What does the word 'Antisemitic' REALLY mean?

Question

Then why do people automatically think it is against Israel? Jews are a religion and Israel is a COUNTRY.

Answer 1

Racist against the ethnic/racial group known as Semites, which includes Jews, Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.

Answer 2

It was invented as a synonym to hatred of Jews in the mid-19th century, in order to make it sound more rational and scientific. It has never had any other meaning.

There is no ethnic group called "Semites". The term is borrowed from a then newly invented linguistic term, Semitic languages, which includes both Hebrew and Arabic, but the term antisemitic has of course nothing to do (and has never had) with hatred of Semitic languages (or "Semitic peoples", which don't even exist as an ethnic entity) but only with hating Jews. Antisemitism has existed long before this term was invented by a Jew-hater.

By the way, many Jews of course don't even speak any Semitic language at all, nor have significant "Semitic" cultural traits or look "Semitic". Still they were hated by the antisemites (and are still today).

Edit: I don't know how prieto1117 is reading his books, but Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary actually writes "Hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group".

Answer 3

It means someone who is against Jews living in his/her country, because Jews are Semitic and he/she is not. It has nothing to do with people who are against Israel or some aspects of its policies.

Answer 4

The definition below is of semitic. Anti-semetic would mean against the following;

Main Entry: 1Se·mit·ic
Pronunciation: \sə-ˈmi-tik also -ˈme-\
Function: adjective
Etymology: German semitisch, from Semit, Semite Semite, probably from New Latin Semita, from Late Latin Sem Shem
Date: 1813
1 : of, relating to, or constituting a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic language family that includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Amharic
2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of the Semites
3 : jewish

I have never known that it also covered Aramaic, Arabic & Amharic. I have always just believed the word to be against Jews and Jews alone.

This is a dictionary definition not my own.

Answer 5

According to Donnie Dunce (msp) of the Big idea, Savage and Allen Combs it's Ann Coulter. The it could be the West Bank and Gaza Arabs that were burning American flags, cheering and shooting fireworks after 9/11.

Then again it could be that people are worried that hillary could be elected and then would she be preoccupied with the sexual lawsuits against her husband, if any. I think it is people being scared of the Jewish folks, I guess. Take care.

Answer 6

Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g., gas chambers), or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Answer 7

Practically- it means having a bias against Jews.

However- few Jews these days have direct semetic roots, and it typically doesn't refer to hatred against other semetic peoples. So- the common use of the term is a bit different than what it says literally.

Answer 8

Technically, Semite means those of us who are of Semitic IE; middle eastern descent.

However, in modern lexicon, it has come to refer to all Jewish people regardless of ancestry.

Which is appropriate. "Anti-Semitic' actions and words do not hurt me ('Semitic' by ancestry) any more than they hurt a Jew of Polish, Spanish or German descent. Actions and words said to be 'anti-semitic' are directed against all Jews.
You are trying to argue semantics.
The fact is that word usage and application is always evolving, whereas hate is pretty constant. So when someone is hurt for no other reason than that they are Jewish, does it really matter where their genetic code originated?i think not.

Answer 9

A semite is:

Main Entry: Sem·ite
Pronunciation: \ˈse-ˌmīt, especially British ˈsē-ˌmīt\
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Sem Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek Sēm, from Hebrew Shēm
Date: 1848

1 a: a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs

b: a descendant of these peoples

2: a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language

So semites are Jews and Arabs.

Pastor Art

Answer 10

Just as homophobic refers to those who are prejudiced against, rather than afraid of, homosexuals, antisemitic refers to those who are prejudiced against Jews, rather than all Semitic peoples. The meaning comes from the common usage, rather than a strict definition.