Is the OPs question that much different than, ‘…a Black was ahead of me in line today…’, which would be sketch.
Jewish person, black person are different somehow.
That’s why I said “historical contexts.”
Some organizations that were named when that was considered the most polite word haven’t changed their names. I’d also consider that a historical context, even though the specific names are still in current use.
True. But outside of an appropriate historical context, a specific request, or as now discussing the word itself, I wouldn’t use it.
I have to ask… where exactly did you live? Because I’ve been here most of my life, and I’ve never had anyone, Arab or otherwise, say anything like that to me.
I’ll PM you where I live - but it wasn’t so much running into people on the street or anything. My dad was a contractor in Israel, most of his employees were Arab Israelis (for the most part - sometimes they were from the Territories); the people he employed were always nice enough to us, but people in the peripherals were not always.
For example, I remember driving to work with my dad (I worked holidays) and on our way he called his worker to let him know we are on our way to pick him up. His kid picked up the phone. We tell him we want to speak to his dad; he puts down the phone and shouts (so we can still hear him), “Dad, Yahud on the phone!”
The tone he used made it pretty clear how he felt about The Jew on the phone. So maybe that’s why I’ve got a bad association with that word.
There are a couple other stories - but yeah, they didn’t involve anyone where I lived (which was a very, very small town), or Arab Israelis I’d run into in the city or something. They involved friends or relatives of people my dad worked with.
Too late to add - but this was my limited experience, as a kid living in Israel, who living in a small town so didn’t interact with nearly as many Arab Israelis as someone in a larger city would; at the same time, I interacted with many more Arab Palestinians then most Israeli kids (who aren’t in Jerusalem or on a border town or something) do, because of my dad’s job and because I often spent weekends or holidays working with him.
I’m not saying Arabs use “Yahud” exclusively as a slur; I’m not even saying how common it is, because I certainly left Israel too early to get a proper perspective on this.
I’m just saying, when I came to America and hear people use both Jew and Jewish, in my mind one got translated as “Yehudi”, the Hebrew word for Jewish and also Jew, while Jew got translated as “Yahud”, which i associated with dislike of Jews.
Mileage may vary!
“Yahud” is not singular. So people were saying “The Jews are on the phone” like “The Man is on the phone”, “The pigs are on the phone”?
That’s what I mean; how does one distinguish “Jew” and “Jewish” in the Arabic language any more than in Hebrew? Are you talking about case endings?
If you just mean that you have certain associations with Arabs talking about Jews or Judaism, on one hand I understand what you are saying, but on the other hand it is not good to read anything more general into the use of an uncontroversial word, and also IME many Jews speak Arabic themselves.
I’m not talking about any objective grammatical realities but about the subjective feeling I have. I’m not saying “Yahud” has a meaning that’s closer to Jew than Jewish, but (perhaps because they sound alike) I just get the slightest tinge of negative association there.
That doesn’t happen when someone speaking Arabic uses the word “Yahud” in other contexts mind you. But it’s the thing I think of when I heat someone speaking English use “Jew”, unless they are Jewish, in which case my mental association is Chabad = old fashioned
I am very much not Chabad.
Nor am I, but everyone has their own history and their own associations.
Hmmm…
“We have an emergency legal case, do you know anyone who is willing to work on a Sunday?”
“Yeah, there’s this Jewish lawyer I know - as long as it’s after sundown on Saturday night he’s good to go. He’ll take a Sunday case.”
Which is a situation where someone’s culture/practice of religion - sabbath is not Sunday, willing to work that day - actually is relevant. But that probably doesn’t come up very often.
Maybe if you’re Larry David?
But if it was from Mel Gibson?
Cute, but I went to a Catholic elementary school, and one of my classmates was Jewish. His parents thought he’d get a better education at this school.
The guy in the clip readily admits he is not Catholic either. He says he is Swedish, i.e., Lutheran!
But also claimed that his school wouldn’t admit non-Catholics. Not the the most coherent bit.
Should watch it again, but I think he only said they wouldn’t admit Jews (!!)
You might be right.
FWIW: my father went to a Catholic college, 1930’s – because most other colleges in the USA wouldn’t admit Jews.
Historical example of how not to use the term “Jew” in a discussion:
By the way, of all Paul_in_Saudi’s threads pertaining to Jews and Israel, this is the bestest one since “The One-State Solution”.