Anti-Semitism - Definitions and Introduction
Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled
antisemitism) is hostility towards or prejudice against Jews (not, in
common usage, Semites in general — see the Scope section below). This
happens on an individual level and goes on to the institutionalized
prejudice and persecution once prevalent in European societies, of which
the highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism was
the most extreme form.
Some forms of anti-Semitism include:
* Racist anti-Semitism, a kind of xenophobia. Some people perceive Jews
as people of a racially distinct origin from other peoples, and claim
that discrimination on the basis of such distinctness is valid.
* Religious anti-Judaism. Like other religions, Judaism has faced
discrimination and violence from people of competing faiths and in
countries that practice state atheism. Unlike anti-Semitism in general,
this form of prejudice is directed at the religion itself, and so does
not affect those of Jewish ancestry who have converted to another
religion. Laws banning Jewish religious practices may be rooted in
religious anti-Semitism.
* Socio-economic anti-Semitism rooted in the alleged disproportionate
success or influence, relative to their numbers within the general
population, that individual Jews have achieved in a variety of
occupations, including finance, politics, the media, academia, the law,
medicine, and science.
Etymology and usage
Cover page of Marr's The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism,
1880 edition
Enlarge
Cover page of Marr's The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism,
1880 edition
The word antisemitic or antisemitisch was probably first used in 1860 by
the Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider in the phrase "antisemitic
prejudices" ("antisemitischen Vorurtheile"). Steinschneider used this
phrase to characterize Ernest Renan's ideas about Semitic racial traits.
These ideas about "Semitic races" , and how they were inferior to "Aryan
races", became quite widespread in Europe in the second half of the 19th
century. Especially the Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von
Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. In Treitschke's
writings Semitic was practically synonomous with Jewish. When the
political writer Wilhelm Marr coined the German word Antisemitismus in
1879, its meaning was identical to Jew-hatred or Judenhass. The new word
antisemitism was used merely to make Jew-hatred seem rational and
sanctioned by scientific knowledge. However, it was never intended to
eliminate the concept of hatred towards Jews based on the Christian
conspiracies and legends so popular with the general population. In his
book, "The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism" (1879), Marr took
up secular racist ideas of Arthur de Gobineau's "An Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races" (1853, though direct influence is
debatable). Marr's book became very popular, and in the same year he
founded the "League of Anti-Semites" ("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 printed in 1881. In
that year Marr published "Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte," and Wilhelm
Scherer used the term "Antisemiten" in the "Neue Freie Presse" of
January. The related word semitism was coined around 1885. See also the
coinage of the term "Palestinian" by Germans to refer to the nation or
people known as Jews, as distinct from the religion of Judaism.
Scope
The term anti-Semitism has normally referred to prejudice towards Jews
alone, and this was formerly the only use of this word for more than a
century. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice toward other
people who speak Semitic languages (e.g. Arabs or Assyrians). Bernard
Lewis says that "Anti-Semitism has never anywhere been concerned with
anyone but Jews."[1]
In recent decades some have argued that the term should be extended to
include prejudice against Arabs, since Arabic is a Semitic language;
these arguments are commonly made in the context of accusations of Arab
anti-Semitism. This usage has not been widely adopted, one example is
October 16/17, 2004 statement by Ralph Nader in Counterpunch: "There is,
as you always ignore, aggressive anti-Semitism against defenseless Arabs
in many places in the world..."[2]
Some question the usefulness of applying the term more generally to all
Semitic groups on the basis that there are few instances of prejudice
against both Arabs and Jews to the exclusion of other races or
nationalities, and in fact many more instances of antagonism between
Jews and Arabs than of a specific bias against both groups together.
Lewis writes "the term Semite has no meaning as applied to groups as
heterogeneous as the Arabs or Jews." And, as has been pointed out by
Neil J. Kressel, "In any event, nothing is gained from applying the
anti-Semitism label to anti-Arab discrimination, abhorrent in its own
right, except to confuse matters and take attention away from
anti-Jewish hostility" [3].
However, James Zogby argues that both Arabs and Jews have been subject
to the same prejudice and uniformly treated by Western society as alien
and hostile, viewed as prone to conspiracy, and seen as usurpers of
Western wealth and threats to Western civilization. Zogby draws
parallels between political cartoons depicting Jews as the fat grotesque
banker and Arabs as the obese oil sheik. He argues that efforts to
counter anti-Semitism must be broadened to include the "other
anti-Semitism" so that the same outrage displayed toward anti-Jewish
bigotry will occur for anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stereotypes. [4]
In March 2005, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)
came up with working definition: "Antisemitism is a certain perception
of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and
physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or
non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community
institutions and religious facilities." In addition, such manifestations
could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish
collectivity. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to
harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for "why things go
wrong." [5]
Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms Semitic and Anti-Semitic
are not antonyms. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many scholars
on the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim of the Hebrew University) now
favor the unhyphenated term antisemitism. Yehuda Bauer 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." [6], also in his A History of the
Holocaust, p.52)
An alternative term, "Judeophobia", stands for fear or irrational hatred
of Jews. It was invented by Leon Pinsker and first appeared in his 1882
pamphlet Autoemancipation (text). As a professional physician, Pinsker
preferred the medical term because he was convinced that pathological,
irrational phobia may explain this ancient hatred:
"Judeophobia is a variety of demonopathy... this ghost is not
disembodied like other ghosts but partakes of flesh and blood, must
endure pain inflicted by the fearful mob who imagines itself
endangered... To sum up then, to the living the Jew is a corpse, to the
native a foreigner, to the homesteader a vagrant, to the proprietary a
beggar, to the poor an exploiter and a millionaire, to the patriot a man
without a country, for all a hated rival."
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