I see people thinking that semite=Jew, but bear in mind that “semite” was a term created in 1781 by german philologist Ludwig Schlotzer to describe languages that are similar (Arabic, hebrew, Aramaic, etc).

Many other languages are considered semite, and Hebrew was not even the first of them.

If you check in Wikipedia, you can also see how this people migrated over time:

  • SweetLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    I don’t think I can cosign a message like this. When talking about semetic, people aren’t talking about the language families. They are talking about instead a concept of Jewish people belonging to a Semitic race, race in reference to a racial “science” category. Antisemitism is explicitly anti-Jewish and Islamophobia is inciting hatred against Muslims. I don’t think Jewish people are laying claim to the entire Semetic language family and excluding ones like Arabic, nor do I see any new definition of antisemitism now referring to non-Jews.

    This just leads to an ineffective argument that crumbles under pressure. I wouldn’t bother using this concept unless some day all people speaking Semitic languages are lumped together and oppressed by that category. and besides, anti-black and Islamophobic sentiment already does enough lifting to attack both Jews and non-Jews who speak Semitic languages on top of the already-existing antisemitism that was prominent 19th and 20th century.

    • GlueBear [they/them] @lemmygrad.ml
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      5 months ago

      anti-black and Islamophobic sentiment already does enough lifting to attack both Jews and non-Jews who speak Semitic languages

      How? Anti-black and islamophobia are so different from anti-Semititism. I’d like to know how those two things also affect other demographics beyond their main targets (those being B-POC and Muslims)