Talk:Antisemitism

I've lost my previous Wikipedia account (or maybe it was on a different language, don't remember) and so I've created this account, but it is too new to edit this page.

Could someone please mention the Etymological fallacy page somewhere in the following paragraph (just before the first heading):

Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept.

I intended to write it as below, wouldn't stress on that exact wording though.

...those who incorrectly assert (as an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred...

Edit: this is even mentioned on Etymological fallacy itself.

RatherQueerDebator (talk) 10:49, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Done! Good edit. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 16:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! RatherQueerDebator (talk) 19:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

If semites include arabs, why is Wikipedia still defining it as discriminations towards only jews. This is misinformation and is in line with the current propoganda war that is ongoing in 2023/2024 and even previous to this time.

Arabs feel the discrimination and racism towards them when it comes to the word antisemetic or antisemitism.

After reading the etymology of the word, it further supports the claim and provides further evidence that the defintion antisemtisim should be changed in wikipedia to the discrimination against any group of people of semitic descent. Abdlrdt (talk) 05:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Check out etymological fallacy for why breaking down a word's constituent parts to derive its true meaning is not a good strategy. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:26, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Thomas Carlyle uses the word in his 1850 'Life of Sterling':

It was not as a ghastly phantasm, choked in Thirty-nine-article controversies, or miserable Semitic, Anti-Semitic street-riots,—in scepticisms, agonized self-seekings, that this man appeared in life; nor as such, if the world still wishes to look at him should you suffer the world's memory of him now to be.

This English example long predates Wilhelm Marr's supposed coining of the term. Wouldn't this warrant a mention in the article under the discussion of the history of the word's usage? 206.85.204.137 (talk) 16:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting! Is this discussed in any secondary sources? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:49, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

There isn't much written about it that I can find, but the Oxford English Dictionary's entry confirms that Carlyle's is the first known example in English: "OED's earliest evidence for anti-Semitic is from 1851, in the writing of Thomas Carlyle, author, biographer, and historian."

From p. 42 of "The Rise and Fall of the Man of letters: Aspects of English Literary Life Since 1800--

"Curiously enough, in the Life of John Sterling (1851) he uses the actual word 'anti-semitic', which is generally supposed to have been coined in Germany some twenty years later."

Closer to thirty years later in fact. It is perhaps unsurprising that Carlyle, as a prominent translator of German literature and interpreter of German culture during the early Victorian age, was the man to coin this word (in English at least--perhaps in any language). He was well acquainted with the jargon of German philological research. Note that the context leaves no doubt that Jews are being referred to--he is addressing anti-Jewish riots that broke out in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions. 206.85.204.137 (talk) 21:19, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Carlyle's intention for the word is unclear. What is "Semitic, Anti-Semitic" supposed to mean? As far as I can see (given how hard this book is to read) there is no other mention of riots in his book and no mention of the 1848 revolutions. Nor mention of Jews. Without support of a secondary source, using this example would be OR. However, at Talk:Antisemitism/Archive_35#Origin_of_the_term_and_etymology: I gave an 1854 newspaper usage which is extremely clear and I believe it can be cited: "Mr Disraeli cannot stand up in the Commons and accuse us of anti-semitic propensities and a desire to persecute his people." [Cambridge Independent Press, Feb 18, 1854, a commentary on an Act before Parliament]. Zero^talk 04:22, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Carlyle is writing about then current wranglings between scepticism and what he saw as the outmoded forms/doctrines that are particular to the Judaeo-Christian religion (in Carlyle's language 'Hebrew old-clothes') which he's sees as worn out, and valuable only insofar as they imperfectly embody a kernel of metaphysical truth. The Semitic, anti-Semitic 'riots' (based, I presumed, on analogy with actual recent riots--this period saw many anti-Jewish pogroms and it was a time of vociferous debate on the question of full Jewish emancipation both in England and on the continent) in question are ideological contentions between these groups: on the one hand, those who believe we must remain rooted in biblical (essentially Jewish) traditions; and on the other, those who believe these forms outmoded, and that the inner core of religion can be separated from them--or that there is no valuable inner core at all.

Some other things to consider for further context--Carlyle was one of the most widely read of early Victorian authors (novelists and poets aside) and his idiosyncratic language was widely imitated and affected. The introductory matter to the standard 1997 Oxford edition of his autobiography singles him out as "the most influential of Victorian cultural leaders." The fact that in the early 1850s he was perhaps the single most eminent living man of letters (whether he ought to have been is another question) in the English speaking world makes it highly likely that the example you've found is ultimately imitative of Carlyle's coinage, despite the difference in shade of meaning. On the question of imitating "Carlylese," as it was called, it's funny that your example mentions Disraeli. In his massive biography of Carlyle, Froude says, "Disraeli had studied Carlyle and in some of his writings had imitated him. Carlyle did not thank him for this. Carlyle detested Jews and looked on Disraeli as an adventurer fishing for a fortune in parliamentary waters." But indeed it's difficult to think of any notable Victorian author whom he didn't influence. Walt Whitman towards the end of his life: "I am disposed to think of him as more significant than any modern man--as in himself a full answer to the cry of the modern spirit for expression."

Carlyle himself was deeply anti-Semitic, in the unambiguous sense. Derogatory remarks pertaining to Jews occur throughout his writings--it's a recurring theme. Froude describes an occasion in which he and Carlyle were standing in front of the Rothschild mansion: Carlyle, indicating the residence, made mocking gestures as if he were painfully extracting teeth. This refers to tortures practiced on medieval Jews to extort their money, a practice which Carlyle had gleefully written in Past and Present (1843), one of his most widely read large-scale works:

"Benedict the Jew in vain pleaded parchments; his usuries were too many. The King said, “Go to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay just debt; down with thy dust, or observe this tooth-forceps!” Nature, a far juster Sovereign, has far terribler forceps. Aristocracies, actual and imaginary, reach a time when parchment pleading does not avail them. “Go to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay due debt!” shouts the Universe to them, in an emphatic manner. They refuse to pay, confidently pleading parchment: their best grinder-tooth, with horrible agony, goes out of their jaw. Wilt thou pay now? A second grinder, again in horrible agony, goes: a second, and a third, and if need be, all the teeth and grinders, and the life itself with them; -- and then there is free payment, and an anatomist-subject into the bargain!" 206.85.204.137 (talk) 13:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Another pre-Marr example from an article in "The Reader," dated 7 Feb 1863, reviewing the Universal History of Architecture by Daniel Ramee:

"Here, on the contrary, the architectural descriptions and the anti-Semitic diatribes are merely interstratified, with as little connection as the alternate lines of and of sympathitic ink in which secret despatches are said to have been written."

The review takes the author to task for attributing the decline of Greece to Socrates whose idea of God was "conformable to the Semitic view." Ramee is quoted further: "From an Oriental race, inferior to the races of the north...the spirit of disorder has not ceased to disturb the Western races of noble blood." He speaks of the imposition of "Religious laws made for a nomade and credulous society," and goes on to criticize the "Mosaic code." 206.85.204.137 (talk) 16:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

And here's another for the collection of early uses from an article on "Mahometanism" in the January 1855 issue of "The Christian Remembrancer":

"The very notion of a goddess would have shocked them hardly less than it would have shocked a sincere Hebrew. The idea is perhaps essentially anti-Semitic."

Here, the sense seems to be "contrary to the Semitic nature" in the broad ethnographic sense, encompassing both Arabs and Jews. The "them" refers to Arabs. He is discussing what he calls the "Arabian mind."

With reference to your newspaper example, is there any way to look it up online? What is the name of the newspaper? Where exactly did you find it? 206.85.204.137 (talk) 15:26, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

If this question is for me, the newspaper was called "Cambridge Independent Press" and I found it in a collection called "British Library Newspapers" that is available through major libraries. I don't know of a way to access it for free. Zero^talk 03:07, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Excellent. I was able to view it through a free trial. Looks like a fine example. I don't see why it shouldn't be cited. 206.85.204.137 (talk) 15:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

With such a large article I was surprised there were only two paragraphs on "causes". Maybe this section should be expanded. 2604:3D08:137F:6100:7845:A17:B6DA:430 (talk) 14:11, 1 July 2024 (UTC)