First, I just want to say that when I don't respond quickly it's not from lack of interest, and I hope it is not from lack of anything to say; it is because I have a day job, and I feel guilty enough about the amount of time I spend reading all these posts.

It seems clear to me that Anti-semitism has always meant the particular animus against Jews -- although when Anwar Sadat was asked whether he was anti-Semitic he said "No -- how could I be anti-Semitic? I am a Semite!" That moment notwithstanding, we need and therefore have coined (Thanks to Wolfgang for the erudite history!) a term for hatred of Jews, because it keeps recurring, historically, again and again. In the mentions on this thread of Tsarist Russia, no one has pointed out the history of pogroms, sometime carried out by Tsarist soldiers who galloped through the shtetls slaughtering families.

Lepus -- Do the Sikhs or the Romas have an original homeland to which they have always aspired to return? Do they have a long, deep, rich and enriching cultural, literary, musical and religious tradition which is locked to that land? I confess to being ignorant of their histories.

I can't help being pro-Israeli. My 25-year-old daughter, a convert to orthodox Judaism, is Israeli, and she is there even now, with my 3-year-old grandson. I am not as virulently zionist as many, and I want constantly to remind her and all of the lyrics, "There, but for fortune, go you, go I, your or I." Surely that corner of the earth cries out for mutual forgiveness, tolerance, amity -- qualities as scarce there as floods in desert.