Wikipedia says that the compound word antisemite was popularized in Germany in 1879 as a scientific-sounding term for Judenhass "Jew-hatred." 

So basically it was public relations, wanting a more socially acceptable term for discriminating against a group of people based on their religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism

Dear Nyasha Nboti,

The term “antisemitism”, as you have rightly observed,  was first coined in 1878 by German nationalist Wilhelm Marr to show his party  opposition  to Jewish nationalism. The word commonly  denotes a hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people. Using a morphological  analysis  approach ,  the word is broken down into “anti” and “Semitic”, meaning “against Semitic people”.  However, Semites are individuals with an ancient Middle-Eastern origin ,who inhabit the Levant, the Persian Gulf, and other neighboring areas. The rational behind Marr's coinage of the word and its antisemitic associative meaning is not transparent for several reasons. For one thing, from a linguistic viewpoint, the word and its meaning  is simply inaccurate? Another thing is that the  meaning of the word has led to an inaccurate referential interpretation since it  implies a discrimination against all Semites including Arabs even though  they are not the targets of  natural interpretation of Antisemitism .  Therefore,  what the world needs today  is to remove the negative, connotative meaning of the term through careful planning, education, and cooperation at the international level.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Thanks Reza. I appreciate your quite lucid answer. I shall share my draft theoretical paper soon, titled "Is anti-Semitism Really anti-Semitism?" In the article I seek to address some of the problematic opacity of the term, particularly why an inaccurate term is often still preferred over more precise terms such as "anti-Judaism" or "anti-Jewish".

Yikes Nyasha.  

The term is not opaque and you are looking for a big takedown.  As in, what's the merit in this project?  Are you really splitting semantic hairs? Marek seems to get at the reason for its existence.  I don't hear much of a call for not using it.

 Anti-semitism as an art-form (assuming I'm kidding) dates back to the first crusades, that's when such things as the shift in emphasis in the crucifixion story and the blood libel started.  Usury and the Protocol of the Elders of Zion came later.  

As someone who lost all but a few family members of my grandparent's generation in the Holocaust, I have to wonder what the language games have to do with anything?  If you really want to understand anti-Semitism why not test it in South Africa?

Frankly, I don't care. It seems like a silly enterprise.  It's the kind of thing that really makes me want to go back to New York.  And I've been here in SA since '93.

Shap

Stu

Dear Nyasha, my opinion is that the origin of the word "Antisemitism" makes no difference to its current meaning, which is a hatred of Jews. I don't think the word can be misused much. I guess if you call someone who hates gays an antisemite, that would be misuse of the term, but that gets kind of silly, doesn't it? A Jew is anyone who calls himself a Jew. People who hate him for that are antisemitic. It started with zealous Europeans, at a time when all European nations were Christian theocracies, who blamed all Jews for crucifying Jesus, based on a bad translation / bad exegesis of the Bible. (The Temple authorities were called "the Jews" in the Gospels, which made people forget that Jesus and all his disciples were also Jews). "Antisemitic" does not refer to speakers of Semitic languages at all. It simply means "hatred of Jews." And although Arabs are also Semites, "antisemitic" does not include Arabs. That's just how words work. Words mean what the majority of a particular language's speakers say they mean. Very democratic.

Thanks @Stu, @Michael and @Gerhard for the insight. Stu, you insist that the term (note: not the practice, but the term that describes the practice) is not opaque. But why would you say that? "Anti-semitic" (the term) seems to me like a very opaque, imprecise term. At least this very much must be admitted. Anti-Judaism, on the other hand, is not opaque. This too, I think, can be admitted.

What is my project? Same case as when Columbus made a mistake about the Indies. For those that Columbus colonised, the misnomer is not a small thing at all: it is not a small thing to delve into etymology and recover lost meanings or remove meaningless impositions. It is not a mere "linguistic", "semantic" or "language" game at all. At least, I don't think so.

The Karanga of Zimbabwe proudly call themselves vaVhitori (Victorians), because they come from Masvingo, a place which Rhodes and Jameson misnamed Fort Victoria, after  Queen Victoria. This is just a language game? 

Mosi Oa Tunya is misnamed Victoria Falls, again Livingstone gave it a name when it already had one (again named after Queen Victoria). I do not quite see how this is just a language game.

Rhodes (mis)named a whole country after himself, to commemorate his colonial exploits. Do I go around proudly calling myself a Rhodesian? Did I choose that name/identity for myself?

@Michael, this does not seem to be just how words work. The way words work is very complex and multimodal. Words are also implicated with power. Often, the powerful decree which words to (officially) use, and which not to. Like Humpty Dumpty, they also limit what use and meaning we can make with words. The insistence that "anti-Semitic" is not erroneous seems to me similar to Humpty Dumpty's (in)famous riposte to Alice that words are what he meant them to mean.

Your commentator Reza Biria wants to 'remove the negative, connotative meaning of the term through careful planning, education, and cooperation'. Really? How in the world is that going to happen? Should we also bring millions of WW2 Jews back to life? Stu is exactly right. There's no there there. You cannot change reality by changing a word. That is doomed to fail. Everybody knows what antisemitism means. The word has been used in say, a hundred thousand books and articles over a hundred years. Probably more.

You're right, words are not what Humpty Dumpty intends them to mean. Words are what millions of language-users intend them to mean. Words also have a history that cannot be changed just by changing the word. No matter what you call it, antisemitism will still be antisemitism. Only a powerful government or language-making authority can change that, and only over many years. And the guestion remains: why would they? Why don't you study antisemitism instead of the word 'antisemitism?' You have considerable intellectual capital to invest.

Thanks Gerhard. You raise some critical points, such as the importance of studying antisemitism instead of "antisemitism". The issue, however, is that expressive acts, language (and words) matter in how we represent the world. I am a communication scholar, and I'm fascinated with how, what and why we communicate. To ask communication scholars to ignore expressive modes, language, images, signs, symbols and words is to ask them to shut up shop, cease their discipline, and go home.

I'm intrigued because you ask: "Only a powerful government or language-making authority can change that, and only over many years. And the guestion remains: why would they?"  I wonder why is that.

Let me flip the question around: why would not they? Why are you appearing to make a word that's barely 150 years old seem immutable and natural? Are there any words out there that are immutable - that were always meant to mean, and will always mean, what they mean now?

Sorry, it's still a limp project, Neologisms come into being to describe new or old phenomenon.  Wanna understand anti-Semitism -- Shakespeare gives a good account in Merchant of Venice.  Marx gives a good account in "On the Jewish Question". Torquemada pulled off a good stunt during the Spanish Inquisition.  The Ukrainians got it right from 1917-1920.  The Germans made it perfect.  If any group rights copiously about the own history, it's my tribe.   

The project is postmodern gobbledygook.  Two plus two equals four.  The equation is certainly immutable, even if languages use other terms.  WHY does it interest you?

@Stu, I am afraid this is the point where we have to politely agree to disagree. What might be gobbledegook to you is a worthwhile pursuit for me. But thanks anyway for engaging. I hope to still get some of your thoughts on the published paper anyhow in a few months' time. 

Nyasha. Gerhard and I asked simple questions. Why the etymology, rather than history? Surely you have an hypothesis. Can you state it clearly? 

Stu, with all due respect, I doubt I'm ever likely to convince you - after all you have already dismissed what I might have to say as "postmodern gobbledygook" (which is a fair point, as that is how you see it).

I feel like Charlie Brown flat on his back after Lucy has once more pulled the football away.  I didn't ask to be convinced.  How could I be, since you haven't told your audience here what you are doing?   I'm asking, for the third time, what your working hypothesis is? SWM with straight question seeks BF with straight answer. :-) 

Sorry for making you feel like Charlie Brown. Not my intention.

Anyway, I'll try again.

Here's the postmodern gobbledygook: I'm interested in separating  the "ism" ("anti-Semitism") from the "ic" ("anti-Semitic") and "ite" ("anti-Semite"). It seems clear that Marr never used the "ism" (it's a latterday invention), but did use the "ic" and his admirers in the Bund der Antisemiten (“League of Anti-Semites”) used the "ite". I'm choosing to separate the "ic" and "ite" from the "ism" because the "ism" is making it hard for me to see the wood for the trees.

Here is more gobbledygook: It's like Karl Marx and Marxism/capitalism. Marx never used the terms Marxism or capitalism. He never himself used the "ism" of Marx-ism or the "ism" of capital-ism in his work. I find it easier, then, to study Marx and capital if I separate them from Marxism and capitalism. The "isms" are, you may agree, a latterday invention. Conflation of terms which are gulfs apart makes precise study impossible.

It's the illogical conflation of the "ic" and "ite" with the "ism" that my project is trying to separate, if that should be possible.

I sincerely hope I have not pulled away the football, Stu.

Okay here's a response on your own terms.  

According to the Sante Fe Institute: Yiddish was 'invented' by Jews who had arrived in Europe with the Roman army as traders, later settling in the Rhineland of western Germany and northern France. Mixing Hebrew, Aramaic and Romance with German, they produced a unique language, not just a dialect of German.

According to Wikipedia: Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish/idish, lit. "Jewish", pronounced [ˈjɪdɪʃ] [ˈɪdɪʃ]; in older sources ייִדיש-טײַטש Yidish-Taitsh, lit. Judaeo-German)[3] is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century[4] in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with an extensive Germanic based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as from Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages.[5][6] Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script.

Huh.  Hebrew and Aramaic are Semitic languages.  The alphabet and script is Semitic.  And your claim above is that -- however mixed or fused with other languages -- Jews didn't speak a Semitic language.  

My grandmother spoke mostly Yiddish and read Yiddish language dailies in New York (after her peregrinations around the globe).  You want a time when Jews stopped being Semitic.  Have you ever been to shul?  I assume that you know that the oldest and most important daily prayer -- for which one needs a minyan -- is Aramaic.  So exactly when did those practising Judaiism stop being Semetic -- forgetting Sephardic Jews who hung out closer to 'home'.  

Thank you for the prompt (though flawed) answer. You are saying, effectively, that Yiddish is Creole, and then, in the same sentence, saying that Creole is the original. Huh.

You cannot eat your cake and still have it. Physically (and logically) impossible.

Anyway, to more substantive points. Firstly, if we go according to your terms, it is clear that Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews never stopped being Semetic (although I do not know where you are going with all this "stopping" stuff). Secondly, it's not about stopping being Semetic or continuing being Semetic. You are missing the point. If it was about continuing to be Semetic, then Arab Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews would be the most "authentic" Semetics. Right?

I did say earlier on the thread that I am a communication scholar, interested in how things mean. That's where my whole interest with "anti-Semitism" lies.

I'm finding that the genealogy of the "ism" has nothing (or at least little) to do with the "ic" and 'ite". The "ism" can be backdated to antiquity and 1st century Judea, as hundreds of books on anti-Semitism have proved, BUT the 'ic" and "ite" cannot. You cannot backdate an invention ('ic" and '"ite") to a date before its inventor invented it. Simple logic. But you can backdate the "ism" all you like.

The Corpenican revolution cannot, as it were, predate Corpenicus. But if you are brazen enough to come up with something called Corpenicanism, you can make a case for arguing that Corpenicanism predates 1473 (when Corpenicus was born), or at least 1543 (when De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was first published). You can call it the "roots" of Corpenicanism or the "spirit" of Corpenicanism or whatever to justify making a prophecy predate its prophet. (The importance of the malleability of  "isms" to the creative should by now be a bit clear. That very malleability, however, also makes"isms" a bit annoying).

Anyway, that's my hypothesis, in truncated form, and that's what my paper is about.

Hope this settles it for now?

Actually, most of the Jews at that time and before that time and after that time were, are, and continue to be deeply immersed in Semitism, by way of (1) the Semitic languages of Hebrew and Aramaic, written and read, in Semitic characters, in the venues of prayer, religious studies, literature, Yiddish, as Stu pointed out, and spoken language in the Land of Israel (Jewish kids especially back then were introduced to the Semitic vernacular from the time they could first speak), and (2) by way of our heritage and lineage as Semites, being descendants of Shem, son of Noah, and inheritors of the ancient Semitic mystery schools of Shem and Eber. Now, granted, many other peoples are descendants of Shem and are bonafide Semites, but none as despised and loathed and demonized throughout the past 2,000 years as much as have been the particular Semitic group known as Jews. Thus, Anti-Semite came to be applied specifically to the Jewish people, amid all the other Semites, Hitites, Amorites, Yevusites, Termites, Dolomites, Canaanites and every other possible ite we can come up with.

Nyasha, I agree with your statement that anti-Judaism would be a better, more clear description of the monster lurking behind the grey and safe motto of 'anti-Semitism." It is indeed anti-Jewish, anti-Jew, anti-Judaism, and it did not begin with the Crusades but is traced way way back to the 450 anti-Judaic epithets promoted by the Good News for Mankind and the tragic consequences it brought upon the Jews beginning as early as the 4th century. Nor did it climax in the horrific 1940's but regrettably continues alive and well today, globally, often in the guise of a newly-invented term: Anti-Zionism.

Thanks Gershon for your comprehensible contribution.

However, like Stu, you seem to be confusing the "ism" (i.e. "anti-Semitism") - which seems to me an ideological/artificial construct (look at how pliable, malleable and manipulable it is, in terms of scholars and commentators being able to backdate the "ism" to antiquity or to 1st century Judea etc., and their ability to apply it as an umbrella to describe phenomena that at their historical time where not literally called "antisemitism") - with the "ite" (Semite) and "ic" (Semitic), which are - and indivisibly and stubbornly so - historical phenomena. Unless you can prove to me that 1) the "ism" is not an construct at all but is as historical as 'ite" and "ic", or  2) that "ite" and "ic" themselves are as ideological and constructed as "ism".

In other words, I do not dispute any of the historical data you just presented. In fact, I agree with it in general terms. My thesis is simply that conflating "ism" with "ite" and 'ic" seems to make rigorous and informed study of "anti-Semitism" well-nigh impossible. You'd have to separate them, at least initially. That is, I am making a finely methodological point. You and Stu et al, on the other hand, are making a political point. Which is fine with me, as there is room for both approaches.

As the very Jewish -- not literally speaking, but New York speaking -- John McEnroe once (rightly) yelled at an umpire at Wimbledon: 'You cannot be serious!' Please see the full 2 minute 13 second YouTube clip for further illuminating commentary on how you and everyone else knows when a tennis ball is actually in the court and not 'óut'.  But I'm glad this Facebook-like discussion finally got to the heart of matters.  Because ism, ic and ite could be conflated, ''a rigorous and informed study of ''anti-Semitism" [is] well-nigh impossible."  Finally: an honest, quotable and amusing answer.  

Gershon, I had not read your second answer when I responded to the first. Sorry for that.

According to the hypothesis I am developing, you are mostly right (that anti-Judaism and anti-Jewish thought and practice etc. easily predates the Crusades and post-dates the 1940s). The only point I take exception to relates to (anti)Zionism. I do not think that anti-Judaism and anti-Jewish or Jew hatred has morphed into anti-Zionism. Why? Because Zionism is yet another "ism", malleable and manipulable. Zion, on the other hand, is not an "ism".

My Rastafarian friends, for instance, are mad about Zion (but would kick your butt, I'm sure, if you were to label them Zionists). I also have aunts and uncles who go to ZCC (Zion Christian Church), and they are avowedly not Zionists and are not adherents of Zionism.

In the end, it would seem, I'm all for letting human beings use words the way they want, whoever they may be, wherever they are, for as long or for as little as they want, if there is warrant for them to do so and if such use is meaningful to them. After all, words cannot be anything other than words. Words are so wordy. I am, however, a little bit opposed to Humpty Dumpty's annoying dictatorial monopoly of meaning.

Language is an inheritance for our children, and their children's children (whether such children are Jewish or Zulu or Rastafarian or Palestinian or mixed race or one-legged).

Therein lies my unavoidably opprobrious ideological and political slant  :/

Nyasha, I am awed at your thinking, far too elevated for my simple mind, yet I respect its depth. From your words, I see some of the wisdom in your position, only some, but not for lack of it on your end but on my end due to my cerebral limitations. I can quote you verbatim from the Babylonian Talmud, but cannot for the life of me prove an obtuse triangle or resolve an algebraic problem. What I think I did get from your position is that there is a serious discrepancy between "ite" and "ism" for example what a Juda'ite might do in his or her personal behavior may not be representative of Juda'ism. nor might it be considered Juda'ic just because she or he is a Juda'ite. The "ite" is by virtue of tribal affiliation, whereas the 'ic is by virtue of commitment to a particular "ism."

I think I need a drink.

I am going to award a point against you, Professor Woolman.

Imagine, though, that after McEnroe had said "Everyone in this stadium knows it's in", he were to be shown proof ( I know there was no Hawk-eye then) that in fact it was out?

Sometimes the things we think are in might be out, you know. Like how some people still believe that there were 3 wise men who went to see baby Jesus, Macintosh computers are immune to viruses compared to PCs, ostrich stick their heads in the sand, cold weather causes flu, Mt Everest is the tallest mountain on earth, that coffee sobers you up, the Great Wall of China is visible from the moon, Jihad means "holy war", just about every scholar of the Middle ages thought the earth was flat, the sun is yellow, bats are blind, we evolved from Chimps, we use only 10% of our brain, goldfish have only a few seconds of memory, the Quran promises 72 virgins to martyrs, brown sugar is healthier than white, antibiotics kill viruses, sugar causes kids to be hyperactive, fatwa means "death sentence", chocolate cause acne, the brain is divided into solidly left and right, or that we all have 5 senses.

All these are egregious MYTHS, and are erroneous - and therefore are out, Mr McEnroe.

Just because everyone in the stadium thinks its in, does not mean it is in. Sometimes its not.

Hence we do research and we do studies to try to get to the bottom of things.

Gershon, thanks for your kind words. But to be honest, I consider myself an average thinker. What I do have, though, is lots of curiosity and tenacity.

I am in fact deeply intrigued by what you say about the discrepancy (I do not know if it is serious or not) between Juda'ite and Juda'ism, for instance. This is an angle I would have fallen short of investigating, but seems immensely worth look at. All we, the untutored, seem to know about and to hear about is Juda'ism, and often in its official guise only. I suspect there is more complexity to it than that.

The potential discrepancy between Juda'ic and Juda'ite, however, is what I would say is potentially richest in theoretical content. I would in fact, submit to learn from you on the mystical as well as the concrete and historical meanings of Juda'ic and Juda'ite, if you are open to teaching a Gentile (*wink*wink). 

Is the "ite" by virtue of tribal affiliation? Probably. What I know is that it is meanigful, is more of a "commons" and is warranted. The "ite" is much more carnivalesque, democratic and shared, and less subject to monopoly, agenda-setting and tyranny.

The "ism", on the other hand, is mostly official, ring-fenced stuff,often imposed by the powerful elites among us who obviously have vested interests and would stand to lose if things were opened up, critically scrutinised and shared. The "ism" is fertile ground for what Roland Barthes would call myth.

It is thus, if I follow you, the "ism" that is by virtue of commitment to a particular "ism."

It is you, sir, who have an awesome intellect. THANKS.

Btw, if I decide to include this bit in my paper, do I have your permission? I shall acknowledge you (unfortunately it will only be in a footnote).

Do enjoy your well-earned drink.

Mboti uriDambudzo Marechera straight....interesting debate

Nyasha, apologies for not checking in all these moons. Just saw your last post. Yes, you may quote me. And in response to your 6-month-old question about ism and ite. Take Science, for instance. There is Science and there is Scien-tism. Science is the drama of infinite quest spurred by wonder. It has no doors, only doorways, and is never shut. It knows no words, only awe, and no destination, only the journey. Nor is the term "absolute" found in its vocabulary. Scien-tism, on the other hand, is the drama of objective, laden with theories thirsting for axioms, and wonder frozen in place and filed away in the lifeless crypts of absoluteness. Scien-tism refuses to correct errors in textbooks even after earlier theories have been disproven by more recent findings. Likewise, a Juda'ite is one who is moved to wake up not to the smell of coffee but to the miracle of breathing, and then to step out of the bathroom not relieved of waste but filled with wonder over the workings of the human body. A Juda'ite is one who upon seeing a beautiful person does not whistle and oggle but raises his or her eyes to the infinite heavens and says "Wow! You are amazing, O Creator! What an incredibly stunning sunset, person, bird, tree, etc." This is the aboriginal intent of the Hebrew (semitic) word "Yehudah [Judah]" as in "And she named him Yehudah, because this time -- o'deh yah -- I simply thank the Infinite-All" (Genesis 29:25). A Juda'ite is one who is always aware of, appreciative of, every slurp of beer, or taste of chocolate, or a beautiful scenery, and even of the mystery of both agony and ecstasy, and who feeds their animals first before sitting down to eat a meal, and who is conscious of the precarious nature of being human, that we can morph in a split second from angel to demon, or vice-versa, as the 1st-century BCE Hillel the Elder put it: "Don't be so sure of yourself until the day of your passing" (Mishnah, Avot 2:5).

Okay, good. Hurrah for Judaites. Now, Juda’ism is where things can become atrophied, where we do all the nice things a Juda’ite might do but out of rote, unconsciously, as something we do because it’s what we do, have done, should do, would do, could do, and we might feed our animals first but begrudgingly, or mouth the prayer of gratitude for all my bowels working when I’m done with the toilet thing, but my mind is so far removed from any of it and I just do it because it’s what we do or are supposed to do and it is demanded by a one-eyed purple-people-eater we refer to as God. Same with Zion versus Zion-ism. Zion is an ancient mythos around a vortex, a specific nuclei of great mystery, of revelation waiting to be conjured from out of its concealment, as in “For out of Zion shall Guidance [Torah] emerge, and the Word of Infinite-All from out of Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3). Zion can just as easily be Black Elk Peak for the Lakota Sioux as it is Mount Moriah for the Israelites. Zion is a portal between the universe that is known and the universe that is unknown. It is a central point out of which the umbilical cord of Genesis extends itself to touch us with the nurturance of Great Mother, or “ey’ma de’ila’ah,” as we say it in Judeo-Aramaic. But Zion-ism is a political banner, a snapshot of a smidgen of what Zion implies, heralded as an endorsement for a political agenda which to some extent is born out of and represents the ideas behind Zion itself and in many other ways distorts it.

In conclusion, I would quote my grandfather, Rabbi Michael Shalom, who, by the way, carried a Palestinian passport since everyone living in Israel back then under the Ottomans was a Palestinian -- Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. He used to say: “Once an ideal becomes a movement, it stops movement.”

And that is exactly what happens to ites when their ics becomes isms.

Excuse my typo on my grandfather's saying. Should read: “Once an ideal becomes a movement, it stops moving.”

The social influence of M. Luther should be studied, in historical respect to your research question.

Indeed. Quite honestly, and speaking as a Jew, I was appalled at the sentence of hanging meted out to Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher for fanning the flames of Jew-hatred which helped fuel the Holocaust. Like he himself testified at the Nuremberg Trials, he had never said or written anything against the Jews that had not already been introduced by Martin Luther four hundred years earlier.

Had I been at Nuremberg back then, I would have protested his execution and sentenced him instead to four years of Jewish studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.