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 Wagner scholars. For example, Barry Millington refers to it as ``Jewishness 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 it 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''.