The term “Antisemitism” was coined by Wilhelm Marr in the late 1800s to refer to his intense hatred of the Jewish people (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2020). Wilhelm Marr also founded the ‘League of Antisemites” to politicize and popularize his antisemitism with the general public and wrote various antisemitic books such as “The Victory of Judaism over Germanism” (Facing History and Ourselves, 2020).

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Although the term "Semite" refers to a group of people not limited to Jews, the term "Antisemitism" was created and coined exclusively to refer to Jews.

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To learn more about the semantics of these terms, click here.

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Citations: 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2020). Origin of the Term. Retrieved October 05, 2020, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism

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Facing History and Ourselves. (2020). From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism. Retrieved October 05, 2020, from https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-2/religious-prejudice-antisemitism

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