Semitic people

Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] formerly used in connection with ancient and modern peoples of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, including Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Arabs, Ammonites, Arameans, Canaanites, Edomites, Habesha peoples, Israelites, Jews, Judahites, Moabites, Phoenicians, Samaritans, and others. Use of the terminology is now largely confined to the field of linguistics in reference to "Semitic languages".^[6]^[7]^[8] However, the term is sometimes still used colloquially as a shorthand for Semitic-speaking peoples.^[8]

Coined in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem (שֵׁם), one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis,^[9] and roughly corresponded to the Hebrews and related groups.^[8] In this worldview, the other two sons of Noah corresponded to the remaining races; Hamites referred to dark-skinned African peoples, and Japhetites referred to the Medes, Persians, Greeks, and other peoples who were later called Aryans.^[8]

Ethnicity and race

Categorization of racial groups by reference to skin color was common in classical antiquity.^[10] For example, it is found in e.g. Physiognomica, a Greek treatise dated to c. 300 BC.

The transmission of the "color terminology" for race from antiquity to early anthropology in 17th century Europe took place via rabbinical literature, where the term "Semite" in a racial sense was coined. Specifically, Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer (a medieval rabbinical text dated roughly to between the 7th to 12th centuries) contains the division of mankind into three groups based on the three sons of Noah, viz. Shem, Ham and Japheth:

"[Noah] especially blessed Shem and his sons, (making them) black but comely [שחורים ונאים],^[a] and he gave them the habitable earth. He blessed Ham and his sons, (making them) black like the raven [שחורים כעורב],^[b] and he gave them as an inheritance the coast of the sea. He blessed Japheth and his sons, (making) them entirely white [כלם לבני],^[c] and he gave them for an inheritance the desert and its fields."^[11]

Jews were identified as a belonging to a subrace of the Semite greater race in this division of mankind. In Rabbi Eliezer and other rabbinical texts was it then received by Georgius Hornius (1666). In Hornius' scheme, Semites are "brownish-yellow" (flavos), and almost all Jews being neither black nor white but "light brown" (buxus, the color of boxwood), following Mishnah Sanhedrin, they accordingly are classified as Semites.^[12]

The term "Semitic" in a racial sense was coined by members of the Göttingen school of history in the early 1770s. Other members of the Göttingen school of history coined the separate term Caucasian in the 1780s. These terms were used and developed by numerous other scholars over the next century. In the early 20th century, the pseudo-scientific classifications of Carleton S. Coon included the Semitic peoples in the Caucasian race, as similar in appearance to the Indo-European, Northwest Caucasian, and Kartvelian-speaking peoples.^[13] Due to the interweaving of language studies and cultural studies, the term also came to be applied to the religions (ancient Semitic and Abrahamic) and ethnicities of various cultures associated by geographic and linguistic distribution.^[14]

Antisemitism

German historian Christoph Meiners, supporter of the polygenist theory of human origins, became a favorite intellectual ancestor of the Nazis. In his "binary [greater] racial scheme" of superior Caucasians and inferior Mongoloids, Meiners did not include Jews as Caucasians and ascribed to them a "permanently degenerate nature".^[15] Other members of the Göttingen school of history would make the addition of Negroids.^[16]

Meiners resented the French Revolution for leading to French Jewish emancipation and threatening the Germans' supposed rightful place in a racial hierarchy in which they were assessed as superior in all domains. According to Meiners, Germans had inherited higher purity of blood from their ancestors, yet they were already degenerating through indulgence in civilization's luxuries. Using a "bundle of notions" led to creations of purported sub-races on a continental and state basis with implied decreased respective scientific weight.^[17] In 1772 he became extraordinary professor, and in 1775 full professor, of Weltweisheit, also at the University of Göttingen, when over the course of tenures he had the opportunity to join the Göttingen school of history.

The terms "anti-Semite" or "antisemitism" came by a circuitous route to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory towards Jews in particular.^[18]

Anthropologists of the 19th century such as Ernest Renan readily aligned linguistic groupings with ethnicity and culture, appealing to anecdote, science and folklore in their efforts to define racial character. Moritz Steinschneider, in his periodical of Jewish letters Hamaskir (3 (Berlin 1860), 16), discusses an article by Heymann Steinthal^[19] criticising Renan's article "New Considerations on the General Character of the Semitic Peoples, In Particular Their Tendency to Monotheism".^[20] Renan had acknowledged the importance of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Israel etc. but called the Semitic races inferior to the Aryan for their monotheism, which he held to arise from their supposed lustful, violent, unscrupulous and selfish racial instincts. Steinthal summed up these predispositions as "Semitism", and so Steinschneider characterised Renan's ideas as "anti-Semitic prejudice".^[21]

In 1879, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr began the politicisation of the term by speaking of a struggle between Jews and Germans in a pamphlet called Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum ("The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism"). He accused the Jews of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879, Marr's adherents founded the "League for Anti-Semitism",^[22] which concerned itself entirely with anti-Jewish political action.

Characterizations of "Semite" as having little to no value on the socially constructed racial spectrum^[23]^[24]^[25] combined with its overuse due to popularization stemming from pro-Caucasian racism, as identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe at least during the late 19th century—for example, Karl Lueger, the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna, skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage—^[26]^{[page needed]}thereby diluting anti-Judaism, have been made since at least the 1930s.^[27]^[28]

References

[1]
Einleitung in die synchronistische universalhistorie, Gatterer, 1771. Described first ethnic use of the term Semitic by: (1) A note on the history of 'Semitic', 2003, by Martin Baasten; and (2) Taal-, land- en volkenkunde in de achttiende eeuw, 1994, by Han Vermeulen (in Dutch).
[2]
Liverani1995, p. 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."
[3]
On the use of the terms “(anti-)Semitic” and “(anti-) Zionist” in modern Middle Eastern discourse, Orientalia Suecana LXI Suppl. (2012) by Lutz Eberhard Edzard: "In linguistics context, the term "Semitic" is generally speaking non-controversial... As an ethnic term, "Semitic" should best be avoided these days, in spite of ongoing genetic research (which also is supported by the Israeli scholarly community itself) that tries to scientifically underpin such a concept."
[4]
Review of "The Canaanites" (1964) by Marvin H. 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."
[5]
Glöckner, Olaf; Fireberg, Haim (25 September 2015). Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany. De Gruyter. p. 200. ISBN 978-3-11-035015-9. ...there is no Semitic ethnicity, only Semitic languages
[6]
Anidjar 2008, p. (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."
[7]
Anidjar 2008, p. 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."
[8]
Lewis, Bernard (1987). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN 978-0393304206. 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.
[9]
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. pp. 57–73. ISBN 9789042912151.
[10]
"Among the Greeks and Romans who have provided the fullest description of blacks, the Africans' color was regarded as their most characteristic and most unusual feature. In this respect the ancients were not unlike whites of later generations who used color terms as a kind of shorthand to denote Africans and those of African descent." Frank M. Snowden Jr., Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 7.
[11]
Friedlander, Gerald (1916). Pirkê de Rabbi Eliezer : (the chapters of Rabbi Eliezer the Great) according to the text of the manuscript belonging to Abraham Epstein of Vienna. Translated by Friedlander, Gerald. Robarts - University of Toronto. London : Paul. p. 172.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
[12]
Arca Noae, sive historia imperiorum et regnorum ̀condito orbe ad nostra tempora. Officina Hackiana, Leiden 1666, p. 37. Alias pro colorum diversitate commode quoque distinxeris posteros Noachi in albos, qui sunt Scythae & Japhetaei, nigros, qui sunt Aethiopes & Chamae, flavos, qui sunt Indi & Semaei. Ita Iudaei in Glossea Misnae tractatu Sanhedrin. fol. 18. dicuntur ut buxus, nec nigri nec albi, quales fere sunt omnes a Semo orti.
[13]
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."
[14]
"Semite". Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
[15]
Eigen, Sara. The German Invention of Race. Suny Press:New York, 2006. ISBN 0-7914-6677-9 p.205
[16]
Pickering, Robert (2009). The Use of Forensic Anthropology. CRC Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-4200-6877-1.
[17]
Painter, Nell (2010). The History of White People. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-393-04934-3.
[18]
"Anti-Semitism". Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. 24 September 2025.
[19]
Reprinted G. Karpeles (ed.), Steinthal H., Ueber Juden und Judentum, Berlin 1918, pp. 91 ff.
[20]
Published in the Journal Asiatique, 1859
[21]
Alex Bein, The Jewish Question: Biography of a World Problem, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990, p. 594, ISBN 0-8386-3252-1 – quoting the Hebrew Encyclopaedia Ozar Ysrael, (edited Jehuda Eisenstadt, London 1924, 2: 130ff)
[22]
Moshe Zimmermann, Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism, Oxford University Press, USA, 1987
[23]
Using Population Descriptors in Genetics and Genomics Research: A New Framework for an Evolving Field (Consensus Study Report). National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. doi:10.17226/26902. ISBN 978-0-309-70065-8. PMID 36989389. In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as the major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups.
[24]
Amutah, C.; Greenidge, K.; Mante, A.; Munyikwa, M.; Surya, S. L.; Higginbotham, E.; Jones, D. S.; Lavizzo-Mourey, R.; Roberts, D.; Tsai, J.; Aysola, J. (March 2021). Malina, D. (ed.). "Misrepresenting Race — The Role of Medical Schools in Propagating Physician Bias". The New England Journal of Medicine. 384 (9). Massachusetts Medical Society: 872–878. doi:10.1056/NEJMms2025768. ISSN 1533-4406. PMID 33406326. S2CID 230820421.
[25]
Gannon, Megan (5 February 2016). "Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue". Scientific American. ISSN 0036-8733. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
[26]
Geehr, Richard S. (1989). Karl Lueger, Mayor of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-2055-4.
[27]
Sevenster, Jan Nicolaas (1975). The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World. Brill Archive. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-90-04-04193-6. 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".
[28]
Zimmermann, Moshe (5 March 1987). Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-19-536495-8. 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.

Ethnicity and race

Antisemitism

See also

References

Bibliography

External links

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