Gotta agree with Professor Volokh on this one:
What’s with those Jewish people? Why do some people think that it’s more polite to say “Jewish people” than “Jews”? I’ve heard some people say that “Jews” is somehow considered rude, and “Jewish people” is better, but I just don’t see why.
Does anyone know the story here? People don’t generally say “black people,”[*] “Catholic people,” or “female people.” Why should they call us “Jewish people” rather than just “Jews”? I don’t quite get it.
(I’m not saying that “Jewish people” is wrong — if you want to say that, it’s fine with me, though it will sound affected to me and people who think like me, at least until we’re persuaded that “Jews” is somehow bad.)
If you can eliminate a word, do. (I know all too well that’s easier said than done.)
Although maybe I can see a rationale for using the term “Jewish people” rather than “Jews,” insofar as Jews have been dehumanized and vilified for most of their existence as a culture/religion. Maybe some think it’s worth emphasizing the fact that they’re “people” too. Of course, it’s gotta be the rare anti-Semite who’s gonna repent on this ground. (D’oh! I get it: They’re people too. I shall seek leave from my commission as Commandant of the Illinois Nazi Party, and start volunteering for the ADL.)
Now, on to other petty annoyances: Have we stamped out the use of “homicide bomber” yet?
UPDATE: There are several good thoughts in comments regarding why the use of “Jew,” instead of “Jewish people,” may be offensive.
UPDATE 2: I’m convinced: This falls into the category of “innocent in concept, potentially creepy in application.”
von
*I disagree with Professor Volokh on this one: In my experience, people do indeed say “Black people,” perhaps for the same reason (given above) that some also say “Jewish people.”
I have always thought that some people preferred to avoid using the term “Jews” because, at least historically for some, it does come with a lot of negative connotations.
There was a period in this country a while back when Jews tended to use the term “Hebrew” in public institutions. Thus, the Jewish version of the YMCA is the YWHA (how many people even remember the “Christian” in YMCA?).
I sort of thought using “Jewish” was similar– using it somehow distances you from the history of blaming things on “the Jews.”
Just my sense (or .02).
Semantic Accretion. Once there are is a sufficiency of incidents of a term being used pejoratively, regardless of other non-pejorative uses, it will acquire enough negative connotation to make people uncomfortable.
Personally, I’m entirely 100% aware that Jew and Jewish Person denote the exact same thing, but I’m uncomfortable saying ‘Jew’ in ambiguous company (no problem among close friends) because I’ve watched enough WWII movies and read enough anti-semitic hatemongering that there’s a lot of crap loaded into the word.
“Does anyone know the story here? People don’t generally say…”
I’m a little surprised by this. It reflects a real lack of insight on the part of the normally wise Volokh. It’s the same mechanism that has us rotating through negro->colored->black->African American. Each word is, tabula rasa, the same, since they denote the same set of people. But they acquire connotation as racists use them pejoratively, and so we move on to the next one.
Live in New York. Business partner is Jewish. Many many friends are Jewish. Don’t think any of them would ever consider me even remotely anti-Jewish.
I still use “Jewish people” for the reason Doh points out: “it does come with a lot of negative connotations.”
Sad truth is that where I come from (very, very small Jewish population) it’s often used more as a slur than an ethnic or religious description. I’m uncomfortable using the term “Jews” (at least until I’m three of four sentences into a discussion and even then it feels forced, because I recognize what Volokh says is true) because of these connotations I carry with me from whence I come.
Shoot, I grew up in New Jersey, where everybody knows a little Yiddish* – and I try to use “Jewish people”, for the reasons doh and Edward gave. Bad connotations.
Moe
*Moving down to MD was interesting: I’ve gotten an odd look or two for my word choices. 🙂
In my field, we encourage the use of “person first” language in initial contacts: “a person with developmental disabilities,” “a child with autism,” etc. In familiar circles, however, and with people for whom there is no doubt about their hearts and attitudes, the shorthand (“autistic child,” “mentally retarded adult”) is certainly acceptable.
I’m not sure how this applies and my thesis student just arrived, so…there you are. 🙂
I wonder if there are regional differences in the usages being described.
Ugh. That ‘homicide’ bomber nonsense irritates me to no end.
Gentile New Yorker here, Jewish friends, reasonable Yiddish vocab, who uses ‘Jewish people’ like everyone else in this thread.
My sense is that a non-Jew who spends a lot of time talking about ‘Jews’ is likely to be an anti-Semite, because the topic just doesn’t come up that often for the rest of us. For that reason, although I know there’s nothing wrong with the word, the word ‘Jew’ in the mouth of a non-Jew sounds vaguely anti-Semitic, and I tend to shy away from it and rephrase so I can use ‘Jewish’ instead.
Sidereal pretty much captured my own immediate reaction. But one other thing that occurs to me is that “Jew” is a noun, and referring to someone as “a(n) [ethnic noun]” is more derogatory (probably because it suggests that that’s all that matters about that person). I’m much more comfortable saying that someone is Jewish than saying that someone is a Jew. Offhand I can’t think of any ethnic noun that I’d be comfortable using in the phrase “He’s a ____ ” — all I can think of to fill the blank are derogatory terms.
Offhand I can’t think of any ethnic noun that I’d be comfortable using in the phrase “He’s a ____ ” — all I can think of to fill the blank are derogatory terms.
He’s an African American.
He’s a Native American.
He’s Japanese.
He’s a Slovak.
He’s a Russian.
He’s a Welshman.
He’s a Catholic.
He’s a Presbyterian.
He’s a Protestant.
He’s a Buddhist.
He’s gay.
He’s a Republican.
He’s fair-skinned.
He’s a Menonite.
(I guess I can think of quite a few.)
kenB — I can think of several words, although some of them are of the form that it would be hard to convert them to an adjectival form, while others could easily be adjectival. Some examples are: “Spaniard”, “Greek”, “Korean”, “Swede”, “Russian”, “Filipino”, or “Unitarian”.
I think there are some forms that are generally used by people who are not speaking kindly of members of certain groups, and “Jew” falls into that class. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful about how we use the term, and if we can use another form, it’s usually best if we do so.
Well, almost all of these are predicate adjectives, so they don’t really count — you could take out the “a” and they’d still read fine. Only Welshman isn’t adjectival in form, and that’s hardly in common use.
Michael — I’ll give you Swede and Spaniard, but I’d say that it’s more common to say someone is Swedish or Spanish. Also, if someone did have negative feelings about either group, I think he’d be much more likely to refer to one of them with the noun form than with the adjective (cf. “dirty Swede” vs. “dirty Swedish person”).
I’m much more likely to say “He’s black” than “He’s a black”, and ethnic or other labels seem to be generally adjectival:
He’s black.
She’s Irish.
He’s Latino.
I’m Catholic.
Aren’t these more common than the noun forms von mentions?
I shudder at the notion that “He’s a Jew” has negative connotations, but I admit I’m much more likely to use the adjectival form, as with the other descriptors. (Although: if someone is from India, I’d say “She’s Indian”, but if someone is Native American, and I revert to the terminology of my youth, I’d say “She’s an Indian”. I hope that doesn’t imply something bad about my usage.)
Perhaps the problem with “He’s a Jew” is that it’s easy to say it “He’s a *Jew*”, with the natural rhythm putting an emphasis on the last syllable in a way that makes it sound as though I mean to be derogatory.
Well, almost all of these are predicate adjectives, so they don’t really count — you could take out the “a” and they’d still read fine. Only Welshman isn’t adjectival in form, and that’s hardly in common use.
All are being used as nouns here; now, it’s true that some terms have separate adjectival forms (Slovak for Slovakian), it’s equally true that “the Japanese” (n.), for example, is just as proper “Japanese anime” (adj.).
But, I think that there’s a decent point being made on your side, nonetheless.
I think there’s something there — even if you can use a nominal form without being derogatory, one who is trying to be derogatory is much more likely to use a pure noun than an adjectival noun, much less something like [adjective] + “people”. And most or all truly derogative terms for classes of people are noun-only.
Ooh, found a reference from Bartleby:
There’s a related issue in that white people talking about race have a tendency to try to avoid referring to themselves as ‘white’. Just like non-Jews who have occasion to spend a lot of time talking about Jews are disproportionately likely to be anti-Semites, white people who spent a lot of time discussing their own whiteness are disproportionately likely to be racists. As a result, even though there’s not a thing wrong with referring to oneself as ‘white’ if it’s apropos to the conversation, the usage of the term sounds vaguely like something a racist would say, and people will put a fair amount of effort into circumlocutions to avoid using the word as a self-descriptor.
As a single gentile dad who’s child attends a jewish prep school, day in day out the majority of people I converse with are jewish. They use the term “jew”. In that context so do I.
When I forget and talk with a jewish acquantance who may not be aware of my circumstance but is aware of my WASPy appearance,I quickly realize the negative connotation is being attached as the words leave my mouth.
I don’t think you can just run around saying “the blacks” these days.
I’m with Volokh on this. I find nothing offensive in being called a Jew. There is a difference between inherently derogatory terms and neutral words that MAY be used by bigots. I don’t think we ought to let the bigots define usage.
FWIW, I use the phrase “Jew” and “Jewish” (sans “person” or “people”) and I’ve never received any complaints, or even skeptical eyebrows, from my Jewish friends. Of course, my best Jewish friend likes to refer to that category as “tribe” when drunk, so our standards might be a little lower than others’ civilized discourse…
” I don’t think we ought to let the bigots define usage.”
We don’t have a choice. It’s how your brain works.
Although von has conceded the point, I thought I’d offer my $.02.
“Jew” as opposed to “Jewish person” is what my wife (who’s fairly touchy-feely about these things) calls “totalizing language.” That is, using “Jew” reduces a person to nothing more than their Jewishness, rather than addressing them as a person who is Jewish.
Touchy-feeliness aside, I think this is an important point, and another reason why usages like “he’s a Jew” aren’t, as it were, kosher.
Johno,
I don’t agree with this “totalizing” notion. It suggests that any time we use a noun to desrcibe someone we are reducing that person to nothing more than whatever the noun implies. So saying “he is a baseball fan,” “she is a doctor,” etc. denies that the people in question have any other qualities?
Are we really supposed to go around saying things like “Eugene Volokh is a person who teaches law,” rather than “Eugene Volokh is a law professor?”
Kinky Friedman, the Texas, um, Jewish person writer, noticed it best. In Texas, the word Jewish has one syllable as in:
“My doctor, he’s Joosh.”
But the word “Jew” has about 15. As in:
“Ron’s sister, she married a Jeeyaaaooouuuiiouuuuu”
Anyone who’s been to Texas knows this.
What it means, and why he noticed, who knows.
Bernard, your point is well taken. I’m not equipped to say whether/where there is a line dividing your example from mine, but my initial thought is that yes, saying that Eugene Volokh is a law professor does, in fact, reduce his identity to that of a law professor for the purposes of the statement.
As an historian, I often find myself dismissing sociologists with the epithet “oh, no wonder the work’s shoddy. He’s a sociologist.” In truth, I’m guilty of the same process that people go through when they say “oh, but he’s a Joooooooooo.” Like anything else, totalizing language can either be used as shorthand to avoid filling in irrelevent detail (Eugene Volokh is a law professor from Russia with one brother we know of who enjoys Neil Stephenson, blogging, and the restaurants of Cambridge, MAssachusetts), or as a caricature.
Now, as to whether we need to create unweildy constructions to get around this issue, I’m not so sure. Totalizing language makes brevity possible, and I’m perfectly comfortable using it from time to time.
“Oh, that driver’s from Connecticut. No wonder.”
“Oh, he’s a Yankees fan. No wonder.”
“Oh, he’s from Northern California. No wonder.”
As I said, I don’t have any idea where a line is that one crosses from acceptable to unacceptable usages, but, like obscenity, I knows it when I sees it.
No offense to any sociologists, Northern Californians, or Jews reading. Connecticut drivers and Yankees fans can go Cheney themselves.
Good to know that Bernard Yomtov and Eugene Volokh see no need for the circumlocution — if I’m ever in conversation with either of them and have need to refer to the class of people in question, I won’t shrink from using the term “Jews.”
However, the fact that the noun form can have a pejorative sense means that if you’re in a situation where people don’t know you and you don’t know them, and you want to be careful not to offend, the adjective + “people” is the safer choice.
I think Johno gets at something when he says,
“totalizing language can either be used as shorthand to avoid filling in irrelevent detail (Eugene Volokh is a law professor from Russia with one brother we know of who enjoys Neil Stephenson, blogging, and the restaurants of Cambridge, MAssachusetts), or as a caricature.”
In other words, context matters.
“Why doesn’t Jacob go to church on Sunday?”
“He’s a Jew.”
“Why is Jacob so concerned with money?”
“He’s a Jew.”
The same statement, but neutral in one case, derogatory in the other. Would things really change if the answer to both questions were, “He is Jewish,” or “He is a Jewish person?”
Also, the totalization claim seems to apply not just to nouns but to any description that doesn’t use the “person” construction. “He is tall.” “She is rich.” And it gets more awkward when you start adding qualifiers. “Jacob is an Orthodox Jew, ” vs. “Jacob is a person who practices Orthodox Judaism.”
Isn’t it a given that someone we are making statements about is in fact a person?
Bernard, nice parry, and well said on all counts. Context is key, and I wish I’d put it so well myself. My only question is as to your last statement: “Isn’t it a given that someone we are making statements about is in fact a person?”
I don’t think so. Without getting too fuzzyheaded and PoMo about it, the cultural history stuff I do touches on the process of “othering.” As the term suggests, it describes the process by which people set themselves or their community apart from, erm, others. But, at the far end of that spectrum is the Dark Pit Of The Other, where we find “Jew,” “lawyer,” “Palestinian,” “the poor” being used as shorthand for “subhuman.”
Semantically, yes, I think it’s true that the word “lawyer” automatically refers to a human being. However, once again, context is everything, and I would argue that not all usages construe “lawyer” (or any epithet you care to use) and “full human being with rights/intelligence/dignity” as being mutually dependent sets.
Now that I’ve flung this discussion off the deck into the manky seas of theory and semantics, I’m going to run away fast shouting apologies as I flee.