# Jewish dopers: "A Jew" vs "Jewish" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 14, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219 "2009-12-14T15:43:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/41 "2009-12-15T01:13:44Z")
> [@fandango](#): > > In a related vein, we just had a Sexual Harrasment training. One of the quotes used was of a person complaining that co-workers were calling them “a transgender” instead of just “transgender”–clearly grounds for a sexual harrasment complaint. I never knew this was offensive Calling someone “a transgender” is sort of like calling someone “a gay” – it’s not a noun (not even a plural noun, like “gays”). Even with “transsexual,” which is a noun and an adjective, many people prefer to be referred to as transsexual persons, since it emphasizes their personhood. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/42 "2009-12-15T01:39:49Z")
My own personal baggage makes the distinction for me. When I was a kid, we were one of a small handful of Jewish families in an overwhelmingly Christian suburb. And yes, there was anti-Semitism. There were kids at school who routinely yelled “Hey Jew!” or “Hey you . . . Jew!” (or “Christ killer!”) at us, and even after more than 50 years, the word makes me uncomfortable. And in my case, I’m not even sure in what sense the word “Jewish” applies to me. I’ve been an atheist since the age of 13, and am not even that Jewish culturally. But Judaism is my heritage; I have enormous respect for what my ancestors went through, but I don’t share their beliefs. And please don’t call me “non-practicing;” that implies that I still believe in the religion, but don’t practice any rituals. That’s not me. And linguistically . . . I like the way “Jewish” has a sort of non-absolute, relativistic feel to it, like referring to a color as “bluish.” You can be sort of a Jew, in some respects, but not entirely. And there’s a definite parallel between “Jew” and “homosexual.” I prefer “homosexual” as an adjective, not a noun. It \*describes \*what I am, but doesn’t \*define \*me. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/43 "2009-12-15T01:56:55Z")
> [@sinusoidal](#): > > I am not Jewish, either, so take this with a grain of salt, but it tends to be the anti-Semitics who talk about “the Jews”, so even when someone says “I’m a Jew” I jump a bit. Possibly also the anti-semantics. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/44 "2009-12-15T03:34:42Z")
This reminds me of an ep of H:LotS. I cannot remember the ep name, but it’s from season one. Belzer is one of the cops investigating a beating death, and he’s interviewing a father of a suspect. The guy has a creepy white-supremacist vibe and he’s almost circling Belzer. Dad: You’re a Jew, aren’t you?\* Belzer: I’m Jewish, yes. \ Dad: I could tell. That’s the difference. Sometimes the “a Jew” sounds really creepy. I’m not Jewish, not anything -ist, -ian either. \*This is from memory. I haven’t watched my DVD’s in a while. YMMV. Caveat emptor. etc 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/45 "2009-12-15T03:49:45Z")
Wow. I was totally unaware of this. But, then again, I was, until recently, unaware of someone’s Jewishness being something that was discriminated against. Sure, I’d heard of anti-Semitism, but I thought it was something that happened a long time ago. I still have never heard anyone ever use Jew pejoritively, and probably have trouble understanding them if they were referring to some sort of stereotype. I was similarly unaware of anything about gypsies, and was unaware that being “gypped” had anything to do with prejudice. Same with “going Dutch.” I thought it was a different word–the similarity to the nationality was coincidental. Have I mentioned that I’ve led a sheltered life? ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/46 "2009-12-15T03:52:05Z")
Nearly 30 years ago, Danny Kaye was in a TV movie about Nazis marching in Skokie, Ill. At one point, someone in authority calls Kaye and his associates “Jewish people.” Kaye responds, “You can say ‘Jew.’ It’s not a dirty word.” That exchange is quoted from memory so I’ve probably got it completely wrong, but it made an impression on me and I made it a point never to treat ‘Jew’ like a dirty word. It saddens me a little that even some Jews seem to regard it as one. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to Danny Kaye, but now it seems unnatural to say “Jewish people” in some contexts: “The committee included Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people”? ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/47 "2009-12-15T03:58:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It depends a lot on tone and circumstance. It can be used non-offensively, especially in the collective (“…when the Jews return to their homeland”), but it can also be use crassly, especially when used in the singular (“a jew”) and even more so when used in the 2nd person (“I didn’t know you were you a Jew”). > > There’s no hard rule on it. You just know the crassness when you hear it. I agree, it’s all about context and tone. “The Jews returning to their homeland” isn’t bad, but “Hey, you filthy Jew” obviously is. It just depends on the circumstances as **Dio** said. In my own experience (before I became a Jew), I knew that the word “Jew” wasn’t bad, but I tried to use it less than “Jewish” or “Jewish person.” It just seemed harder and less friendly for some reason. Interestingly enough, now that I am a Jew I don’t have any particular feeling when I use “Jew.” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/48 "2009-12-15T04:06:55Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > People say “Democrat” quite often to refer to members of the Democratic Party, but _Democratic_ in that sense is a proper noun, so a Congressman who is a member is not a _Democrat Congressman_ but a _Democratic Congressman_. So? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/49 "2009-12-15T04:30:38Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > So? So the grammatically improper truncation of the adjective from “Democratic” to “Democrat” is done specifically to avoid attributing the descriptive quality of the word and to denigrate the party name. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/50 "2009-12-15T06:16:49Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > So the grammatically improper truncation of the adjective from “Democratic” to “Democrat” is done specifically to avoid attributing the descriptive quality of the word and to denigrate the party name. I’ve never noticed the “Democratic” description, but I’ve been tuning politics out lately. But the fact that they’re doing this must mean that someone thinks that “Democrat” is a pejorative (\<-Yes, that is the correct spelling…you learn something new every day). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/51 "2009-12-15T07:14:53Z")
> [@sinusoidal](#): > > I was watching the BBC documentary “Ways of Seeing”, and at one point the narrator refers to a “homosexual”. This was incredibly jarring to my modern ears, where homosexual is an adjective rather than a noun. I agree with the previous posters who pointed out that by using “Jew” as a noun rather than the adjective “Jewish”, they are needlessly reduced to this ethnic or religious quality rather than being considered a person. Wait, wait… so if someone calls me “a Spaniard” I’m supposed to take offense? This controversy sounds real strange to me. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/52 "2009-12-15T07:30:53Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Wait, wait… so if someone calls me “a Spaniard” I’m supposed to take offense? Someone calling you “a Spanish” would be more analogous, especially if there was some kind of pejorative history with it. I know your English is basically perfect, so hopefuly you can pick up on the subtlety there. It’s not like “a Jew” is horrifically offensive the way “kike,” or “nigger,” or “spic” would be, by the way. As I said before, it’s more crass (in some tones or contexts) than patently vicious. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/53 "2009-12-15T07:37:34Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Someone calling you “a Spanish” would be more analogous, How about “A Brit?” or even “A Swede?” I just don’t see the outrage inherent in calling someone “A noun” rather than an “adjective.” OTOH… > [@](#): > > especially if there was some kind of pejorative history with it. This I agree with. Which in **my, personal** mind means we should work to \*erase \*the pejorative history rather than to \*perpetuate \*it – light a candle rather than curse the darkness, as it were. ETA: And I agree with **Dio** (and with others above) that, in the end, it’s mostly in how something is said rather than in the exact words that are said, anyway. And I **still** think the more pressing problem is that we need two words – one for the religion, and one for the demographic. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/54 "2009-12-15T08:01:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Someone calling you “a Spanish” would be more analogous, especially if there was some kind of pejorative history with it. Grammatically speaking, that would be like calling me “a Jewish.” > [@Noone\_Special](#): > > Which in **my, personal** mind means we should work to \*erase \*the pejorative history rather than to \*perpetuate \*it – light a candle rather than curse the darkness, as it were. Agreed. > [@](#): > > And I **still** think the more pressing problem is that we need two words – one for the religion, and one for the demographic. Yeah, that’s a pain in the ass. It’s hard enough getting people to distinguish between “from India” and “Hindu,” in your case the notion that someone can be “ethnically not Jewish but religously Jewish” or “ethnically Jewish but religiously (insert religion or lack thereof here)” just makes too many people’s subtlety meters explode. I just wrote a paper on “the Clash of Civilizations,” so I have “pigeonholing” even more in my brain than I usually do. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/55 "2009-12-15T10:18:22Z")
I think looking at it as a strictly grammatical question is misleading. It’s problematic because of its context in the history of antisemitism, not (only) because of its conjugation. I think the example of “Jap” is a good one. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/56 "2009-12-15T10:24:16Z")
So the problem would be people thinking that “Jew,” instead of a complete word, is a derogatory abreviation? Which would link to the “I’d like you to use the complete word” in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/57 "2009-12-15T14:15:45Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I just wrote a paper on “the Clash of Civilizations,” so I have “pigeonholing” even more in my brain than I usually do. [This one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash_of_Civilizations)? I feel your pain. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/58 "2009-12-15T15:24:52Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Grammatically speaking, that would be like calling me “a Jewish.” Yes, but I was making the comparison to “a homosexual,” which is what I thought you were doing with “Spaniard.” ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/59 "2009-12-15T15:56:22Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Wait, wait… so if someone calls me “a Spaniard” I’m supposed to take offense? > > This controversy sounds real strange to me. I think it would be closer to calling a black person a Negro. Sure it’s as accurate as calling someone ‘a Caucasian’ (though when does anyone get called that, outside of academic papers or studies, rather than ‘a Caucasian person’?), and sure it’s pretty arbitrary as an insult, but try saying it aloud. ‘Two Negroes and three Jewesses attended the party thrown by the gays.’ It sounds like something out of an old textbook that’s go a chapter denying evolution. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219/60 "2009-12-15T21:24:26Z")
I think the take-home message is that none of these words is really grammatically or semantically analogous to another, and you have to work out what each one means and how to use and avoid using it according to the context. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-a-jew-vs-jewish/521219.md?page=4)