Anti-Judaism is regarded as an irrational deviation from the Western way of thinking that values freedom, tolerance, and progress. In his groundbreaking book, David Nirenberg demonstrates through numerous often shocking examples from antiquity to the present that the distancing from Judaism is central to Western thought and worldview. The ancient Egyptians despised their Jewish neighbors as foreigners who allegedly undermined the land in the service of the Persians, Greeks, or Romans. For early Christians and Muslims, Jews were enemies of the truth proclaimed by Jesus or Mohammed. Spanish inquisitors, like Protestant reformers, sought to uncover and destroy a secret Judaism that they believed threatened Christendom. The Enlightenment did not eliminate this enemy image; Voltaire fought against superstition in the form of the Jews.