Anti-semitism (long!)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Israel.
    About a day ago, she ran into political problems in the newspapers here when she accepted Mrs. Arafat's anti-semitic rants with a hug and a kiss.  This was supposed to win Hillary New York's Jewish vote!
   A friend of mine who runs a Jewish newspaper said the Clintons are certainly no friends of Jews, that the whole thing is a travesty of...okay, I'll stop.
   The OED has:

anti-semite--ATHENAEUM, 3 Sept. 1881
anti-semitic--ATHENAEUM, 3 Sept. 1881
anti-semitism--ATHENAEUM, 11 February 1882

   It appears that the phrase started in Germany. (Who would have guessed?)  The following reads like some Wagnerian opera.

15 December 1879, NEW YORK TIMES (from Historical Newspapers Online database), pg. 2, col. 3:
   In the month of September last, a few Berliners, anxious to attract attention to their own insignificant personalities, got up a club--the "Anti-Semitic"--for the purpose of provoking an agitation against the Jews.  Its President was an individual named Marr, whose factotum, Groussillier, occupied the Vice-Presidential chair.  Groussillier was an unsucceful dramatic author, who had failed, not only in finding a theatre where his lucubrations would be accepted, but also with a society which he had founded, under the title of the Lessing Bund, whose aim was to blackmail theatrical managers and force his own and his colleagues' pieces upon the stage.  Exasperated by his defeats, this worthy cast about him for some one on whom he could vent his spleen, and finding a willing co-operator in M. Marr, the pair determined to "go for" the Israelites, who had already been held up to public animadversion by the sermons of the court preacher, M. Stocker.  The Anti-Semitic League, not nu!
mbering a great many members, it assumed an appearance of mystery, so as to excite curiosity; but as, unluckily, some of the adepts were necessitous, the secrets of the association were sold to the _Tageblatt_, which newspaper figured at the head of the anti-Smeitic-proscription list.  Great was the ire of Marr & Co., who attempted to deny the _Tageblatt's_ revelations, but all in vain, as this journal brought facts in support of the assertions.  Thereupon M. Marr became blood thirsty, and sent a challenge to the editor for a duel with triply-loaded revolvers at three paces.  Grousillier, who was the second, expected that these deadly conditions would be refused, whereupon he proposed to call the other party "a coward and a slanderer," and was horrified when the adversary's friend called upon him to arrange about the "hour and the spot."  Three visits to his lodgings did not find him, he declined to reply to a written request for an interview, and, finally, backed out altogeth!
er, alleging that it would be _infra dig._ to fight a journalist who had bought a secret from a traitor.  So ended this phase of the agitation, but not the agitation itself, to continue which a species of review has been founded, and, strange to say, finds a ready sale.  Among the measures recommended in this publication, are: Interdiction to attend any theatres owned by Jews, or numbering Jews among their employes; to be present at any performances of Sara Bernhardt--who is not a Jewess--or Marie Heilbronn; to patronize concerts where the works of Mendelssohn or Mayerbeer are given upon the programme; to enter any church in which "are sung the Psalms of the Jew David."  Nor is the New York _Herald_ to be read, because it is affiliated with the _Daily Telegraph_, whose owner is an Israelite; finally, it should be made a penal offense to peruse Lord Beaconsfield's novels, or Heine's poems, and, in short, anything and everything either written or published by a Jew. (...)

2 February 1881, TIMES (LONDON), pg. 5, col. d:
   THE ANTI-SEMITIC AGITATION IN SAXONY.  DRESDEN, FEB. 1...

15 April 1881, TIMES (LONDON), pg. 3, col. c.  "Anti-Semitics" is used.

April 1881, CATHOLIC WORLD (from Making of America database), pg. 131:
   THE PRUSSIAN ANTI-SEMITIC LEAGUE.

2 October 1881, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 10, col. 4:
THE JEWS IN GERMANY
_EXTENT AND PROGRESS OF THE_
_NEW ANTI-SEMITIC MOVEMENT._
CHARACTER OF THE MEN WHO HEAD AND
   WHO ARE BEHIND IT--WHAT THEY
   PROFESS TO DESIRE--THE HEBREWS
   ACCUSED OF EVERY KNOWN CRIME--
   THEIR REAL OFFENSE--BISMARCK AND
   COMPANY--A GLANCE BEHIND THE
   SCENES.
   MUNICH, Sept. 9--The anti-Semitic movement--the Jewish question--it to-day in Germany the one great subject of discussion.  (...)(Long article--ed.)
   (col. 6--ed.) All during the six weeks of his service Herr Kaufmann was continually and contemptuously spoken of by the non-commissioned officers as "Mauschel," a term which corresponds, as nearly as possible, to "Sheeny."

   Speaking of anti-semitism and politics, there's always Pat Buchanan...