Title page of volume one of the Encyclopédie (Wikipedia)

The Philosophes: Diderot, principal contributor and editor of the famous Encyclopédie (1765) wrote that the Jews are “an ignorant and superstitious nation,” while Voltaire, in his Treatise on Toleration (1763) wrote that the Jews are, “the most detestable [nation] ever to have sullied the earth...” And again, in his Dictionary he wrote that the Jews are, “the most imbecile people on the face of the earth, enemies of mankind, most obtuse, cruel absurd... In short, we find in them only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched.”

From anti-Judaism to antisemitism: The Age of Reason