The play is not about Israel but instead tells the story of a Jewish man preserving his family’s traditions in a village in imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century. The performance on Monday went ahead as planned after the protest at the cafe.
“This is a performance of Fiddler on the Roof,” they wrote alongside footage of the protesters. “So, if you’re busy condemning racist demonstrations, but not this, & you don’t think they should be prosecuted, stop preening yourself. You’re happy with racism – it’s only the target that you worry about.”
The article doesn’t have any statements from the protestors about why they were protesting there. Seems like a glaringly obvious omission.
Also, it’s not exactly clear where “there” even was
Was this demonstration actually in response to the play performance or did they just happen to be near each other?
I was noticing that, and a suspicious lack of reason for why this play would be singled out. Those kinds of omission make this super sketchy imo, it often indicates not that the protestors had no point or were antisemitic, but that they had a point and the article is withholding it to paint them as antisemites. Hopefully there are first hand sources or less biased news articles that explain it
Also, Palestinians are Semites…
That’s not what antisemitism means. This is like thinking that antipasto means someone is opposed to Pasto. Two different words.
Not a good example. Anti = before, pasto = meal. Antipasto is what you eat before the main dish. Whether people have meant antisemitism to mean specifically Jewish persons (a bad reading), the fact remains that Arabs are Semites and Palestinians are Arabs.
This article has nothing to do with Semites. You are wandering down a pointless thought experiment, and likely attempting to derail the conversation. I can understand your confusion; antisemitism as a word is historically derived from the same root as Semite, much as “antipasto” and “pastor” are derived from the same Latin root, although they have no common meaning today. Antisemitism is and has always been a specific prejudice against Jews.
Merriam-Webster | Oxford | Cambridge | Dictionary.com | Collins | American Heritage | The Atlantic (article)
That was something you just made up.
If you want to throw a definition at me that shows that antisemitism only applies to Jewish persons, then I can just as easily show you a definition that the word “literally” now means “really a lot” as in “I literally died when I heard that”. Language use changes.
What on earth are you talking about? You give me an awful lot of credit if you think I made up EVERY dictionary. I don’t think I missed any except for the community forums like wiktionary and urbandictionary. Of course language changes. That’s why professional linguists are employed by professional dictionaries to study the language and why words are frequently added or changed. That doesn’t mean words mean whatever you feel like at the moment.
You understood the use of the word in the article. You are trying to derail the conversation to make it about etymology rather than the subject of the news. You are wasting my time, as I’ve already sent you links to SIX dictionaries and an article in a major publication. You sent nothing but your personal feelings.
This hilarious part is that I am actually a linguist. But you’re obviously sensitive to this topic so I’ll walk away.
Sensitive? You are the one arguing that every dictionary is wrong. If you have an axe to grind, take it up with your editors - not me.
Just as an fyi it’s first use is in 1881 as interchangeably anti Judaic and anti semitic.
The use of anti semitic to mean anti Judaic is in fact bigoted as fuck. The word is literally taken from a racist who thought openly that Arabs were lesser than a Jew and didn’t care he was throwing them under the bus right alongside Jews. Just say anti Judaic since it’s actually accurate to an inarguable level and doesn’t make some weird bigoted class system.
The person we are responding to has an agenda. They aren’t in it to exchange ideas, they are in it to force you to accept their view of world. This person is offended personally that we don’t automatically agree.
Many Jewish organizations have advocated using the term “Jew hate” in order to avoid the linguistically and historically problematic “antisemitism” or “anti-Semitism,” but I am skeptical of the success.
By the way, you are close, but to clarify: the term was originated by Wilhelm Marr, who founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Anti-Semites) in 1879. This organization was not concerned with Semites in general, but with Jews in particular, as evinced by publications such as “Do not choose a Jew!” “Jew’s Mirror,” and “The War of the Jews.” You are absolutely right in that it is bigoted and coined by a bigot.
How is that relevant?
Because the play involved Jewish protagonists even though it had nothing to do with Israel or Palestine? That’s the point.
Pro-Palestinian protests are justified, but when they do things like this or things like defacing the statue of Anne Frank, they are clearly being appropriated by those who say Zionism so they can avoid the antisemitism label.