Article in Forward objecting to the term "anti-Semitism"

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It’s time for a similarly introspective debate about the language we use to describe discrimination against Jews.

Most leading authorities and publications use “anti-Semitism.” I prefer “antisemitism,” the spelling used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. But this debate obscures the core issue: Whether spelled anti-Semitism or antisemitism, we should retire the term entirely and begin calling it what it really is: Jew hatred.

Consider the history of the word. While the phenomenon of Jew hatred is inscribed in ancient texts, the term “anti-Semitism” is actually of relatively recent vintage, about as old as the telephone or the lightbulb. The German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term “anti-Semitism” in 1879 to give an air of modernity to long-embraced animosity toward the Jewish people.

Earlier Germans were blunter: They called it “Judenhaas,” literally Jew-hatred. Wilhelm, himself a deeply anti-Jewish political agitator, sought a pseudo-scientific and therefore more palatable word. He knew the term “Semitic” had historically referred to a family of languages that originated in the Middle East. So he refashioned the word to mean prejudice against Jews alone.

In his 1880 bestselling propagandist pamphlet, “The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit,” Wilhelm freely used the German term “antisemitismus.” And in the same year, Wilhelm founded the Antisemitenliga, the League of Antisemites, the first organization committed to combating the alleged Jewish takeover of Germany and German culture.

In other words, the term “anti-Semitism” was coined not to marginalize Jew hatred but to mainstream it.

[...]

The term anti-Semitism is also imprecise and ripe for misunderstanding. The original word Semite traces its roots to Noah’s son in the Bible, Shem. Semite first came to label members of groups who spoke Hebrew, Arabic and other related languages, and some Arab leaders have hid behind this literal definition to justify their Jew hatred, arguing they cannot be anti-Semitic because they, too, are Semites.

Thus, at a moment when clarity in exposing and opposing bigotry is urgently needed, the term’s 19th century pseudo-scientific origins lead to modern-day confusion.

For this reason, when forced to choose between spellings, I choose “antisemitism.” The hyphenated spelling gives off the impression that the entity “Semite” in fact exists, which it doesn’t. But whether spelled antisemitism or anti-Semitism, neither does justice to the evil that is Jew hatred.

While the word is cloudy and euphemistic, the growing phenomenon of violence against Jews is all too real. The Anti-Defamation League reports there were 2,107 hate crimes against Jewish people in the United States in 2019, the highest number since they began counting in 1979. Worldwide, anti-Jewish crimes increased 18% in 2019 and 13% the year prior. This violence has many causes. But the words we use to describe it matter.

Jews and non-Jews alike must fight back against these alarming trends. We’ve seen that when boundaries around discrimination are broken down, everyone is affected. Anti-Jewish sentiment is the canary in the coal mine of societal violence. Once Jews are scapegoated, that antagonism almost always spreads to others. We have a collective responsibility, and a collective self-interest, in fighting this bigotry.

[...]

At this moment when Americans and others are reimagining how we talk, think, and act to take on entrenched bigotry, the first step is seeing the problem clearly.

In this case, it’s neither antisemitism nor anti-Semitism: It’s plain and simple Jew hatred.

We live in a non literal NT world. I doubt that more than a minute percentage of people misunderstand the term to mean hatred of semites.

If we are going the presentism route, because of bad origins then it is time to retire “Autism” because the person that coined the term was an influential eugenist.

In the last few years most Jewish advocacy groups and mainstream media have dropped the hyphen. That is not remotely the hill I want to die on so I try to abide by the new way of spelling the term but occasionally out habit I write “Anti-Semitism” and if I realize it do not bother correcting it. Some Jewish advocates use “Jew Hatred” I use “Jew Hatred” interchangeably with “antisemitism”. Unlike “Jew Hatred”, “Antisemitism” has evolved into more of a catchall term meaning a variety of negative feelings, perceptions, and actions towered Jews. It could mean hatred but it can also mean thinking Jews are inferior, or being scared of Jews, or thinking Jews are cheap and greedy. Since people have a variety of motives “Antisemitism” in many contexts is a more accurate description of the phenomenon. Similar with “Islamophobic” meaning more than an irrational fear of Muslims.

In other words, the word itself insinuates an attitude which is part of the very essence of the Israel-vs-Palestine problem, and hence is intrinsically likely to lead to endless fruitless exchanges like:

Jew: "You're antisemitic!"
Palestinian/Arab: "No, I'm a Semite, too!"

Seems to me, when talking about bigotry against Jews, it would be much simpler, more accurate, and more productive to use a word or phrase that specifically references Jews. Why not use such a word?

I can’t say such a conversation has never happened but I have never seen a Palestinian or Arab identify as a Semite. The usual responses to “You’re antisemitic” are something along the lines of “I am anti zionist not antisemitic” and maybe explaining that they are not the same thing or “I don’t hate Jews, I am protesting genocide” never “stop misappropriating semitism”. The term seems to insinuate negation to a very few so does it matter?

The term anti-Semitism is also imprecise and ripe for misunderstanding. The original word Semite traces its roots to Noah’s son in the Bible, Shem. Semite first came to label members of groups who spoke Hebrew, Arabic and other related languages, and some Arab leaders have hid behind this literal definition to justify their Jew hatred, arguing they cannot be anti-Semitic because they, too, are Semites

I've seen Arabs object to it. The Forward article I quoted at the top of this thread mentions this too, though from an unsympathetic POV:


Also, I am not the only person who has ever brought this up on Wrong Planet. Some examples I found via Google just now are here, here, and here.

Anyhow, I don't intend to press this issue everywhere I see the word "antisemitism" (with or without the hyphen), but I think it's an issue worth bringing up now and then. Also I will continue to avoid using the term "antisemitism" myself.

There is no such thing as a Semitic race. There are only Semitic languages. I am a Semite because I speak and write Hebrew. My parents were not Semites because they spoke Yiddish.

In the past few weeks, many have criticized historian Prof. David Engel for cautiously proposing to do away with the commonly used term "antisemitism." That term was given to the world by the German ultra-nationalist publicist Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s. He didn’t quite invent it since it had been used previously, but Marr, a typical Jew hater, gave it the connotation that has stuck to it since then. Racism never was just snobbism of the poor. It has accompanied European cultural elites for centuries. Only in the mid-19th century did it become a “scientific” term.

But there were moments when Jew hatred became a matter of not religion but also of "blood" or ancestry. And sadly this notion became more prevalent in the Nineteenth Centurey with its obsession with breeding and race.

So Mayer wanted a new word that would include...folks like himself...who would still hate a Jew even after he converted to Christianity.

Trouble is "Antisemitism" implies hatred of all Semitic speaking groups (Arabs and Jews). And some Gentile Whites in the West probably do. But its also a cumbersome term.

Well, I have to decide for myself what terms I will use. And, to that end, I need to take into account the perspectives of not just one but two impacted categories of people, i.e., not just Jews but also non-Jewish "Semites" (primarily Palestinians/Arabs).

I hope you're not offended by my avoidance of the term "antisemitism".

It was supposed to be settled: Strike the hyphen from “anti-Semitism” and use “antisemitism” instead.

Public debate heated up in 2020 and by 2024, nearly everyone had made the switch: Jews and gentiles; academics and journalists; government officials and private citizens; right-wingers and left-wingers.

Then Trump took office and made “anti-Semitism” hyphenated again.

It’s the spelling the government is using in official statements, including in Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” and in the title of the new “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.”

What’s the intention behind bringing back the hyphen? The White House didn’t respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

But the question is perplexing to the person perhaps most responsible for the shift to the unhyphenated form of the word — Deborah Lipstadt, the Holocaust scholar who served as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in the Biden administration.

“This decision makes no sense,” Lipstadt told JTA in an email. “I cannot fathom why there would be this reversal.”

Lipstadt is seasoned at outlining the arguments against the hyphen. “The only people who push for the hyphen are those who wish to create a racial category of “Semitism,” she said in her email. “They do this in an effort to declare themselves ‘Semites’ and therefore incapable of being anti-their own group.”

She continued, “This claim is ludicrous on a number of levels. First, one can be ‘of’ a group and hostile to it. Second, there is, of course, no such thing as Semitic peoples. There are peoples who speak Semitic languages. Finally, the word has its origins in the unhyphenated German Antisemitismus. The man who coined it intended it to mean one thing and one thing only: Jew-hatred.”

But Lipstadt’s arguments appear to hold no water in the Trump administration, which is on an overarching quest to undo the legacy of his predecessor piece by piece. Spelling it the old way creates continuity with Trump’s previous presidential term, when the hyphenated spelling was still the consensus; his new executive order on antisemitism is billed as an expansion of an executive order he signed in 2019.

Does the spelling matter? For many advocates, including the authors of the definition of antisemitism that the Trump administration committed to using, it does.

Michaela Küchler is secretary general of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which authored the definition and helped popularize the unhyphenated form.

“The IHRA advocates for the spelling of antisemitism without a hyphen to emphasise that the term specifically refers to opposition and hatred toward Jews,” she wrote in an email to JTA. “By using the unhyphenated form, the IHRA aims to provide clarity in addressing and combating antisemitism in all its forms, especially at a time when we are witnessing increased violence and rhetoric aimed against Jews worldwide.”

The term was first popularized in the late 1880s by a German nationalist named Wilhelm Marr. He wanted to make his hatred for Jews sound intellectual. He also thought the term would help cast Jews as members of an inferior race — Semites — rather than just followers of a minority faith.

Jews eventually came to use the term to describe the prejudice they faced, but it came with various problems. Intentionally or not, some people missed the point, fixating on whether Jews could accurately be called Semites or insisting that Arabs were also Semites — given that Arabic, like Hebrew, is a Semitic language — and therefore couldn’t be considered antisemitic.

By the 21st century Jewish academics like Lipstadt were calling to drop the hyphen, saying the new spelling would help dispel confusion about what the term meant. Her 2019 book “Antisemitism: Here and Now” turned out to be particularly influential in that regard. By 2020, Jewish organizations had started making the switch, eventually including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress and Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.

Most of the news industry soon followed suit, led by the Associated Press and its ubiquitous style guide as well as The New York Times. Right-wing outlets like Fox News and Breitbart also started using “antisemitism.” So did the entire Jewish press, including JTA.

The Biden administration’s preference for “antisemitism” could have pegged it as the “liberal” style, but that didn’t happen. The right adopted the new spelling just the same. Case in point: The Heritage Foundation, the influential right-wing think tank, last year released “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.”

The whole transition could be seen in the work of Bari Weiss, the iconoclastic Jewish journalist who rose to prominence by crusading against antisemitism at Columbia University and the New York Times. Her 2019 book was titled “How to Fight Anti-Semitism.” The Free Press, the media outlet she founded in 2021, spells the word sans hyphen.

Even as the new consensus was emerging, some argued that the debate was sucking up unwarranted attention.

“Users of social media love fights over style rather than substance, and language is far easier to police than actions, so it’s understandable that those looking for a win against a seemingly intractable prejudice such as anti-Semitism would gravitate toward this issue,” wrote Yair Rosenberg, staff writer for the Atlantic, which never dropped the hyphen. “But the time and energy spent on this subject would be much better spent on combating anti-Semites and educating allies.”

Asked to comment on Trump bringing back the hyphen, the ADL deemphasized the significance of how the term is spelled.

“The Jewish community continues to face unprecedented levels of antisemitism in the wake of 10/7,” the group said in a statement. “It doesn’t matter how you spell it — antisemitism, AntiSemitism or anti-Semitism — it’s still the same problem, and the solution requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.”