Campaign Against Antisemitism applauds Associated Press Stylebook’s (AP Stylebook) announcement that the organisation will now use the spelling ‘antisemitism’ instead of ‘anti-Semitism’.
In addition to this, they will also write ‘antisemitic’ rather than ‘anti-Semitic’.
Experts have long opposed the use of ‘anti-Semitism’, on the basis that there is no such thing as ‘Semitism’ that antisemites are opposed to; the term ‘antisemitism’ was in fact coined by an antisemite as a supposedly sophisticated alternative to ‘judenhass’, meaning ‘Jew hatred’.
The hyphenation of the term ‘anti-Semitism’ has also confused people into thinking that it might refer to hatred of all people who speak a group of Middle Eastern languages which are sometimes referred to as Semitic languages. Furthermore, the Nazi Party would use the term in reference to their ‘subcategories’ of humans.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance writes that the term ‘anti-Semitism’ is problematic because it “not only legitimises a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification that was thoroughly discredited by association with Nazi ideology, but also divides the term, stripping it from its meaning of opposition and hatred toward Jews.”
One Twitter user embraced AP Stylebook’s decision, writing: “Glad to see you catching up!”
Another wrote: “This is a welcome change. Small, but with significant implications. It’s a style preferred by the world’s leading scholars of Jew-hatred.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism endorses the use of the preferred terms ‘antisemitism’ and ‘antisemitic’ when referring to Jew-hate.
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