Depending on which dictionary one uses, semite refers to either any descendant of the peoples of east-africa/middle east (ie, arabs, jews, etc..) or Jews specifically or, for some - both.
Re-defining a word simply because that's what people say it means sort of bugs me, and YES I include the word 'homo-phobe' as an annoying example of words that are taken to mean one thing when they actually mean another.
Etymologically, the word has a specific meaning that refers to all the middle-eastern peoples. Common usage has it as being ye jew. I'll accept that from outside the jewish community, but I feel (as someone who was raised in the jewish community, and still considers himself culturally jewish)that jews on the whole should be more precise in their own racial definitions. We, as jews, are semites. Arabs are semites. Using the term anti-semite to refer simply to jews seems..frankly..exclusionary and, weirdly, racist. It's as if we're claiming the whole darned geno-type to ourselves.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: "anti-semitism"
Date: 2003-04-03 02:44 pm (UTC)Depending on which dictionary one uses, semite refers to either any descendant of the peoples of east-africa/middle east (ie, arabs, jews, etc..) or Jews specifically or, for some - both.
Re-defining a word simply because that's what people say it means sort of bugs me, and YES I include the word 'homo-phobe' as an annoying example of words that are taken to mean one thing when they actually mean another.
Etymologically, the word has a specific meaning that refers to all the middle-eastern peoples. Common usage has it as being ye jew. I'll accept that from outside the jewish community, but I feel (as someone who was raised in the jewish community, and still considers himself culturally jewish)that jews on the whole should be more precise in their own racial definitions. We, as jews, are semites. Arabs are semites. Using the term anti-semite to refer simply to jews seems..frankly..exclusionary and, weirdly, racist. It's as if we're claiming the whole darned geno-type to ourselves.