What is it we speak of when talking about anti-Semitism? The term itself is a source of some controversy. While the term “Semite” refers to a linguistic group which includes both Arabic and Hebrew, the term “anti-Semitism” was coined by a German Jew-hater, Wilhelm Marr, in the late 19th century. He coined the phrase to refer to a new form of Judeophobia, one which is based on purported racial characteristics. In order to have a term that was easier to pass along than “Judenhass” (hatred of Jews), as well as a new phrase for his theory and one which denied the European heritage of European Jewry, he took what was at the time an obscure linguistic term and applied it to his racial theory of Jews and his ideas as to why they were genetically pre-disposed to threaten European society. The actual term “Semite” is simply a way of grouping speakers of particular languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, and some other, mostly dead, languages. But anti-Semitism was, ironically, coined against Jews alone, despite the fact that, at the time, exceedingly few Jews spoke Hebrew. Even up to today, it has been many centuries since any Semitic language was the primary language of the majority of Jews worldwide. Arabs, on the other hand, are, by definition, Semites, but were beyond the racist consciousness of Marr, who never encountered them.