Das Judenthum in Der Musik - The Title in English

The Title in English

The article's first translator into English, W. Ashton Ellis, gave it the title 'Judaism in Music'. This translation has seemed unsatisfactory to some scholars. For example, Barry Millington refers to it as 'Jewishness in Music'; Conway argues for 'Jewry in Music'.

There are two principal reasons for concern about Ashton's translation of the title. Firstly, 'Judaism' in English carries the meaning of 'the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or the polity of the Jews', a topic on which Wagner does not touch. 'Judentum' however in 19th-century Germany carried a much broader meaning — roughly analogous to the nonce English word 'Jewdom' (cf. Christendom) and including the concept of the social practices of the Jews. In particular it carried the pejorative sense of 'haggling' or 'marketeering' — it was used in this sense for example by Karl Marx. Undoubtedly Wagner wished to refer to this sense, in effect using the word as a pun, as the commercialism implied forms the topic of the essay as a whole. It is therefore important to bear in mind the full range of implications of the title-word 'Judentum' in considering the essay as a whole. 'Jewishness', whilst not ideal, is perhaps a closer English approximation to 'Judentum' than 'Judaism'.