Allosemitism is a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
that encompass both
philosemitic
Philosemitism is a notable interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jews, Jewish people, Jewish history, their history, and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a Gentile, non-Jew. In the aftermath of World War II, the ph ...
and
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
attitudes towards
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
as the
Other
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
.
Origin of term
The term was coined by Polish Jewish
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
Artur Sandauer and popularized by the Polish Jewish sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrate ...
. Sandauer used the term "allosemitism" in his essay ''On Situation of Polish Writer of Jewish Descent In the 20th Century'' published as a book in 1982.
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrate ...
proposed the term in his 1997 essay "Allosemitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern" in which he argued that "allosemitism" should be used in place of "
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
". Bauman's argument was that allosemitism can represent a "radically ambivalent attitude" encompassing both
philo-Semitism
Philosemitism is a notable interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their history, and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a non-Jew. In the aftermath of World War II, the phenomenon of philosemitism saw ...
and
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
; allosemitism is a form of
proteophobia, fear and horror of things that defy clean-cut categories, not, like anti-Semitism, of a simple fear of the "
other
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
" (
heterophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...
); and that Judeophobia is diverse, and, therefore, not adequately encompassed by the term "anti-Semitism".
[Eva Frojmovic. Review of Kessler, Herbert L.; Nirenberg, David, eds., Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism,
H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. March, 2013]
/ref>
Ruth Gruber
Ruth Gruber (September 30, 1911 – November 17, 2016) was an American journalist, photographer, writer, humanitarian, and United States government official.
Born in Brooklyn to Russian Jewish immigrants, she was encouraged to pursue her dream ...
describes the neologism as a response to "the idea that, good or bad, Jews are different from the non-Jewish mainstream and thus unable to be dealt with in the same way or measured by the same yardstick".[
In her 2010 book ''Modernism, Feminism, and Jewishness'', the literary scholar Maren Tova Linnett described the term as having originated with both Sandauer and Bauman.][Briefel, Aviva. "Allosemitic Modernism." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 43, no. 2 (2010): 361-63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40959717.]
Use
Linnett uses the term "to describe the multiple modes of difference that these women authors ascribed to the Jew in order to complicate what she views as the overly simplistic polarities of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism".Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Eliezer Ben-Rafael (born 1938 in Belgium) is an Israeli sociologist. He is Weinberg Professor of Sociology, emeritus, at Tel Aviv University.
Ben-Rafael is known for his work on the kibbutz, on language and ethnicity in Israel, and on globaliza ...
uses the concept in his 2014 book ''Confronting Allosemitism in Europe: The Case of Belgian Jews''.
See also
* Ambivalent prejudice
Ambivalent prejudice is a Social psychology, social psychological theory that states that, when people become aware that they have conflicting beliefs about an In-group and out-group, outgroup (a group of people that do not belong to an individual' ...
* Aversive racism
Aversive racism is a theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio (1986), according to which negative evaluations of racial/ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial and ethnic groups. As ...
* Benevolent prejudice
Benevolent prejudice is a superficially positive prejudice that is expressed in terms of positive beliefs and emotional responses, which are associated with hostile prejudices or result in keeping affected groups in inferior positions in society. ...
* Jewish stereotypes
Stereotypes of Jews are generalized representations of Jews, often caricatured and of a prejudiced and antisemitic nature.
Common objects, phrases and traditions which are used to emphasize or ridicule Jewishness include bagels, the complaini ...
* Model minority
A model minority is a minority demographic (whether based on ethnicity, race or religion) whose members are perceived as achieving a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average, thus serving as a reference group to outgroup ...
* Neo-Orientalism
Neo-orientalism is a category of modern incarnations of Orientalist thinking. The term ''Neo-orientalism'' is generally found in academic literature to critique Western attitudes to Islam and the Islamic world post 9/11.
Although the term ''Neo ...
* Tokenism
Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or gender equality wit ...
References
{{reflist
20th-century neologisms
1980s neologisms
Anti-Judaism
Orientalism