I wholeheartedly agree with both of Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar’s main points in her letter to the editor: that it is severely misguided to make an allegation of antisemitism against those who unintentionally scheduled a street fair on Rosh Hashanah and that anti-Semitism should retain its traditional spelling with a capital letter to show respect to Jews.

The horrific terrorist attack in Israel on Shemini Atzeret underscores the importance of both of these.

At this deeply challenging time, it is more important than ever both to refrain from alienating our allies of other faiths and ethnicities by making frivolous allegations of antisemitism and to demand that Jews be shown the same respect as people of any other demographic group.

However, I suspect that she may be unaware that changing anti-Semitism to “antisemitism” is not the lone act of the individual to whom she responds but rather has been promoted by numerous leading Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

To justify the change, the ADL asserts on its website, “The speakers of [Semitic] languages, however, do not have a shared heritage or history.  There is no such thing as a Semitic peoplehood.”

This is almost certainly wrong. The reason why Semitic languages are grouped together in the first place is that their similarities suggest that they all evolved from a single language.

This language is known by linguists as proto-Semitic, although it was likely known by its speakers by another name that is no longer known, as it dates back before the invention of writing.  Therefore, there are no written records of this language.

Over time, the speakers of proto-Semitic split into subgroups that migrated to different places where they were geographically isolated from each other.

The language evolved in different ways for each subgroup, giving rise to different Semitic languages that ultimately evolved into the ones that are spoken today: Hebrew, Arabic, and Amharic.

Of course, the languages spoken by people don’t always come from their ancestors. This is especially the case when it comes to colonization, which spread Indo-European languages like English, French, and Spanish to peoples throughout the world who don’t descend from the speakers of proto-Indo-European.

However, in most cases, the original speakers of similar languages share common ancestors. Genetic studies of Jews and Arabs suggest that these two Semitic-speaking peoples are no exception.

The word “antisemitism” arose in Europe at a time when Jews were the only Semitic people present on the continent in significant numbers.

Therefore, it is understood to refer specifically to a hatred of the Jewish people, not to any or all Semitic peoples. It is used to include hatred of Jews on racial or ethnic grounds, in contrast with anti-Judaism, which refers only to hatred of Jews on religious grounds.

For those who wish to claim that Arabs cannot be antisemitic because they are Semitic themselves, it is wishful thinking that removing a capital letter will somehow substitute for educating people about the oldest form of racism known to Western civilization.

Any benefit from this change will surely be more than compensated for by the reduction in the respect shown to the Jewish people.

Indeed, it seems awfully coincidental that the change from “anti-Semitism” to “antisemitism” happened at right around the same time that “black” became “Black” while “white” remained “white.”

It sure seems consistent with an elevation in status for certain minority groups and a reduction in status for others. For anyone who thought that having white skin protected most Jews from being targeted on the basis of our race or religion, the atrocity committed earlier this month in Israel ought to have shattered this illusion.

Jews deserve the same respect as any other minority, and we should make clear to the organizations that speak for us that we do not support this change.

David Golub

Mineola