Definitions change and words can be reclaimed. If European Jews can claim it despite having no Semitic ancestry and not speaking a Semitic language until after Zionism, why can’t Semitic people who always spoke a Semitic language? Moreso if said Semitic people have been systematically massacred and oppressed by European LARPers who weaponized the term. You are just being antisemitic.
According to your link, Ashkenazi Jews are descended mostly from Europeans on the maternal line but from Near-Eastern, “Semitic” people on the paternal line. The term “Semitic” comes from the biblical Shem, the son of Noah. So if Semitic ancestry were a real thing, then it would refer to the male line, and Ashkenazi Jews would have it.
Past research found that 50 percent to 80 percent of DNA from the Ashkenazi Y chromosome, which is used to trace the male lineage, originated in the Near East, Richards said. […] Richards and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is contained in the cytoplasm of the egg and passed down only from the mother […] All told, more than 80 percent of the maternal lineages of Ashkenazi Jews could be traced to Europe, with only a few lineages originating in the Near East. […] “The simplest explanation was that it was mainly women who converted and they married with men who’d come from the Near East,” Richards told LiveScience.
But of course, Shem wasn’t a real person and there is no such thing as “Semitic” ancestry. The term antisemitic is a fossil left by 19th-century European racial pseudoscience weaponized against Jews living in European countries. There’s no reason to apply it to a different group of people unless you actually believe that certain races were descended from the biblical Shem.
The same is true of the Semitic language family. The Afro-Asiatic language family used to be called “Hamito-Semitic” from the belief that Africans descended from the biblical Ham and Asians from Shem. Linguists have updated that name, but for now no term has dislodged “Semitic” as the name of a language family.
If you want to claim that the term “antisemitic” refers to the Semitic language family, then it’s a prejudice that doesn’t exist. There’s no one on Earth who hates Arabs and Jews because they speak Semitic languages but is fine with Iranians and Turks. Hatred of both Arabs and Jews is almost always based on race, religion, and politics, not technical classifications of language families. Yes, Elon Musk called Arabic “the language of the enemy,” but there’s no doubt that he’d say the same thing about Farsi, or any other language spoken by non-white Muslims.
And finally, while Jews in the diaspora stopped speaking Hebrew and Aramaic as vernacular languages, they have always prayed in Hebrew and taken Hebrew religious names. European Jewish vernacular languages like Yiddish and Ladino carry Hebrew and Aramaic influences. And of course, many Jews historically spoke Judeo-Arabic, which is obviously a Semitic language.
Zionists and Elon Musk are racist, Islamophobic imperialists. There are plenty of terms to criticize them that aren’t confusing and pseudoscientific.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions that originated among Semitic people. Hatred of the practitioners of any can be considered antisemitism.
However you want to define it, it is not exclusive to the practitioners of Judaism. The original definition that limited it to hatred of Jews is wrong and misleading.
The original Jews of ancient Palestine, the Akkadians, the Arameans, and the modern Arabs as well as some Ethiopians, to list a few, do in fact share an ancestry. More than ancestry they also share cultural continuity. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry parallels Akkadian and Babylonian hymns, specially how the role of women nd the words used echoes how Ishtar was portrayed in the hymns. Fun fact the Ethiopian script originated in the Arabian Peninsula and was used to write Arabic and other languages in the past, but I digress.
Even if Shem isn’t a real person. While languages moves faster than genetics, and language shifts and assimilations happened. Semitic people can be traced back to the original people who spoke Proto-Semitic. In fact Arabic preserves some features of Proto-Semitic that are lost in Hebrew.
There’s no one on Earth who hates Arabs and Jews because they speak Semitic languages
This is false. Arabs are hated for being Arab regardless of their religion or skin colour.
The term “Semitic” comes from the biblical Shem, the son of Noah. So if Semitic ancestry were a real thing, then it would refer to the male line, and Ashkenazi Jews would have it.
Judaism is passed maternally. Jews aren’t the only ones who believe in the story of Shem or trace themselves back to him. In fact both people trace themselves to a far more recent patriarch, Abraham.
Ashkenazi Jews aren’t the only people in Europe with Levantine ancestry. If you are going to claim that some Levantine ancestry 2000-3000 years ago means you are a Jew, then there’s a whole lot more Jews than just those who practice Judaism. Including everyone in Palestine more or less.
The term antisemitic is a fossil left by 19th-century European racial pseudoscience weaponized against Jews living in European countries.
Because some European did something bad, Arabs have to suffer. This does repeat itself.
Err… has LARPer been reclaimed too? Must be, because I have no idea what you are talking about (which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since you make up your own definitions instead of bothering with actually making yourself clear).
Anyway, until “antisemitism” is actually reclaimed (and you’ll notice because dictionaries will start listing two meanings for it), it means one precise thing and, shall you want to use the term with a different meaning, you should at the very least note that for your readers. That’s language 101: words have a conventional meaning, thanks to which we can (hope to) understand each other.
I don’t even know why I’m still arguing with you… there are lots of people (mostly in the far-right) that, exactly like you are doing here, are adamant in thinking they are the depositaries of absolute truth despite any and all evidence, and arguing with them brings zero benefit to society.
Since I’ve written this, I guess I’ll post it (before blocking your account).
All correct, but “antisemtism” is still a word that means “hatred towards the Jews” :)
You don’t have to take my word for it… see for example [1] or [2].
That’s how the Jews have labelled it. Don’t fall for the that trap.
Definitions change and words can be reclaimed. If European Jews can claim it despite having no Semitic ancestry and not speaking a Semitic language until after Zionism, why can’t Semitic people who always spoke a Semitic language? Moreso if said Semitic people have been systematically massacred and oppressed by European LARPers who weaponized the term. You are just being antisemitic.
According to your link, Ashkenazi Jews are descended mostly from Europeans on the maternal line but from Near-Eastern, “Semitic” people on the paternal line. The term “Semitic” comes from the biblical Shem, the son of Noah. So if Semitic ancestry were a real thing, then it would refer to the male line, and Ashkenazi Jews would have it.
But of course, Shem wasn’t a real person and there is no such thing as “Semitic” ancestry. The term antisemitic is a fossil left by 19th-century European racial pseudoscience weaponized against Jews living in European countries. There’s no reason to apply it to a different group of people unless you actually believe that certain races were descended from the biblical Shem.
The same is true of the Semitic language family. The Afro-Asiatic language family used to be called “Hamito-Semitic” from the belief that Africans descended from the biblical Ham and Asians from Shem. Linguists have updated that name, but for now no term has dislodged “Semitic” as the name of a language family.
If you want to claim that the term “antisemitic” refers to the Semitic language family, then it’s a prejudice that doesn’t exist. There’s no one on Earth who hates Arabs and Jews because they speak Semitic languages but is fine with Iranians and Turks. Hatred of both Arabs and Jews is almost always based on race, religion, and politics, not technical classifications of language families. Yes, Elon Musk called Arabic “the language of the enemy,” but there’s no doubt that he’d say the same thing about Farsi, or any other language spoken by non-white Muslims.
And finally, while Jews in the diaspora stopped speaking Hebrew and Aramaic as vernacular languages, they have always prayed in Hebrew and taken Hebrew religious names. European Jewish vernacular languages like Yiddish and Ladino carry Hebrew and Aramaic influences. And of course, many Jews historically spoke Judeo-Arabic, which is obviously a Semitic language.
Zionists and Elon Musk are racist, Islamophobic imperialists. There are plenty of terms to criticize them that aren’t confusing and pseudoscientific.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions that originated among Semitic people. Hatred of the practitioners of any can be considered antisemitism.
However you want to define it, it is not exclusive to the practitioners of Judaism. The original definition that limited it to hatred of Jews is wrong and misleading.
The original Jews of ancient Palestine, the Akkadians, the Arameans, and the modern Arabs as well as some Ethiopians, to list a few, do in fact share an ancestry. More than ancestry they also share cultural continuity. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry parallels Akkadian and Babylonian hymns, specially how the role of women nd the words used echoes how Ishtar was portrayed in the hymns. Fun fact the Ethiopian script originated in the Arabian Peninsula and was used to write Arabic and other languages in the past, but I digress.
Even if Shem isn’t a real person. While languages moves faster than genetics, and language shifts and assimilations happened. Semitic people can be traced back to the original people who spoke Proto-Semitic. In fact Arabic preserves some features of Proto-Semitic that are lost in Hebrew.
This is false. Arabs are hated for being Arab regardless of their religion or skin colour.
Judaism is passed maternally. Jews aren’t the only ones who believe in the story of Shem or trace themselves back to him. In fact both people trace themselves to a far more recent patriarch, Abraham.
Ashkenazi Jews aren’t the only people in Europe with Levantine ancestry. If you are going to claim that some Levantine ancestry 2000-3000 years ago means you are a Jew, then there’s a whole lot more Jews than just those who practice Judaism. Including everyone in Palestine more or less.
Because some European did something bad, Arabs have to suffer. This does repeat itself.
Err… has LARPer been reclaimed too? Must be, because I have no idea what you are talking about (which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since you make up your own definitions instead of bothering with actually making yourself clear).
Anyway, until “antisemitism” is actually reclaimed (and you’ll notice because dictionaries will start listing two meanings for it), it means one precise thing and, shall you want to use the term with a different meaning, you should at the very least note that for your readers. That’s language 101: words have a conventional meaning, thanks to which we can (hope to) understand each other.
I don’t even know why I’m still arguing with you… there are lots of people (mostly in the far-right) that, exactly like you are doing here, are adamant in thinking they are the depositaries of absolute truth despite any and all evidence, and arguing with them brings zero benefit to society.
Since I’ve written this, I guess I’ll post it (before blocking your account).