How exactly should a discussion about language usage play out other than by discussing actual uses of the language?
I retract because I made an absolute statement. I was referring to the part after my initial post where we assumed that “Jewish lawyer” would be somehow relevant, which is almost never, and everyone after that said that “Jew lawyer” would just be “weird,” again, in those direct statements where the race of the lawyer is relevant.
I have zero problems with any discussion playing out. I have a problem with once a non-representative person or people making a statement and then that is the rule, end of discussion, and perhaps new board policy.
I mean, I am a white guy from Appalachia. Was I appointed to speak for all white men from Appalachia? Why should my opinion control anything? I am one data point for sure, but I don’t get to decree things for the entire region.
I could imagine “he’s a good Jewish lawyer” being used by an approving parent, in reference to their child’s boyfriend/fiance/husband: They approve of the fact that he’s Jewish (i.e., their child is marrying within the faith), and they also approve of the fact that he has a high-status and high-paying job. It’s still maybe a bit of an old-fashioned attitude, but I don’t think that would be derogatory or offensive.
But yeah, that’s one very specific context. In most other contexts, either his profession would be relevant but not his religion (“He’s a good lawyer” means you want to hire him when you have legal troubles), or his religion would be relevant but not his profession (“He’s a good Jew” means you don’t want to serve him pork).
But I can’t think of any context at all where “he’s a good Jew lawyer” would be appropriate. If I really squint hard and give the maximum possible benefit of the doubt, I can maybe parse that as meaning that he’s good at interpreting and arguing the interpretation of Jewish law, but even that would be much better expressed as something like “a good Talmudic lawyer”, or “good rabbinical lawyer”.
In practice, the phrases “good Jew lawyer” would always, and “good Jewish lawyer” almost always, indicate that he’s a lawyer with shady or unsavory habits and practices that the speaker associates with Jews, and the “good” part is only that he uses that shadiness on behalf of his client.
Here’s a better example to discuss, with no (I hope) distracting “why would anyone be specifying their religion” aspect:
“All of the Jewish students objected to the pro-Nazi lesson.”
“All of the Jew students objected to the pro-Nazi lesson.”
There is no question that the second is not acceptable usage.
I have to admit that I find “Jewish person” a bit strange sounding. To me, the polite, non-awkward options are “a Jew” or “Jewish.” Not “Jewish person.” My spouse is a Jew; my spouse is Jewish. Different parts of speech, same meaning. “My spouse is a Jewish person” sounds more euphemistic.
If we’re discussing the linguistic patterns of white men from Appalachia, you’re very likely going to be the authority in the thread and if I want to argue with your experiences in GD I’d better have other primary source data to back it up.
If we’re discussing antisemitic language in America and a bunch of Jews from different parts of the country tell you the same thing about a particular construction, they are the experiential voices in the thread.
Because language is experiential. You can argue about what you think usage should be, but language doesn’t care what people think.
Is it weird that “Jew lawyer” is way worse than “Jewish lawyer?” Yeah - it’s kind of weird when you think about it. But that’s the way it shook out.
It’s kind of like the “OK” hand gesture getting hijacked into a racist symbol. We can accept that it was started by trolls and that its roots are purely synthetic, but that doesn’t change the fact that its actual, real-world usage has become legitimately racist. That may offend our sensibilities, but that’s the way it is now. We can’t argue it back into an innocuous gesture.
I’m a little curious, do you remember exactly what they said? Did they really refer to you that way to your face, like “The hardware store is down the block and on the right, Jew” ?
It never ceases to amaze me when people start making extremely offensive comments about Jews, women, immigrants, Asians, Muslims, Arabs, homosexuals, blacks, you name it, without a trace of embarrassment or concern about whether any participants in the conversation belong to the group in question. Obviously they don’t think they are saying anything incorrect; if they asked you if you were Jewish and you replied in the affirmative, I’m surprised they did not conclude with, “Then you know what I’m talking about.”
I might say (indeed, I’m pretty sure I have said) something like: “We shouldn’t demand that they respond to discovery requests (or seek to schedule a hearing or something) on [a certain week in September], because the other side is represented by Jewish lawyers.”
Sure, you could phrase it differently (“opposing counsel are Jews or Jewish”), but I’m not sure you would really need to. But, “the other side is represented by Jew lawyers” seems derogatory, even though you’re not using “Jew lawyers” in its conventionally derogatory fashion.
Jews might say that. A lot of them are anti-semites.
If i heard someone talking about the Jewish lawyer, i would assume they felt it relevant that the lawyer was Jewish. Maybe they are a little racist and are uncomfortable with Jews. Maybe they have a more concrete reason, like avoiding time-sensitive demands during the Jewish holiday. But that’s how i hear that phrase.
If i heard someone take about the Jew lawyer, i would assume they dislikes Jews, and aren’t embarrassed to share that. And I’d need really strong evidence that they used that phrase for some other reason to change my a priori.
(Or they’re your mother and really want you to consider marrying that lawyer.)
This is dated, but there was a feeling Jewish Lawyers and Jewish Doctors were better. Not shady or anything else. It was bigoted but in a mostly positive way. Maybe that was a NYC thing.
Like the blanket statement, “Asians are good at math”. Bigoted but meant to be a positive statement.
Somewhat similarly, I could imagine a Jewish person who specifically wants a Jewish lawyer because they don’t think a gentile lawyer would represent them fairly or competently. Which is prejudiced, but not against the lawyer.
For that matter, a synagogue seeking a religious exemption from a government regulation would be justified in looking for a lawyer who understood the intricacies Jewish law as well as secular law.
Archie Bunker was gleeful about getting a Jewish lawyer as I recall.
The OP is easy to answer.
“Hey, Jew!” or “That’s so typical of a Jew” = offensive.
“He’s a Jew” = OK, but better stated as “He’s an M.O.T.” 
What is an M.O.T?
And whatever it is, it isn’t better stated than “He’s a Jew”; because there’s nothing wrong with “He’s a Jew”, presuming that the statement’s relevant.
Member Of the Tribe
I was an adult before I understood that phrase, mainly because I always misheard it. It’s possible that the people I heard say it didn’t enunciate very clearly, but whenever I heard it as a child, I thought it was “chewed down.”
I’ve run into at least one person who had just plain never thought about it. He was very apologetic when I pointed it out, and I never heard him use it again.
As I think somebody else mentioned being true of them, I was well past an adult when I found out that “gyp” had anything to do with “Gypsy” (which is itself best avoided, though I didn’t find that out until yet later). I’m not at all sure I realised it had the same spelling.
It was actually when I first intended to use the word “gypped” in writing, and thought about how it was spelled that it occurred to me that it might be a slur. I haven’t used it since. But yeah, I’m embarrassed at how old I was when I made that realization.
I suppose it’s not a word I used much after my childhood, or it might have occurred to me earlier.
I don’t really care (with one exception) if you call me Jewish or a Jew.
The one exception was a Black Hebrew who said I was “Jewish but not a Jew”
Given my choice, I prefer to be referred to as Jewlicious.