was taken up by Jews."

According to John P. Jackson Jr., the concept developed in the late 19th century in German Jewish discourse as "a response of German Jews to popular anti-Semitism that primarily was directed at Eastern European Jews." For German Jews, the Eastern European Jew became the "bad Jew". According to Sander Gilman, the concept of the "self-hating Jew" developed from a merger of the image of the "mad Jew" and the "self-critical Jew", and was developed to counter suggestions that an alleged Jewish stereotype of mental illness was due to inbreeding. "Within the logic of the concept, those who accuse others of being self-hating Jews may themselves be self-hating Jews." Gilman says "the ubiquitousness of self-hatred cannot be denied. And it has shaped the self-awareness of those treated as different perhaps more than they themselves have been aware."

The specific terms "self-hating Jew" and "Jewish self-hatred" only came into use later, developing from Theodor Herzl's polemical use of the term "anti-Semite of Jewish origin", in the context of his project of political Zionism. The underlying concept gained common currency in this context, "since Zionism was an important part of the vigorous debates that were occurring amongst Jews at the time about anti-Semitism, assimilation and Jewish identity." Herzl appears to have introduced the phrase "anti-Semite of Jewish origin" in his 1896 book, Der Judenstaat (The Jews' State), which launched political Zionism.

He was referring to "philanthropic Zionists", assimilated Jews who might wish to remain in their home countries while at the same time encouraging the Jewish proletariat (particularly the poorer Eastern Jews) to emigrate; yet did not support Herzl's political project for a Jewish state. Ironically, Herzl was soon complaining that his "polemical term" was often being applied to him, for example by Karl Kraus. "Assimilationists and anti-Zionists accused Zionists of being self-haters, for promoting the idea of the strong Jew using rhetoric close to that of the Anti-Semites; Zionists accused their opponents of being self-haters, for promoting the image of the Jew that would perpetuate his inferior position in the modern world." One example of this was the claims made against Herzl's article Mauschel. "Because of the similarities between their rhetoric and that of the anti-Semites, the early Zionists were sometimes accused of self-hatred (see Baron, 1981; Gilman, 1986). Even Theodor Herzl was described as being a self-hating Jew for an article he wrote entitled ‘Mauschel’ (Kike), which severely criticized a section of the Jewish community for, among other things, being ‘unspeakably mean and repellent’ (Herzl, 1897, cited in Elon, 1975, pp. 251–252). His critic was Karl Kraus, who has himself been branded a self-hating Jew (Gilman, 1986; Le Rider, 1993; Robertson, 1985)."

The Austrian-Jewish journalist Anton Kuh argued in a 1921 book Juden und Deutsche (Jews and Germans) that the concept of "Jewish antisemitism" was unhelpful, and should be replaced with the term "Jewish self-hatred", but it was not until the 1930 publication of the German-Jewish anti-Nazi philosopher Theodor Lessing's book Der Jüdische Selbsthass (Jewish Self-hatred) that the term gained widespread currency. Lessing's book "supposedly charts Lessing's journey from Jewish self-hater to Zionist." In it he analyses the writings of Jews such as Otto Weininger and Arthur Trebitsch who expressed hatred for their own Judaism. Lessing was assassinated by Nazi agents shortly after Hitler came to power.

In English