Do we have to explain the root of the word every time?
In 1879, German journalist
Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet,
Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet (
The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from a non-religious perspective) in which he used the word
Semitismus interchangeably with the word
Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit).
[21][22][23]
This use of
Semitismus was followed by a coining of "
Antisemitismus" which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people[
citation needed] and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. His next pamphlet,
Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (
The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit, 1880), presents a development of Marr's ideas further and may present the first published use of the German word
Antisemitismus, "antisemitism".
The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year he founded the
Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites),
[24] apparently named to follow the "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League).
[25] The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their
forced removal from the country.
So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published
Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte, and
Wilhelm Scherer used the term
Antisemiten in the January issue of
Neue Freie Presse.
The
Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the
Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old.'"
[26]
The word "antisemitism" was borrowed into English from German in 1881.
Oxford English Dictionary editor
James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!"
[27] The related term "
philosemitism" was used by 1881.
[28]