The Rise of the RepubLikud Party

Graffiti on Israel’s “security fence” (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Ever since the Gospels proclaimed that “the Jews answered in one voice, ‘Give us Barabbas”’ (John, 18:40), antisemitism has essentially and ultimately been a conspiracy theory. But it wasn’t until 1879 when an Austrian named Wilhelm Marr coined the precise term. And it caught on:

“In 1879 German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet (The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from a non-religious perspective) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both ‘Jewry’ (the Jews as a collective) and ‘jewishness’ (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit).

“This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of ‘Antisemitismus’ which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. His next pamphlet, Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit, 1880), presents a development of Marr’s ideas further and may present the first published use of the German word Antisemitismus, ‘antisemitism’.

“The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year he founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of…