I’ve read enough novels from that era and historical works to know that “Jewess” was not exactly a neutral term. It often reflected disdain and was used in a bigoted context in numerous instances.
Maybe the OP’s relative was a completely non-bigoted person some of whose best friends were Jews. 
In any case, family histories these days seem willing to air everything, warts and all. The blog would probably be incomplete without this mini-revelation.
Is your blog aimed at adults? If so, give them credit for having enough sense to not get their drawers in a bundle over the outdated language in a scanned copy of a nearly 100 year old document. If your blog includes an audience of children, go ahead and comment as a teaching moment. By all means, don’t eliminate it from your family’s history.
Actually, there is a movement to avoid the use of female-specific words where they aren’t relevant, ie, “Flight Attendant” is the preferred nomenclature, as they can be male or female and “steward” never fell into favor for the male kind. Waiter and Heir and even Actor are now used to apply to males and females. Just as it is no longer considered necessary to distinguish that your Lawyer, Doctor or Veterinarian is a woman by affixing “woman” or “female” or “lady” in front.
Others of your examples, such as seamstress, lack a male variant, because the job described is so universally associated with females, the male variant is no longer in use. (you go to a tailor, not a seamster, and I’ve never heard of a tailoress). Mistress is not in need of change as being of the female gender, and possession of a vagina, is not only relevant to the position, it’s a key qualification! I’d like to see “catamite” come back though. Boytoy is so vulgar. LOL.
Jewess is an obsolete word, one I strongly associate with anti-semiitic movements, however, it’s not offensive when reported in its historical context.
It’s written, posted and I left the quote intact. Thanks for the feedback, all.
Wow, really? I’ll just leave it at you’re completely wrong and I would suggest never calling a Jewish woman a “Jewess”.
That said, in the context of the OP. History is history. Publish the letters as they were written. Maybe add a note saying the language of the time may be unconformable for some readers.
My sense is that “Jew” became a fraught word by at least the 1970s, said with caution and only when absolutely necessary. Whether reasonably or not, there was an assumption - implication? - of anti-semitism to describe someone with the term, even if they were a rabbi. I also concur that the archaic nature of “Jewess” carries the implication that the speaker’s attitudes might not be completely up to date.
In a weird coincidence, last week while going down several rat holes in the Café Society thread about “who the hell is that guy in the picture?”, I came across some free news archives and found myself reading through a lot of historically interesting old newspapers. One of them was a magazine called “The American Jewess”, published in 1895-1899 by Rosa Sonnenschein:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?page=browse;c=amjewess
I realize it’s a little tangential to this discussion, but if you’re interested in some historical place-and-time reading, it’s very interesting.
So are terms like Frenchwomen, Irishwoman, or Dutchwoman offensive?
I would find it more offensive to edit the letter to sooth PC sensibilities. Share an image of the letter and let it speak for itself.
Part of the reason for digging up historical documents is to see how times have changed. Ever find an old newspaper or catalog? They are fascinating.
I’ve mostly heard or seen the word spoken by Nazis in fiction so it has an offensive ring to it to me. It doesn’t sound offensive in the context of something written 80 years ago though, and anyone reading it ought to understand that. If you think it’s problematic for those who will read this then add a footnote explaining the term and it’s usage.
As someone who can fairly be termed a Jewess, I don’t have a problem with it, but it does sound funny, because we don’t use it anymore.
The OP has posted, and I think it’s fine he left everything intact. I was going to suggest that if he was really uncomfortable, he could follow the word with “[sic],” so that readers knew for certain the word was that way in the original.
From my personal perspective, yes, it is offensive only in that we are moving toward gender-neutral language, and not because it’s Jewish. It does sound odd, though, and if someone uses it today, you suspect them of trying to call inordinate attention to a woman’s Jewishness, for some reason, and not a good one. Someone who would do this probably has a special way of referring to men who are Jewish if he needs to, as well.
Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!
I’m offended by the word “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn. Let’s censor it.
I was avoiding coming right out and saying that, but that’s what it comes down to. I don’t see the need to sanitize the past, in fact I thing there’s a need not to sanitize the past.
Of course, but none of these refer to a person’s ethnicity, and in English they’ve only been applied in these two ethnicities (as far as I can tell), so you can’t equate them. They’re marked lexicon.
You laugh but a few years ago someone actually rewrote “Huck Finn” replacing the word “nigger” with “slave”. It raised a huge uproar.
I agree, and I think you put it well.
There are words (and I believe “Negro” is a good example) that aren’t inherently offensive, but because of contexts and connotations they’ve been used in, they’ve accumulated a layer of offensiveness over the years. So I would judge someone for using such a word today quite differently than I would judge someone who used the word decades (or even centuries) ago.
I don’t think one person in this thread has said to censor it in the historical letters. The debate is whether it is offensive right now. The answer is it is.
I am reasonably sure a person who would refer to someone as a “Jewess” in 2014 (in a non ironic way) also believes we have horns under our hair and cause all the wars in the world.
Just last week there was a bit of a kerfuffle here in Ireland when a canvasser for Fianna Fáil referred to the Jewishness of a politician and even apparently used the term Jewess. :smack: