Semite

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Related to Semite: Akkadian, Semitic languages, jews, Anti semite

Semite

(sĕm`īt, sē`mīt), originally one of a people believed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah. Later the term came to include the following peoples: Arabs; the Akkadians of ancient Babylonia; the Assyrians; the Canaanites (including Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Phoenicians); the various Aramaean tribes (including Hebrews); and a considerable portion of the population of Ethiopia. These peoples are grouped under the term Semite, chiefly because their languages were found to be related, deriving presumably from a common tongue, Semitic. The Semites were largely nomadic pastoralists, although some settled in villages. At least as early as 2500 B.C., the Semites had begun to leave the Arabian peninsula in successive waves of migration that took them to Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean coast, and the Nile delta. They were organized into patrilineal tribes, occupying defined territories and ruled by hereditary leaders, or sheiks. In Mesopotamia, Semitic people from the earliest times were in contact with Sumerian civilization and with the rise of Sargon of Agade (Akkad) and Hammurabi of Babylon were able to dominate it completely (see SumerSumer
and Sumerian civilization
. The term Sumer is used today to designate the southern part of ancient Mesopotamia. From the earliest date of which there is any record, S Mesopotamia was occupied by a people, known as Sumerians, speaking a non-Semitic language.
..... Click the link for more information. ). In PhoeniciaPhoenicia
, ancient territory occupied by Phoenicians. The name Phoenicia also appears as Phenice and Phenicia. These people were Canaanites (see Canaan), and in the 9th cent. B.C.
..... Click the link for more information. the Semitic population developed a widespread maritime trade and became the first great seafaring people. That group of Hebrews that had been diverted through Sinai into the Nile delta settled at last with other Semitic inhabitants in Palestine. These southern or Judean Hebrews became the leaders of a new nation and religion (see JewsJews
[from Judah], traditionally, descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, whose tribe, with that of his half-brother Benjamin, made up the kingdom of Judah; historically, members of the worldwide community of adherents to Judaism.
..... Click the link for more information. and JudaismJudaism
, the religious beliefs and practices and the way of life of the Jews. The term itself was first used by Hellenized Jews to describe their religious practice, but it is of predominantly modern usage; it is not used in the Bible or in Rabbinic literature and only rarely
..... Click the link for more information. ).

Bibliography

See W. R. Smith, History of the Semites (1956, repr. 1972).

Semite

(less commonly), Shemite

1. a member of the group of Caucasoid peoples who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Phoenicians

2. another word for a Jew

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

In Christian art he is almost always shown wearing a Muslim-style turban, (12) though Mel Gibson judiciously chose to portray his Pharisees in a garb inspired by an extinct Semite, the Assyrian.

The demonic aspects of Islamism: the despotism and fanatical obedience to a strict God and his uncompromising legal code, the murderous hostility to western civilization play back the demonic aspects of the classic construction of the Semite. Islamism, and for the less sophisticated or politically correct, Islam itself, is now the abject, to use Julia Kristeva's term, (25) of the demonizing aspects of Semitism, of which the Jews have more or less managed to free themselves.

But the term "Semite" derives from Sem, a son of Noah who is not mentioned in the Qur'an or in any significant Islamic tradition.

(3) The term Semite was first used by Ludwig Schlozer, in Johann Gottfried Eichhorn's Repertorium, vol.

What I would like to do in this article is to ask what happens if we take anti-Semitism at its word, literally that is, as targeting all Semites and not only the Jews.

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Luxuriant Palestinian female seeks smoldering fellow Semite to share pungent caresses and tangled tresses in your Nablusi lovenest.

Young Palestinian Semite, M, 35, educ, successful career, seeking Jewish female (any race) for long intimate relation to live in Israel.

SEXY SEMITE. Tall, dark, curvy, Palestinian F ready to stop roaming the world in exile.

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The rise of fascism in the Donald Trump campaign, where Arab Semites are condemned at rallies, and people who dissent are thrown out, is a reality.

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In our own generation, what could we do that would be analogous to the West Semites' insistence on observance of the Sabbath and Sabbatical year as ways of taming the most destructive urges of the agro-revolution, and celebrating the spiritual value of a rhythm in which communing with earth alternates with controlling it?

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Diary entries also reportedly show Mussolini's anger with Pope Pius XI who = said he was "spiritually close to all Semites" and called for Catholic marr= iages to Jews to be recognized.