‘Antisemitism’ vs ‘AntiJudaism’
Yesterday, I was having a discussion with my husband about the word ‘antisemitism’.
Once I found out that it was ‘invented’ by Moritz Steinschneider in 1860, I started doing a bit more digging, about why, exactly, there was a need for this word, at that point in time.
HERE is the English wiki page for MORITZ STEINSCHNEIDER – and here is his picture, too.
Here’s a couple of snippets about him:
Moritz Steinschneider was born in Prostějov, Moravia, in 1816.
He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider (b. 1782; d. March 1856), who was not only an expert Talmudist, but was also well versed in secular science. The house of the elder Steinschneider was the rendezvous of a few progressive Hebraists, among whom was his brother-in-law, the physician and writer Gideon Brecher.
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Prostejov / Prossnitz is the stamping ground of the ‘false sabbatean-prophet / MBJ’, Leibele Prossnitz, who probably ends in Pressburg.
Pressburg is where the ‘wunderworking’ rabbi Daniel Steinschneider, and his son Aaron, are writing out so many kabbalistic amulets, they use some sort of engraving on a precious stone to ink up and stamp the amulets out quickly. R Daniel Steinschneider is also the ABD of Pressburg, and the ‘good friend’ of the Chatam Sofer.
He is the g.g-grandpa of Moritz Steinschneider above, also born in Prossnitz, which Yaakov Emden and others described as being stuffed full of sabbateans.
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Moritz is sent to the local xtian school aged six (kinda weird, for his rabbinical father to have done that… if you are not following the connections here….). Then, Wiki continues:
In 1836 Steinschneider went to Vienna to continue his studies, and, on the advice of his friend Leopold Dukes, he devoted himself especially to Oriental and Neo-Hebrew literatures, and most particularly to bibliography, which would become his principal focus.
His countryman Abraham Benisch and Moravian Albert Löwy also were studying there at the time. In Lowy’s room in 1838 they inaugurated among intimate (and lifelong) friends, a proto-Zionist society called “Die Einheit”. The society’s objective was to promote the welfare of the Jewish people, and in order to realize this objective, they advocated the settlement of Palestine by Austrian Jews. Their objective however, had to be kept secret for fear it would be put down by the government;
England became regarded as the country likely to welcome the new movement.
In 1841 Lowy was sent to London as an emissary of the Students’ Jewish National Society; Benisch also arrived in England the same year. Somewhat abandoned, Steinschneider would later withdraw from the society completely in 1842, viewing the scheme as impractical compared to his studies.
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Vienna is where 50 years later, HERZL picks up the ‘proto-z-ist’ baton, with a lot of help from British xtian-z-ists, which I will tell you about another time.
On the French Wiki site, we learn that LEOPOLD DUKES – another maskil, mentioned above – got his talmudic training at the Chatam Sofer’s yeshiva, in Poszony, BEFORE the Chatam Sofer moves to Pressburg, when his ‘good friend’ Daniel Steinschneider puts a word in for him.
ABRAHAM BENISCH became the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, in England (which starts to explain a heck of a lot…).
Meanwhile, ALBERT LOWY, also mentioned above, becomes the first Reform rabbi of the first ‘Reform’ synagogue in England – London’s New West End.
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I just tripped over another, fat, tentacle of the frankist-reformers who took over our Jewish community, and particularly the ‘Eretz Yisrael’ project, but we’ll park that for now, and return to the question we began with:
Why did Moritz Steinschneider feel the need to invent the new term ‘antisemitism’?
The short answer to that very intricate question, is because Steinschneider, and his neo-Sabbatean-Reform buddies were themselves, essentially ‘anti-Torah’ and ‘anti-Judaism’.
Until around 250 years ago, what we understand as ‘antisemitism’ was actually really ‘anti-Judaism’ and especially, ‘anti-Talmudism’.
If you go to sites like SOTT today and read the comments at the bottom about any of the ‘stories’ about Israel, you will inevitably find this type of ‘classical’ anti-Jewish sentiment on display. It’s misquoting Talmud, it’s tarring all Jews with the ‘bad’ brush, because of the ‘evil religion’ we follow.
It goes without saying, that this type of classic anti-Judaism is RELIGIOUS in nature, and very deeply rooted in the teachings of the xtian churches – pretty much all branches, except the Evangelical movement, who have a different theology that I will try and do a ‘Dummies Guide’ for very soon, God willing.
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Long story short, Steinschneider and his neo-Sabbatean-Reform buddies, were trying to cut ‘Jews’ away from ‘Judaism’.
At this stage, post-Mendelssohn, there was a sizeable number of neo-Sabbatean-reformers who were upset that so many of their fellow ‘enlightened’ Jews were following Jacob Frank’s lead, and converting out to xtianity.
The brand of Frankist doctrine practised by the neo-Sabbateans of Prague – from who Steinschneider descends – called for Jews to stay Jewish right up until the end, and only then, to convert to xtianity.
This was quite the challenge.
To stay Jewish, when you’re actively destroying the foundation that Judaism rests on.
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I mean that literally – Steinschneider was in the forefront of a movement romantically called the ‘science of Judaism’, or to give it its German name:
Wissenschaft des Judentums
Here’s a little snippet about that:
“Wissenschaft des Judentums” (literally in German the expression means “Science of Judaism”) refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions.”
It’s all the yucky, secular, ‘biblical criticism’ and other stuff you have to deal with today, if you want to engage with Judaism in any form on the academic plane.
From personal experience, I can tell you it’s really, really bad.
It makes the soul shrivel up, coming anywhere close to this stuff.
I will do some more posts on this subject, soon.
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Long story short – these ‘anti-Judaism’ neo-Sabbatean-reformers needed a new word that could be wielded to seperate their own, ‘Jewish anti-Judaism’ from the anti-Judaism of the non-Jewish world.
And so, the word ‘anti-semitism’ was born.
Semite being related to ‘Shem’, the tribe the Jews (and a bunch of other semitic people… ) came from.
And just like that, Steinschneider and his little buddies switched the argument away from religion and Judaism and the Talmud – which they were also against and trying to destroy.
And made the anti-Jewish argument all about race.
You know what happened next, a couple of generations later.
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Tov.
Why does this matter to you and me, today?
A few reasons. First of all, definitions really do matter. Once you pin-down a definition, then you can really understand what it is you are arguing for, or against.
‘Anti-semite’ is the catch-all label that can be thrown at any non-Jew who is ‘anti’ the State of Israel, ‘anti’ secular Jews in Tel Aviv, ‘anti’ religious Jews in Stamford Hill, or Queens, or Meah Shearim.
It’s been weaponised by organisations like the ADL, and is now being used to shut down discussions that actually, are so important to have.
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It’s easy to throw the word ‘anti-semite’ at people, to shut them up.
The State of Israel does that a lot.
But, if we moved back to more accurate definitions, like ‘anti-Judaism’, ‘anti-Torah’, ‘anti-Talmud’, even, ‘anti-war’, or ‘anti-State’ – the debate would change radically, and in a much healthier and better way.
I have lots more to write about this, but that will do for now, as a start.
Let me throw this out there: I challenge you to move away from using ‘anti-semitism’, and to finding other words to describe anti-Jewish, anti-Israel sentiments.
And I’d be very interested in hearing any insights you get, if and when you start trying to do this.
If you didn’t already see this, please go and check it out: https://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2025/05/jews-in-news-for-better-and-for-worse
One of the comments from R Richter on that post leads to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLMY1g2gGhU
Hashem yerachem.
The person being interviewed heads up a missionary organisation here in Israel called FIRM: That stands for Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries’.
The woman that runs FIRM who is being interviewed said that Yaron’s MA was financed by something called ‘Project Israel’, it’s not clear if they also had something to do with him getting his job in DC too. (Wrap your head around that….)
In the meantime, here is the FIRM statement of ‘faith’:
https://firmisrael.org/about/statement-of-faith/
If a person is a Jew for Yoshki – where are they buried, under these circumstances? Are they still halachically considered to be Jews? If they ‘only’ believe that Yoshki is the moshiach, as opposed to a divinity, what happens then? How would anyone even know what their real belief about Yoshki is, given the overwhelming impetus in xtianity to kick Hashem out the picture and replace with a human being?
This is such a mess…. Only someone of the calibre of the Rav can sort out the halachic implications. In the meantime, I will get on with the ‘Evangelical xtianity history’ for dummies posts soon. It will explain a lot – including, how ‘Jews for Yoshki’, the idea, actually began 200 years ago, when the xtians realised that most Jews were not going to give up on being ‘Jews’.
so then they repackaged yoshki as just believing in him as the ‘moshiach’…. who is going to return… but that’s not where the story ends, because once you give the yetzer hara a finger, it takes the whole arm.
such a mess.
the first link is dead
https://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2025/05/jews-in-news-for-better-and-for-worse.html
The page is still there at this link, above. Maybe, cut and paste it into your browser, see if that works better.
bs”d
Adelle, I clicked on “home” after clicking the link, and got it.
Thank you for sharing this information, along with all the other important work you are doing. On an unrelated subject, do you know anything about the possible arrest of the Rav who runs the Sod HaChashmal site?
No, haven’t heard anything about the Sod HaChashmal site…
I only asked because that is Rav Yekutiel Fish’s website and he is mentioned frequently on the ravberland.com site. Someone emailed me that they had received a disturbing article via their RSS feed but which was already removed from the associated reporting site and wondered if I knew anything about it, so I turned then to you.. Here is the article in question…
דרמת ענק בירושלים: אברך חרדי , אב לעשרה ילדים קטנים, עצור כבר למעלה מיומיים במרתפי השב״כ בחשד לפגיעה בביטחון המדינה. קרוביו של האברך מכחישים ותוקפים את הארגון. ׳כיכר השבת׳ חושף את הפרטים בפרסום ראשון. לפני יומיים, אברך חרדי שמשדר בקו תורני-קבלי שנקרא ׳סוד החשמל׳, ומוסר שם שיעורי תורה וכן מתבל זאת בעדכונים ובפוליטיקה. נעצר על ידי אנשי שב״כ בביתו, ומאז הוא נמצא בחקירות במרתפי השב״כ. על פי קרובי המשפחה שמספרים את הסיפור הערב לכיכר השבת, הם לא יודעים במה מואשם האברך ואף מציינים שהפרקליטות מסרבת להגיד להם מה החשד ורק עדכנו אותם כי מדובר בעניין ביטחוני. הקרובים מספרים, כי למרות כל הניסיונות מאז שנעצר האברך, שב״כ לא מאשר לו להיפגש עם עורך דין וכאמור אף לא מעדכן במה הוא מואשם. לדברי המשפחה: ״האברך משדר מדי יום בקו המדובר – זהו קו תורני על פי רוח הקבלה, שם השדרנים מסבירים דברים שקורים על פי הקבלה ואף נותנים תחזיות שלהם למה יקרה״ הקרובים מספרים עוד: ״האברך שנעצר היה אומר שם כל מיני תחזיות שהיה שומע, כמו שישראל עומדת לתקוף בתימן או איראן ועוד תחזיות ביטחוניות כיד השם הטובה עליו. אך אף אחד לא באמת חשב שהוא קיבל איזה תדרוך ביטחוני וכן הלאה״. הקרובים מתחננים באמצעות ׳כיכר השבת׳ לשב״כ שלפחות יתנו לו להיפגש עם עורך דין, בינתיים בדיון שנערך היום בבית המשפט בנוגע לערעור שהגישה המשפחה, בית המשפט דחה את הערעור והאריך את מעצרו במרתפי השב״כ עד ליום שני הבא. לטענת המשפחה, השב״כ ובית המשפט גם לא הסכים להכניס לתא שלו תפילין, או ספר תהילים וסידור, או אוכל ועוד מצרכים בסיסיים. מדוברות שב״כ לא נמסרה תגובה עד לשעת פרסום הידיעה, אם תתקבל תגיב הנה היא תוכנס ככתבה וכלשונה.
(https://www.kikar.co.il/haredim/jerusalem-haredi-arrested-security-suspicion)
If you do hear anything, please let me know. We are concerned for him. Thanks.
If that’s true he was arrested, it’s awful.
That changes the dialog, bc it makes the last remark by Yaron worthy of understanding: “ Yair Golan: A Political Transgender – Phantom Nation [audio]”
https://www.jewishpress.com/multimedia/radio/israel-news-talk-radio/phantom-nation/yair-golan-a-political-transgender-phantom-nation-audio/2025/05/23/
Not the”babies” but the transgender comment, I& I have it correct??