The word ‘Jew’
[snip]
I know none of you know me from Adam, but can I just jump in and say that, as a Jew, I absolutely hate that people pussyfoot around the word like it’s a bad thing?
Yes, in some contexts, some people can use it pejoratively, but you can do that with anything.
I am a Jew. This is a wonderful thing, to be a Jew; it’s not offensive.
To me. I’ve heard that older people don’t like it and, like people said above me, don’t call people things they don’t want to be called, but it’s not a bad word.
Anyway, I appreciate people asking and wanting to do the best thing, that’s very admirable.
^^ Yeah, there you go. That’s what I meant, that he word “Jew” in and of itself is not offensive — I mean, it’s only the English form of the Latin Iudaeus and Greek Iudaios. But I’ve heard it used derogatorily so often that I prefer to avoid it unless someone tells me otherwise. But basically it’s like any other ethonym or indicator of identity: respect how that person describes hirself. And yeah, you’re probably right about older generations’ attitudes toward it as a descriptor, kind of like older LGBTQ people’s attitude toward the word “queer.”
And being a convert probably affects how I see things… I don’t know, I find that we tend to be more sensitive to the use of language, which can be a good or a bad thing.
