Mass Jewish immigration triggered race-based anti-Semitic caricature in US media

Evidence

Such racialization rarely went beyond fiery sermons when Jewish immigrants numbered in the thousands. But when the Jewish population increased from approximately fifty thousand in 1850 to more than three million in 1920, most of whom were Eastern European, White nativists deployed theologically based racism in claiming they were Judaized Mongols and Chazars. Hyperbolic depictions of their bulging eyes, protruding sensual lips, hooked noses, and animal-like jaws permeated the American media in the first half of the twentieth century. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 261

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Direct parallel material for the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ essay’s theme of how political scapegoating dressed in religious rhetoric tracks immigrant surges; and strongly echoes Islamic racialization patterns discussed elsewhere in this book.
• XREF: Connects to ethnic-scientific racism like craniometry and racial pseudoscience literature, and to contemporary debates over Hindu-Muslim demographic anxieties.