SOURCE: Weissberg, Liliane. “Stepping Out: The Writing of Difference in Rahel Varnhagen's Letters.” In Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis edited by Sander L. Gilman and Steven T. Katz, pp. 140-53. New York: New York University Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Weissberg analyzes Varnhagen's letters for their articulations about Judaism and nation in order to explore the connections between anti-Semitism and the concept of a German nation-state.

Nation f. vor Ende des 14. Jh. entlehnt aus lat. natio(nem), das als Ableitung von natus “geboren” … die blutmässige Einheit des Volkskörpers bezeichnet.

—Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1967

natio, s. Nascio, war eine Göttin, so die Gebuhrt eines Menschen dirigiren sollen.

—Herderich, Gründliches Antiquitätenlexikon, 1743

I

The term anti-semitism was coined in the late nineteenth century and designates, as a political term, a negative attitude towards Jews that no longer finds its cause in issues of religion, but instead...