Moritz Steinschneider

Bohemian Jewish scholar who coined the term "antisemitic" in 1860

Moritz Steinschneider
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Born	30 March 1816 Prostejov, Moravia (then Austrian Empire)
Died	24 January 1907 Berlin, German Empire
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Occupation	Scholar, bibliographer, orientalist
Known for	Coining the term "antisemitic" (1860); pioneering Hebrew bibliography; early Zionist activity
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Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816 – 24 January 1907) was a Bohemian-born Jewish scholar, bibliographer, and orientalist, widely regarded as the founder of modern Hebrew bibliography. He is credited with the first published use of the term "antisemitic" (antisemitische Vorurteile) in 1860 while critiquing the racial theories of Ernest Renan. Unlike Renan, Steinschneider explicitly included Ashkenazi (Yiddish-speaking) Jews as direct biological descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews within the Semitic category. He had early proto-Zionist links through the secret student society Die Einheit and later worked on educational projects commissioned by the Sassoon family; his close collaborators were instrumental in founding major Zionist organisations in England.

Early Zionist involvement

In 1838, while a student in Prague, Steinschneider co-founded the secret society Die Einheit with Albert Löwy and Abraham Benisch. The group’s objective was to promote Jewish welfare through the colonisation of Palestine by Austrian Jews. The society was kept secret to avoid government suppression; England was viewed as a natural ally.

Many of his collaborators became central figures in organised Zionism. Löwy and Benisch played leading roles in the foundation of the Anglo-Jewish Association and related Palestine committees. As Sokolow records, these men “raised themselves to the height of a national and Zionist conception” and were active in the Palestine committees of the late 19th century.

Steinschneider himself withdrew completely in 1842, viewing the scheme as impractical compared with his scholarly pursuits. He later developed a strongly negative attitude toward political Zionism.

Sokolow writes:

Many of the most important Jewish scholars arriving in England, and becoming in course of time the pride of English Jewry, were much attracted by the idea that England was the classical soil for a fruitful work in Palestine. It is worth noting that Dr. Albert Lowy belonged also to this group. He was born on the 10th of December, 1816, at Aussig in Moravia. After his barmitzvah (attainment of his religious majority — the age of thirteen) he was sent to a public school at Leipzig. Later he attended the University and Polytechnic at Vienna. There he first met his lifelong friends, Moritz Steinschneider and Abraham Benisch. Lowy and his friends formed "Die Einheit," a society whose object was to promote the welfare of the Jewish people. In order to realize this object the colonization of Palestine by the Austrian Jews was advocated. The first meeting of the new society was held in 1838, in Lowy's room. The object, however, had to be kept secret for fear lest it would be defeated by the Government. England was regarded as the country likely to welcome the new movement, and, as an emissary of the Students' Jewish National Society, Lowy was sent to London in 1841. Years afterwards he took a leading part in London in the foundation of a body with kindred objects, the Anglo- Jewish Association. To the same group of noble-minded men who raised themselves to the height of a national and Zionist conception of a superior kind belonged also the afore-mentioned Abraham Benisch, one of the creators of the Anglo- Jewish Press, the author of the Jewish School and Family Bible (1851), the translator of Petahiah hen Jacob's Travels (1856), and for many years editor of the Jewish Chronicle. If there ever was a Jewish nationalist, this important Anglo-Jewish writer was one beyond a doubt. He was a man of great abilities and learning, and rendered valuable assistance in the propaganda for and in the organization of the societies for the colonization of Palestine. In several leading articles written by him, with great tact and sagacity, he expounded — particularly in connection with the political events of 1856 and of 1861 — the root principles of political Zionism.

M. Charles Netter, Dr. Abraham Benisch, Dr. Albert Lowy and Mr. Baron Louis Benas, j.p. (M. Netter, one of the founders of the Alliance, Dr. Benisch, Dr. Lowy and Mr. Benas, associated with the establishment of the Anglo-Jewish Association) were all men of Jewish Nationalist sympathies. M. Netter is permanently identified with the foundation of the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School near Jaffa, the foster-mother of the Jewish Colonies of Palestine. Dr. Benisch, to whom the suggestion of an Anglo- Jewish Association on the lines of the Alliance Israelite was made by Mr. Benas, who had established in Liverpool the first branch of the Alliance in England in 1867, enthusiastically took up the idea and became the organizer of the English institution founded three years later. The formation of the first English branch of the Alliance at Liverpool called forth in 1868 at the end of its first year's work the highest appreciation of M. Cremieux. Dr. Benisch had in his student days inaugurated with Dr. Lowy and Professor Steinschneider a Zionistic movement, and in the foundation of the Anglo- Jewish Association the two former saw the possibilities of the realization of many of the hopes and aspirations of their youth. Mr. Benas, Dr. Benisch and Dr. Lowy were active propagandists on behalf of the Association. Mr. Benas and Dr. Lowy were members of the International Palestine Committee which was formed in 1878 on the recommendation of the Palestine Section of the International Jewish Conference held that year in Paris, and of which section Mr. Benas was one of the two English representatives, the other being the Rev. S. Jacobs. The Palestine Section undertook to institute an examination of the general condition of the Jews in the East and especially of the Jews in Palestine with a view of effecting such improvements as might be needful, that country being known to several members who had visited it at various times. This section had the advantage of being attended by delegates from both Europe and America. This section of the Conference resolved " That the Alliance be requested to bring about the formation of a special commission on Palestine. This Committee is to be composed of persons of every country who take an interest in the welfare of brother Israelites and in the prosperity of the Holy Land." On its formation, the Committee was entrusted with the establishment of new schools and particularly the control of the Institution Mikveh Israel. The report significantly added, " in entrusting the control of this Agricultural School to the Committee, with the view of further aiding in the development of that Institution, the Alliance would obtain a solid basis for its civilizing action " In 1885 Mr. Benas and the late Chief Rabbi, Dr. Hermann Adler, visited Palestine together. En route they had an interview with Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Paris, at whose request materials were collected for a report of the condition of Jewry in the Ancient Jewish Homeland. The late Chief Rabbi gave an oral account of the educational institutions in Palestine to the Executive Committee of the Association. Mr. Benas' " Report of his Travels in the East " was published as an Appendix to the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Association. The Report, which drew from the historian Graetz a most appreciative letter to the author, disclosing Graetz' strong Zionistic sympathies, is not only valuable as one of the few historical documents in EngUsh giving a contemporary account of the early renascence of Jewish life in Palestine by a Jewish writer, but because of its accurate forecasting of the conditions of future development, the revival of Hebrew as a living language being particularly noted.

Relationship with early Zionism and later disengagement

As a young man in Prague, Steinschneider was actively involved in a proto-Zionist student society called Die Einheit ("The Unity"), which he co-founded in 1838 with Abraham Benisch and Albert Löwy. The group advocated Jewish settlement in Palestine as a means of promoting Jewish welfare and national regeneration. The scheme was kept secret to avoid government suppression, with England regarded as a potential ally.

Steinschneider withdrew completely from Die Einheit in 1842. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, he did so "seeing the impracticability of the scheme." The Encyclopedia.com entry similarly notes that he "withdrew from the group in the early 1840s and later assumed a very negative attitude toward political Zionism."

Steinschneider’s disengagement was driven by his deepening commitment to the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism). He believed Jewish scholarship should be pursued with complete academic objectivity and impartiality, free from religious, theological, or political agendas. He refused calls to teach at Jewish theological seminaries in Berlin (1872) and Budapest (1876), insisting that the proper institutions for Jewish science were secular universities, not rabbinical schools that might introduce theological bias.

Steinschneider viewed early Zionist restoration schemes as romantic and impractical, especially when they risked mingling scholarship with nationalist or religious enthusiasm. In 1845 he left a teaching position in Prague partly because of the rising Orthodox tendencies of its leadership, which he saw as incompatible with critical, objective research.

There is no evidence in Steinschneider’s writings that he continued to regard a Jewish state or large-scale settlement in Palestine as desirable, even if unattainable. His later attitude toward political Zionism is consistently described by scholars as strongly negative. He never publicly discussed later proto-Zionist figures such as Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Yehuda Alkalai, or Theodor Herzl, nor did he engage with the practical Zionist movement of the late 19th century. His focus remained strictly scholarly; he spoke Yiddish natively but dismissed it contemptuously as “zhargon” (jargon), reflecting his broader preference for rigorous, Europeanised academic standards over any form of Jewish particularism or nationalism.

Scholars analysing this shift emphasise that Steinschneider’s withdrawal was not a temporary pause but a permanent ideological reorientation: from youthful nationalist enthusiasm to a lifelong dedication to detached, scientific Jewish studies. As the Jewish Encyclopedia notes, once he perceived the scheme’s impracticability, he “withdrew from it completely,” and never returned to political activism.

Work for the Sassoon family

Steinschneider was commissioned by the Sassoon family to write several educational books for Jews in English. This work formed part of the Sassoons’ broader philanthropic and cultural efforts within the Jewish community.

What ever his private convictions, Sassoon must have been well aware that the appearance of loyalty and patriotism paid dividends. During the boom that accompanied the American Civil War, the Bartle Frere administration pushed merchants to fund civic proj ects. En glish and vernacular schools sprung up across the Bombay Presidency, including the Benevolent Institution, sponsored by David Sassoon to serve the Jews of Bombay. The school provided education in both Hebrew and English, employing the latest scientific approach and Western priorities: without vernacular instruction, the children of poor migrants would be “half educated or even quite ignorant” and hence unemployable. Sassoon commissioned Moritz Steinschneider to produce several lavishly illustrated textbooks for the school. Although Sassoon chose a noted German scholar for the task, the books were unabashedly En glish in tone and object, containing the national anthem, prayers for the government and Queen Victoria, and the Decalogue and Shema in English translation. This emphasis on modern pedagogy squared with Victorian notions of scientific charity: Sassoon also sponsored a bevy of institutions dedicated to self- improvement.

Coining of "antisemitic" (1860)

In 1860 Steinschneider first used the term "antisemitic" while attacking Renan’s claims of inherent Semitic racial inferiority. He wrote of Renan’s arguments as “antisemitische Vorurteile” (anti-Semitic prejudices). Steinschneider accepted Renan’s racial-linguistic frame—Semites included ancient Hebrews (but Steinschneider also added Ashkenazim as direct biological descendants of ancient Palestinian Hebrews) as well as Arabs—but rejected only the hierarchy of inferiority.

Views on Ashkenazim

Steinschneider treated Ashkenazi Jews as biological descendants of ancient Palestinian Hebrews/Semites. Renan argued, however, that the Ashkanazim had lost much of their original "Semitic character" through centuries of assimilation into European civilisation. The full passage reads: "[T]he primordial influence of race, as immense a part that it plays in the dynamics of human affairs, is offset by a crowd of other influences, which sometimes seem to overcome or even smother [étouffer] entirely that of blood. How many Israelites today, who are descended directly from the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, have nothing of the Semitic character, and are only modern men, swept along and assimilated by this great force superior to race that we call civilisation!"

Steinschneider spoke Yiddish natively but held it in contempt, describing it as “zhargon” (jargon).