I see people thinking that semite=Jew, but bear in mind that “semite” was a term created in 1781 by german philologist Ludwig Schlotzer to describe languages that are similar (Arabic, hebrew, Aramaic, etc).

Many other languages are considered semite, and Hebrew was not even the first of them.

If you check in Wikipedia, you can also see how this people migrated over time:

  • GlueBear [they/them] @lemmygrad.ml
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    7 months ago

    anti-black and Islamophobic sentiment already does enough lifting to attack both Jews and non-Jews who speak Semitic languages

    How? Anti-black and islamophobia are so different from anti-Semititism. I’d like to know how those two things also affect other demographics beyond their main targets (those being B-POC and Muslims)

    • SweetLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Imagine someone speaking a Semitic language in public, likely in the United States. Regardless of the language, think about what they look like. They are likely black, from Africa, or they “look” Arab (in American terms, they look like a terrorist). If this person was discriminated against after speaking that language, do you think it’s because of antisemitism? I doubt it.

      The antisemitic attacks seen are those against people working in finance/banking, orthodox Jews, synogogues, and “secret society” meetings like the freemason lodges. Conspiracy theory brained at best, explictly vile antisemitism otherwise. We know these stereotypes and they have nothing to do with the Semitic language family.

      I don’t believe the attacks on an orthodox Jew is the same as an attack on someone speaking Arabic. The first is antisemitism plain and simple, the latter Islamophobia.

      The reason I mentioned blackness is because of the US’ historical targeting of black (black as in African-American here) muslim populations in the country as well as dark-skin and black Muslims from Somalia, Sudan, etc

      Even though these attacks are primarily Islamophobic and/or anti-black, it is still true that some Jewish people get caught in the middle of it. But those Jewish people are not targeted due to antisemitism in these particular cases.