Термин семитски у расном смислу сковали су чланови Гетингенске школе историје током раних 1770-их. Други чланови Гетингенске школе историје сковали су посебан термин белац током 1780-их. Ове термине су користили и развили бројни други научници током следећег века. Почетком 20. века, псеудонаучне класификације Карлетона С. Куна укључиле су семитске народе у кавкаску расу, као сличне по изгледу индоевропским, северозападнокавказским и народима који говоре картвелски.[10] Због преплитања проучавања језика и културологије, термин је почео да се примењује и на религије (старосемитске и абрахамске) и етничке групе различитих култура које су повезане географском и лингвистичком дистрибуцијом.[11]
Изрази „антисемита“ или „антисемитизам“ дошли су заобилазним путем да се уже односе на свакога ко је био непријатељски или дискриминаторски настројен према Јеврејима посебно.[12]
Антрополози 19. века, као што је Ернест Ренан, лако су ускладили лингвистичке групе са етничком припадношћу и културом, позивајући се на анегдоте, науку и фолклор у својим настојањима да дефинишу расни карактер. Мориц Штајншнајдер, у свом часопису о јеврејским писмима Хамаскир (3 (Берлин 1860), 16), разматра чланак Хајмана Штајнтала[13] који критикује Ренанов чланак „Нова разматрања општег карактера семитских народа, посебно њихове склоности ка монотеизму”.[14] Ренан је признао важност древних цивилизација Месопотамије, Израела итд, али је семитске расе назвао инфериорним у односу на аријевске због њиховог монотеизма, за који је сматрао да произлази из њихових наводних пожудних, насилних, бескрупулозних и себичних расних инстинкта. Штајнтал је ове предиспозиције сажео као „семитизам“, те је Штајншнајдер окарактерисао Ренанове идеје као „антисемитске предрасуде“.[15]
Године 1879, немачки новинар Вилхелм Мар започео је политизацију појма говорећи о борби између Јевреја и Немаца у памфлету под називом Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum („Пут до победе германизма над јудаизмом“). Оптужио је Јевреје да су либерали, народ без корена који је јудаизирао Немце ван спасења. Године 1879, Марове присталице су основале „Лигу за антисемитизам“,[16] која се у потпуности бавила антијеврејским политичким деловањем.
Замерке на употребу термина, као што је застарела природа термина „семитски“ као расног термина, постављају се најмање од 1930-их.[17][18]
^Liverani1995, стр. 392: "A more critical look at this complex of problems should advise employing today the term and the concept "Semites" exclusively in its linguistic sense, and, on the other hand, tracing back every cultural fact to its concrete historical environment. The use of the term "Semitic" in culture, subject as it is to arbitrary simplifications, shows methodological risks which exceed by far the possibility of positive historical analysis. In any case the Semitic character of every cultural fact is a problem which in each situation must be ascenained in its limits and in its historical setting (both in time and in the social environment), and may not be assumed as obvious or traced back to a presumed "Proto-Semitic" culture, statically conceived."
^Review of "The Canaanites" (1964) by Marvin Pope: "The term "Semitic," coined by Schlozer in 1781, should be strictly limited to linguistic matters since this is the only area in which a degree of objectivity is attainable. The Semitic languages comprise a fairly distinct linguistic family, a fact appreciated long before the relationship of the Indo-European languages was recognized. The ethnography and ethnology of the various peoples who spoke or still speak Semitic languages or dialects is a much more mixed and confused matter and one over which we have little scientific control."
^Anidjar 2008, стр. (Foreword): "This collection of essays explores the now mostly extinct notion of Semites. Invented in the nineteenth century and essential to the making of modern conceptions of religion and race, the strange unity of Jew and Arab under one term, Semite (the opposing term was Aryan), and the circumstances that brought about its disappearance constitute the subject of this volume."
^Anidjar 2008, стр. 6: "To a large extent, or rather, to a quite complete extent, Semites were, like their ever so distant relatives – the Aryans – a concrete figment of the Western imagination, the peculiar imagination that concerns me in the chapters that follow. And just as the witches (the simultaneous efficacy and deep unreliability of "spectral evidence"), Semites were – I write in the past tense because Semites are a thing of the past, ephemeral beings long vanished as such – Semites were, then, something of a hypothesis (Chapter 1), contemporary with, and constitutive of, that other powerfully incarnate fiction named "secularism" (Chapter 2). Again, and as underscored by Edward Said, who raIsed anew the "Semitic question", the role of the imagination can hardly be downplayed."
^ абLewis, Bernard (1987). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN978-0393304206. „The confusion between race and language goes back a long way, and was compounded by the rapidly changing content of the word "race" in European and later in American usage. Serious scholars have pointed out–repeatedly and ineffectually-‑that "Semitic" is a linguistic and cultural classification, denoting certain languages and in some contexts the literatures and civilizations expressed in those languages. As a kind of shorthand, it was sometimes retained to designate the speakers of those languages. At one time it might thus have had a connotation of race, when that word itself was used to designate national and cultural entities. It has nothing whatever to do with race in the anthropological sense that is now common usage. A glance at the present‑day speakers of Arabic, from Khartoum to Aleppo and from Mauritania to Mosul, or even of Hebrew speakers in the modern state of Israel, will suffice to show the enormous diversity of racial types.”
^Baasten, Martin (2003). „A Note on the History of 'Semitic'”. Hamlet on a Hill: Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday. Peeters Publishers. стр. 57—73. ISBN9789042912151.
^The Races of Europe by Carleton Stevens Coon. From Chapter XI: The Mediterranean World – Introduction: "This third racial zone stretches from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence along the southern Mediterranean shores into Arabia, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and the Persian highlands; and across Afghanistan into India."
^Zimmermann, Moshe. Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism. Oxford University Press.. USA, 1987
^Sevenster, Jan Nicolaas (1975). The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World. Brill Archive. стр. 1—2. ISBN978-90-04-04193-6. „It has long been realised that there are objections to the term anti-Semitism and therefore an endeavour has been made to find a word which better interprets the meaning intended. Already in 1936 Bolkestein, for example, wrote an article on Het "antisemietisme" in de oudheid (Anti-Semitism in the ancient world) in which the word was placed between quotation marks and a preference was expressed for the term hatred of the Jews… Nowadays the term anti-Judaism is often preferred. It certainly expresses better than anti-Semitism the fact that it concerns the attitude to the Jews and avoids any suggestion of racial distinction, which was not or hardly, a factor of any significance in ancient times. For this reason Leipoldt preferred to speak of anti-Judaism when writing his Antisemitsmus in der alten Welt (1933). Bonsirven also preferred this word to Anti-Semitism, "mot moderne qui implique une théorie des races".”
^Zimmermann, Moshe (5. 3. 1987). Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism. Oxford University Press, USA. стр. 112. ISBN978-0-19-536495-8. „The term 'anti-Semitism' was unsuitable from the beginning for the real essence of Jew-hatred, which remained anchored, more or less, in the Christian tradition even when it moved via the natural sciences, into racism. It is doubtful whether the term which was first publicized in an institutional context (the Anti-Semitic League) would have appeared at all if the 'Anti-Chancellor League,' which fought Bismarck's policy, had not been in existence since 1875. The founders of the new Organization adopted the elements of 'anti' and 'league,' and searched for the proper term: Marr exchanged the term 'Jew' for 'Semite' which he already favored. It is possible that the shortened form 'Sem' is used with such frequency and ease by Marr (and in his writings) due to its literary advantage and because it reminded Marr of Sem Biedermann, his Jewish employer from the Vienna period.”CS1 одржавање: Формат датума (веза)
Liverani, Mario (јануар 1995). „Semites”. Ур.: Geoffrey W. Bromiley. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. стр. 387—392. ISBN978-0-8028-3784-4.CS1 одржавање: Формат датума (веза)
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