Jewish Group
Related: About this forum(Jewish Group) Anti-antisemitism? A Battle Rages Over the Jewish Hyphen
William Shakespeare famously asked Whats in a name? But when it comes to the conversation about anti-Semitism, the question is far more specific: Whats in a hyphen?
For Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, the hyphen means a great deal and she argues that its time to get rid of it.
In January 2019, the acclaimed historian published the book Antisemitism: Here and Now. Together with explanations of its history, background, resurgence and a playbook on how to battle the phenomenon, the book included a clarion call to change the way the word is written. Lipstadt wrote emphatically that it should no longer be written anti-Semitism. Instead, the hyphen and uppercase S should be banished and it should be one word: antisemitism.
But even as the issue has dominated headlines in recent years following the Pittsburgh and Poway shootings, incidents in Europe and disturbing conspiracy theories the hyphen has proved hard to dislodge.
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Mike 03
(16,616 posts)I had no clue there was a controversy over this. I'll try to remember and just use "antisemitism", and not capitalized. I actually always thought it was disrespectful not to capitalize "Semitism" (and "Anti" too, come to think of it).
Kick and rec!
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)It would make the 'arabs are semites too, ya know' wheeze a little more difficult.
Mosby
(16,297 posts)EllieBC
(3,013 posts)Thank you for the article, BTA! I had never thought about it this way. Ill make sure to keep the hyphen out now!