Toward a History of the Term “Anti-Semitism” by David Feldman
2018 scholarly article by David Feldman tracing the changing meanings of the term "anti-Semitism"
Toward a History of the Term “Anti-Semitism” is a 2018 peer-reviewed article by British historian David Feldman published in the American Historical Review. It argues that the term "anti-Semitism" is a historically contingent concept whose meanings have shifted in response to political debates over Jewish rights, rather than denoting a timeless or continuous phenomenon of Jew-hatred.
The article contrasts "eternalist" historiography, which assumes structural or ideological continuity of anti-Semitism across centuries and continents, with contextual approaches. Feldman calls for a history of the concept itself, noting that "the category of anti-Semitism was first constructed in the late nineteenth century" and that "we stand in need of a history of the concept of anti-Semitism".[1]
Historical emergence of the term
Feldman states that the terms Antisemiten and Antisemitismus "were promoted in Germany in the years after 1879" by "journalists, academics, clerics, and politicians". They "argued that civil and political equality for Jews—decisively achieved only in 1871—had been a grave error and that the state should take action to protect Germans and Germanism from Jews and Jewish influence". The terms "were taken up rapidly, not only by the self-acknowledged advocates of anti-Semitism, but also by Jews, by their allies, and by commentators, and they were soon transplanted from German into other languages".[1]
This marked the political construction of the term as opposition to Jewish emancipation. Feldman references the role of figures such as Wilhelm Marr, described elsewhere as "the Patriarch of Anti-Semitism", whose 1873 pamphlet gained traction amid financial scandals.[1]
It is notable that Feldman does not mention The Göttingen School (Johann Christoph Gatterer, Johann David Michaelis, and August Ludwig von Schlözer ), Ernest Renan (1855 or 1883), Johann Gottfried Herder or - most significantly for our purposes Moritz Steinschneider.
He does mention Wilhelm Marr the "Patriarch" of anti-Semitism.
Nor does the article mention that 'Semitic" is a family of languages. Neither Arabic nor Aramaic are mentioned and thus Feldman give not clue to the reader that the original argumentation about Semites and anti-Semites shared by all these precursors of Marr, Pinsker and Herzl had conceptualised Arabs and inded: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians, Babylonians, and Abyssinians as Semitic peoples. Hebrew spekers were also included. But not everyone included Yiddish speakers in the same family/race.[2]
It seems, despite extensive searches, Feldman has never written that “Semitism” refers to the Semitic languages or that Semites include Arabs. His work, including the 2018 AHR essay “Toward a History of the Term ‘Anti-Semitism’”, focuses on the political usage of “anti-Semitism” from the 1870s onward, especially in Britain. He has never mentioned Ernest Renan (1855 or 1883). He has mentioned Moritz Steinschneider, but only to correct the record: the term “antisemitic” was not first used by him in 1860, but in 1851 by Thomas Carlyle.
In his February 2026 lecture “The Origins of modern Antisemitism reconsidered” at the ZfA Forschungskolloquium, Technical University of Berlin, he stated that the term “antisemitic” was not first used by Steinschneider in 1860, but in 1851 by Thomas Carlyle.[3]
Lucien Wolf and early 20th-century usage
Anglo-Jewish writer Lucien Wolf’s 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica entry is central to Feldman’s analysis. Wolf defined anti-Semitism as "a recent development" that "was not synonymous with all forms of Jew hatred through the ages". He linked it to modern nationalism, industrial capitalism, and efforts to reverse emancipation, distinguishing it from "medieval" Russian persecutions. Feldman identifies three features in Wolf’s view: its modernity (post-1879), its status as not the worst threat to Jews (Russia being worse), and the possibility that Jews could contribute to it (e.g., via Zionism).[1]
Post-1918 evolution and Minorities Treaties
Following the collapse of empires and the 1919 Minorities Treaties, the term’s meaning expanded. Wolf and others began applying "anti-Semitic" to popular violence and state discrimination in successor states such as Poland and Romania that violated new minority rights. By the mid-1920s, Feldman notes, Wolf described the Jewish question in Poland as "not a political problem but a psychological problem". Writers such as Israel Cohen and Arthur Ruppin reconceived anti-Semitism as "an elemental instinct in Europe, all pervasive and aggressive", while James Parkes traced it to the triumph of Christianity in Rome.[1]
Later developments and contemporary significance
Post-1945, the term accumulated further meanings in campaigns for Soviet Jewry emigration rights. Feldman concludes that objections to anti-Semitism have always been tied to specific Jewish rights claims, which have themselves evolved—from emancipation to collective minority rights to debates over Israel. "Recognizing this development and the history that precedes it reveals the layers of meaning sedimented within the term 'anti-Semitism' and may help us to better comprehend the controversies they now provoke."[1]
External links
- Full text of the article (subscription required)
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 David Feldman, Toward a History of the Term “Anti-Semitism” American Historical Review, vol. 123, no. 4 (October 2018), p. 1140.
- ↑ See Ernest Renan Histoire générale et système comparé des langues sémitiques (1855).
- ↑ Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, ZfA Forschungskolloquium: David Feldman (London) - The Origins of modern Antisemitism reconsidered (February 2026).