I was on Pal Talk one time and someone got very upset when I said the word Jew. I asked him why and he said only Jews can say Jew. It was kind of silly, I thought. He said to him it was like the N word. I still don't understand what he meant by that, it didn't make a lot of sense to me. He demanded that everyone call him a Hebrew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, Yehudim), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.[5][6][7] Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.
In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium B.C.E.. The Jews have enjoyed three periods of political autonomy in their national homeland, the Land of Israel, twice during ancient history, and currently once again, since 1948, with the establishment of the modern State of Israel. The first of the two ancient eras spanned from 1350 to 586 B.C.E., and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second era was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 B.C.E.. Since the destruction of the First Temple, the diaspora has been the home of most of the world's Jews.[8] Except in the modern State of Israel, Jews are a minority in every country in which they live, and they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.
According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, as of 2007 there were 13.2 million Jews worldwide, 5.4 million of whom lived in Israel, 5.3 million in the United States, and the remainder distributed in communities of varying sizes around the world; this represents 0.2% of the current estimated world population.[1] (Other sources cite higher estimates. For example, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the number of Israeli Jews to be 5.6 million and the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the American Jewish population to be as many as 6.4 million.[2][3]) These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews whether or not affiliated with a Jewish organization.[9] The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to halakhic considerations, there are secular, political, and ancestral identification factors in defining who is a Jew that increase the figure considerably.[9]
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The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, a loan from Old French giu, earlier juieu, ultimately from Latin Iudaeum. The Latin Iudaeus simply means Judaean, "from the land of Judaea". The Latin term itself, like the corresponding Greek Ἰουδαῖος, is a loan from Aramaic Y'hūdāi, corresponding to Hebrew: יְהוּדִי, Yehudi (sg.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.), in origin the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי, is pronounced [jəhuˈdiː], with the stress on the final syllable.[10]
The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sg.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד: Yid (sg.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.).
The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Jude" in German, "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jewish person, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), and Russian: Еврей, (Yevrey).[11] The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], and is the origin of the word Yiddish.[12] (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)
According to the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000):
It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.[13]
I was on Pal Talk one time and someone got very upset when I said the word Jew. I asked him why and he said only Jews can say Jew. It was kind of silly, I thought. He said to him it was like the N word. I still don't understand what he meant by that, it didn't make a lot of sense to me. He demanded that everyone call him a Hebrew.
A lot of gentiles are afraid to say 'Jew.' I have light brown hair and blue eyes so people in the Midwest, where I live (Indiana), don't usually realize I'm Jewish unless they have Jew-dar. I've been asked several times, "Can you add an '-ish' to the end of that, please?" Even Kathy Shaidle is afraid of saying 'Jew.' She says 'Jewish person.' It sounds like 'pregnant person' - ridiculous.
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew.
So there.
A lot of gentiles are afraid to say 'Jew.' I have light brown hair and blue eyes so people in the Midwest, where I live (Indiana), don't usually realize I'm Jewish unless they have Jew-dar. I've been asked several times, "Can you add an '-ish' to the end of that, please?" Even Kathy Shaidle is afraid of saying 'Jew.' She says 'Jewish person.' It sounds like 'pregnant person' - ridiculous.
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew.
So there.
Whoa, you're a jew girl living in India?
I misread lol! Sorry. I was also thinking about the whole blond hair blue eye girl living in India thing. LOL, I'm retarded today for misreading that. :::D :::D :::D :::DA lot of gentiles are afraid to say 'Jew.' I have light brown hair and blue eyes so people in the Midwest, where I live (Indiana), don't usually realize I'm Jewish unless they have Jew-dar. I've been asked several times, "Can you add an '-ish' to the end of that, please?" Even Kathy Shaidle is afraid of saying 'Jew.' She says 'Jewish person.' It sounds like 'pregnant person' - ridiculous.
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew.
So there.
Whoa, you're a jew girl living in India?
She said Indiana, not India.... Indiana is a state in America...
A lot of gentiles are afraid to say 'Jew.' I have light brown hair and blue eyes so people in the Midwest, where I live (Indiana), don't usually realize I'm Jewish unless they have Jew-dar. I've been asked several times, "Can you add an '-ish' to the end of that, please?" Even Kathy Shaidle is afraid of saying 'Jew.' She says 'Jewish person.' It sounds like 'pregnant person' - ridiculous.
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew.
So there.
Whoa, you're a jew girl living in India?
A lot of gentiles are afraid to say 'Jew.' I have light brown hair and blue eyes so people in the Midwest, where I live (Indiana), don't usually realize I'm Jewish unless they have Jew-dar. I've been asked several times, "Can you add an '-ish' to the end of that, please?" Even Kathy Shaidle is afraid of saying 'Jew.' She says 'Jewish person.' It sounds like 'pregnant person' - ridiculous.
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew.
So there.
Whoa, you're a jew girl living in India?
Indiana, not India.
I prefer Jewish. When someone says, " is he a Jew?" it has a pejorative ring to itWhat's next ? perhaps people will start say "He is lawyerish", or "He is bankerish" ?
I prefer Jewish. When someone says, " is he a Jew?" it has a pejorative ring to itWhat's next ? perhaps people will start say "He is lawyerish", or "He is bankerish" ?
Zelhar,I am a native Hebrew speaker and still I think I can disagree with you. It's not like The Americans or the English "own" this language. I can accept that as a matter of fact the noun Jew is charged negatively to Americans, yet still this has little to do with the noun itself. I mean logically, if Jew has a bad meaning, then the derived adjective "Jewish" should also be a bad word.
If your native language is English, then we disagree. If it isn't, then I think you should accept how it sounds to some of us who are native speakers.
Why don't we just say Juden?
בס"ד
Why don't we just say Juden?
What's that?
בס"ד
Why don't we just say Juden?
What's that?
Jews in German.
Take it easy. I make fun of every group.:::D :::D :::D
Just imagine...crack one on a Jewish forum.
(http://www.rarebeatles.com/sheetmu/aust/smauheyjude.jpg)
Hey Jude!