CHAPTER 1

ANTI-SEMITISM
Werner Bergmann

1. INTRODUCTION
Hostility towards Jews is an enduring historical phenomenon that can be traced right back to antiquity. In contrast, the narrower term of antiSemitism was rst coined in 1879 in the German Empire to characterise a new form of enmity targeting Jews, one that understood itself as being based on scientic principles and founded on race. It spread rapidly throughout Europe and was soon also applied to past cases of Jew-hating. This neologism denotes a shift in the perception of Jews that had commenced in the early nineteenth century: No longer dened primarily on the basis of their religion, Jews were now categorised as a people, nation, or race, and to many in the emerging nation-states, they appeared to manifest a threat to national unity. The word formation antiSemitism is based on distinctions drawn by linguists and ethnologists at the end of the eighteenth century, the term Semitism representing an attempt to grasp and devalue the spirit of the Semitic, as distinct from