I’m still planning a diary about antisemitic anti-Zionist Soviet propaganda and the shadow it still throws across the rhetoric of the left. But this diary squeaked out.
It’s about the word antisemitism.
I was an English major, so it shouldn’t surprise you to know that I’m festooned with dictionaries. Here’s what they have to say about the word “antisemitism.”
The Oxford Dictionary of English defines anti-Semitism: “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.”
Webster’s Seventh Collegiate defines anti-Semite: “One who is hostile to or discriminates against Jews.”
Webster II Riverside defines anti-Semite: “One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews.”
Merriam-Webster defines anti-Semitism: “Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.”
American Heritage defines anti-Semitism: “Prejudice, discrimination, or hostility against Jews.”
And the granddaddy, the OED, defines anti-Semitism: “Theory, action, or practice directed against the Jews. Hence ‘anti-Semite’, one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews.”
What is the one thing all the dictionaries say? “Against Jews.”
What is the one thing *none* of the dictionaries say? “Against Semites.”
Getting that wrong — asserting that “antisemitism” means “against Semites” — is an instant one-way trip to the bottom of the credibility pile.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s a hero of mine, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, wisely appointed by Joe Biden as our State Department’s special ambassador on antisemitism. This is from her highly-recommended-by-Zemblan 2019 book, Antisemitism, Here and Now.
In recent decades, as the Arab-Israeli crisis has intensified, some Arabs, upon being accused of engaging in antisemitic rhetoric, have posited that it’s impossible for them to be antisemites because they themselves are “Semites.” This argument is based on three faulty notions.
First, it assumes that there’s such a thing as a Semitic people, when in fact there is not. The word “Semitic” was coined in 1781 by a German historian to describe a group of languages that originated in the Middle East and that have some linguistic similarities; they include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, ancient Akkadian, and Ugaritic. There’s nothing that binds the speakers of these different languages together. [...]
Second, even if one were to posit that there is such a cultural or ethnic entity as Semites, this argument assumes that members of a group cannot be prejudiced against their own. In fact, one of prejudice’s most debilitating legacies is how the people targeted come to believe that the negative stereotypes thrown at them are true. There are racist African-Americans, sexist women, and antisemitic Jews.
Finally, arguing that antisemitism means exhibiting hostility toward all “Semitic” people obscures the meaning that has been ascribed to it for virtually all its history. Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist who was a Jew-hater, popularized the term [circa 1879]. [...] Seeking a term that had a racial and “scientific” connotation rather than a religious one, he chose Antisemitismus [...]. For him and the legions of people who adopted this word, it meant one thing and one thing only: hating members of the Jewish “race.”
But but but “Semite” means --
Yes, I know.
But there’s a fundamental here. Words mean what people use them to mean. That’s what words do. That’s what words are.
I write this on the last day of October. October is the tenth month. What does “October” mean literally? “Eighth month.” Octagon, octopus, October. What *should* the tenth month be called? “December.” Decade, decimal, December. But that’s what we call the twelfth month.
September, October, November, and December: wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. For a third of the year our calendar is tech-nically ackshually wrong.
And yet civilization doesn’t grind to a halt, and you can live an entire life without even noticing the problem. And only the most idiotic of idiots would pound the table and assert that October really *is* the eighth month despite how everyone uses the name.
As with the names September, October, November, and December, the word “antisemitism” just doesn’t mean what a literal interpretation of its word roots suggest it should mean.
An early example
The earliest example I could find of someone playing the “antisemitism = against Semites” game was — I shit thee not — Joseph Goebbels, in orders to the German press on August 22, 1934.
Very important! The attention of the German press is drawn to the fact that the National Socialist movement may be called anti-Semitic no longer, but only anti-Jewish. We have nothing against the Arabs and other Semitic peoples, not even against the Jews in Palestine. But we are opposed to the international Jewish influence on Germany and we do wish to restrict the part played by the Jews as guests in our country.
The word “antisemitism” wasn’t established in Arabic the way it was in German and other European languages, and as the Nazis allied with the Arab states, they wanted to make extra sure that nothing awkward got lost in translation. It’s a very deceptive argument the Nazis are making, not the least being the claim that Nazis — continually fulminating as they did about the International Jew — had nothing against the Jews in Palestine.
Why does it matter so much?
You can’t simultaneously (a) tell Jews — individually or collectively — which acts are or aren’t antisemitic, or how they should or shouldn’t react to antisemitism, and (b) demonstrate that you literally don’t know the first thing about what antisemitism actually is.
When the “Semite” claim comes up here, as often as not it’s accompanied by the implication — or outright assertion — that Jews have twisted the meaning of the word, boarded it and claimed it for their own like pirates claim a merchant ship, and that they have maliciously and mendaciously elbowed Arabs out from its umbrella.
It was *never* that umbrella. History makes it clear: no, that’s not what happened.