Etymology and usage
Cover page of Marr's
The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism, 1880 edition
The term
Semite refers broadly to speakers of a language group which includes both
Arabs and
Jews.
However, the term antisemitism is specifically used in reference to attitudes held towards Jews. The word
antisemitic (
antisemitisch in German) was probably first used in 1860 by the
Austrian Jewish
scholar Moritz Steinschneider in the phrase "antisemitic prejudices" (
German:
"antisemitische Vorurteile").
[7] Steinschneider used this phrase to characterize
Ernest Renan's ideas about how "
Semitic races" were inferior to "
Aryan races." These
pseudo-scientific theories concerning race, civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in
Europe in the second half of the 19th century, especially as
Prussian nationalistic historian
Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. In Treitschke's writings
Semitic was
synonymous with
Jewish, in contrast to its usage by Renan and others.
In 1879 German political agitator
Wilhelm Marr used the phrase
Judenhass (
hatred of Jews) in his book
"The Victory of Judaism over Germanicism. Observed from a non-religious perspective." (
"Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet.") to make hatred of the Jews seem rational and sanctioned by scientific knowledge.
[8] In his next book,
"The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism", published in 1880, Marr developed his ideas further and coined the related
German word
Antisemitismus -
antisemitism.
The book became very popular, and in the same year he founded the
"League of Antisemites" ("
Antisemiten-Liga"), the first German organization committed specifically to combatting the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews, and advocating their
forced removal from the country.
So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published
"Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte," and
Wilhelm Scherer used the term "
Antisemiten" in the January issue of
"Neue Freie Presse". The related word
semitism was coined around 1885. See also the coinage of the term "
Palestinian" by Germans to refer to ethnic
Jews, as distinct from the religion of
Judaism.
Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms
Semitic and
anti-Semitic are not directly opposed to each other (unlike similar-seeming terms such as
anti-American or
anti-Hellenic). To avoid the confusion of the
misnomer, many scholars on the subject (such as
Emil Fackenheim) now favor the unhyphenated
antisemitism[9] in order to emphasize that the word should be read as a single unified term, not as a meaningful
root word-
prefix combination.
The term
antisemitism has historically referred to prejudice against
Jews alone, and this was the only use of the word for more than a century. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice against other people who speak
Semitic languages (e.g.
Arabs or
Assyrians).
Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University, says that "Antisemitism has never anywhere been concerned with anyone but Jews."
[1] Yehuda Bauer also articulated this view in his writings and lectures: (the term) "Antisemitism, especially in its
hyphenated spelling, is inane nonsense, because there is no Semitism that you can be
anti to."
[10][11] A similar point is made by Professor Shmuel Almog, of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who writes "So the hyphen, or rather its omission, conveys a message; if you hyphenate your 'anti-Semitism', you attach some credence to the very foundation on which the whole thing rests."
[12]
In recent decades some groups have argued that the term should be extended to include prejudice against Arabs or
Anti-Arabism[
citation needed], in the context of answering accusations of Arab antisemitism; further, some, including the
Islamic Association of Palestine, have argued that this implies that Arabs cannot,
by definition, be antisemitic.[
citation needed] The argument runs that since the
Semitic language family includes
Arabic,
Hebrew and
Aramaic languages and the historical term "Semite" refers to all those who consider themselves descendants of the Biblical
Shem, "anti-Semitism" should be likewise inclusive.
However, this usage is not generally accepted.
) remained poor. Malaysia could look like an exception, but then you see that it was mostly the Chinese minority who organized the improvement.
