Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 16, 2021

A thank you to Jeff Jacoby for describing the origins of the term antisemitism and how it became anti-Semitism when it entered the English lexicon, creating the implication that Semite denotes a race rather than a linguistic family which, interestingly, includes Hebrew and Arabic (Canceling anti-Semitism, Ideas, May 9) No Jew would think to call himself or herself a Semite. (With a Jewish father and Swedish-American mother, would that make me a semi-Semite?)

The Associated Presss decision to change the phrase to antisemite and antisemitism in its Stylebook is welcome, but the change in hyphenation and capitalization, for most people, is an academic point. Jacoby himself calls it a tiny thing. But why continue at all to give Jew-haters a name that has, as its originator intended, a ring of sophistication? Maybe its time to dispense with the archaic, inaccurate, and confusing terminology entirely, and call it what it is: Anti-Jewish instead of antisemitic, and Judeophobe/Judeophobia instead of antisemite/antisemitism?

Continued here:

Dont just tweak antisemitic in style guides call it what it is: anti-Jewish - The Boston Globe

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