Over the years, I’ve worked in a number of different hospitals. In all of them I’ve noted that in the “personal information” section of patients’ charts, under the category of ‘religion’, people may be identified as “Hebrew”, but not Jewish. Why is this? Is “Hebrew” really a synonym for Jewish? In my naïveté, the use of the former term to denote a religion seems rather contrived, possibly even anti-semetic in origin.
Ask the Rabbi: Who is a Hebrew? and Ask the Rabbi: Who is a Jew? may answer part of your question. The two words are not exactly synonymous. As an ethnic identifier, “Hebrew” seems to be somewhat more inclusive, since Abraham was a Hebrew. Jews are strictly speaking the descendants of Judah, one of Abraham’s great-grandsons. In common use, “Jew” seems to be more inclusive, referring to the descendants of those Israelites (descendants of Abraham’s grandson Jacob) who remained in the Southern Kingdom (also called Judah, and dominated by that tribe) when much of the population of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) was deported by the Assyrians.
“Jewish” can refer to either ethnicity or religion (the two don’t always go together). It then seems reasonable to me to use “Hebrew” as the ethnic identification and “Jewish” as the religious one. Why the hospitals use “Hebrew” for the religious designation, I don’t know. It seems backwards to me.
I don’t know why historically there has been a reluctance to say “Jew” and people come up with euphemisms for it. I remember as a kid we were given the idea that it’s not quite nice to say “Jew” and you have to substitute “Jewish person.” 
In French class I was told that the French avoid saying “juif” and instead you’re supposed to say “isréalite.”
Possibly because bigots have been spitting out the word “Jew” as a pergorative for centuries now that the word seems closely associated with ethnic slurs. It always gives me pause when I say it. However, none of my Jewish friends appear to have any such reluctance.
– Beruang
KarlGauss, were all those hospitals in Canada? Any particular province?
I’m just wondering if it is a feature of Canadian bureaucratese (or a hold-over from some ancient British terminology). In the U.S., I have never encountered the situation you describe. In fact, the majority (but by no means all) of the references to Jews in the U.S. in the 20th/21st century that I have encountered, where the word Hebrew was used, were in situations where either the author was displaying a specific prejudice against Jews or where a particular religious spokesman was making some esoteric point. (Hebrew in an historic context has not carried the same stigma, in my experience.)
KarlGauss writes, <<people may be identified as “Hebrew”, but not Jewish. Why is this?>>
Two of my friends are from Jewish religious families but not religious in their own right. Neither eats pork or feels comfortable in Christian services, but they don’t follow other Jewish dietary laws. Perhaps there’s a group of people like my friends who are Jewish by ethnicity, follow some customs of Judaism, but don’t follow all of them or expect Jewish spiritual help when in need of a chaplain. I might guess that “Hebrew” might be a label noting that, and the less frequent “Jew” or “Jewish” might denote someone who followed stricter rules out of their personal faith.
Corr
Thanks all.
Tom: I agree. The term “Hebrew” seems to me to be more likely to have an anti-semetic connotation. I am surprised to see that it seems to be the term of choice for hospital use in Canada. I find it interesting that you wonder whether it may have its origin with the British. I have always felt that it may. In fact, whenever I see it, I have an image of some red-faced Englishman sneering “Ah, Hebrew. One of the chosen. I see”.
I have worked in Alberta and Ontario. The usage was the same.
British Jew respondent:
The hypocrisy of your comment, accusing some of being anti-Semitic in the use of Hebrew, then stereotyping a British person (British people). A non-Jewish friend of mine said he felt uneasy using the word Jew, as mentioned previously as a slur. The use of the word Jew throughout the ages was associated with the persecution of a race (it’s not just a religion), in which people cannot through a simple change of beliefs.
E.g. A black person who changes from Christianity to Islam. A Jew who believes Jesus was the Messiah.
I was wrong and I apologize.
The reason I phrased my response to Tom the way I did was based on personal experience, and had to do with British expatriates and their descendants in Canada, and not the British per se. You see, until recently, people of British descent occupied pretty well all the positions of power in Canada. This was especially so in Medicine where explicit quotas were placed on Jews (and others for all I know). The hospitals and medical schools were the strict purview of men of British heritage (there were few women allowed regardless of ethnicity).
So, my comment about the “sneering Englishman” was something from the past. It was once very real. It is no longer the case and I apologize if I made it sound so.
I can tell you from extensive Jewish genealogical research in America, that it is not at all uncommon to find the religion, or even nationality of Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century as Hebrew. This is on official forms such as census records and nationalization records. While there might have been some antisemitic basis for this nomenclature, a number of Jewish organizations from around that time used Hebrew instead of Jewish (Hebrew College, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, etc.)
While it is much less common today, it could be a holdover from those times.
You can find more about this here: http://www.jewishgen.org