Talk:Jew

Etymology

Doesn't the Hebrew root יהודי derive from יהודה ? 71.66.97.228 04:18, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

RFD discussion

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Similar situation to the above rfd: two senses ("An adherent of Judaism." and "A person who claims a cultural or ancestral connection to the Jewish people") which appear to be the same sense, but there is dispute over what falls into the category. --Yair rand (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hasn't this come up in discussion before? That Jewish can refer to the Jewish faith, but also an ethnic group. Therefore (if true) there are at least two definitions, as someone of Jewish descent might not be of the Jewish religion. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:55, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a lot more complicated than that, see w:Who is a Jew? for some information. There are many opinions on what makes someone a Jew, but it does not make them separate senses. --Yair rand (talk) 22:59, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if someone who doesn't practice Judaism can be called a Jew and that sense is citable, I can't see how to delete it. Or, just have one rather long definition with the word or appearing in it a lot. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

We can't (and shouldn't) document every opinion, one of usage, or figurative use of every word. The problem comes on deciding how similar to two sense have to be before we merge them, and decide that they're really just two sides of the same definition. That's why we need an RFD page (one reason among many). I still think we should keep this. No doubt Msh210 and Ruakh will be much more informed than I am. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

These are clearly distinct senses from a simple reading. Religion is rarely exactly equal to cultural or ethnic identity and the word is used to cover both. We can and should consider every sense in other comprehensive dictionaries as candidates for inclusion here. MWOnline has 4 senses, one with 2 subsenses. Deletion of clearly different senses has not been supported by any argument except an unsupported assertion that the two are the same in this case. DCDuring TALK 23:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I’m reminded of an Irish joke: A man walks through the streets of Belfast late at night, when he feels a barrel of a gun at his back. The gunman’s voice snarls, “All right, mister, what are you, Catholic or Protestant?” The man replies, “Neither, I’m an atheist.” The terrorist snaps back, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?” — Robin 04:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Keep. The two senses in question are Jew (“one whose relationship to Judaism is that of a Christian to Christianity”) and Jew (“one whose relationship to the Jews is that of an Italian to the Italians”). Obviously they're closely related, and not always distinguished; but that does not make them a single sense. —Ruakh_TALK 01:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

And what of what is probably the most common usage, one whose relationship to those who have the relation to Judaism like that of a Christian to Christianity is that of an Italian to the Italians, i.e. one who is (matrilineally) descended from one who holds the religion of Judaism? --Yair rand (talk) 02:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That is the second sense. If I were to move to Italy today, and in two generations my grandchildren were to come back to the U.S., they would be Italians and their children would be Italian-Americans, even if they didn't have a single Italian great-grandparent. Ethnic groups are not rigid. —Ruakh_TALK 02:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Which comes back to one of the senses being redundant. If the second sense is entirely inclusive of the first sense, how can they both be independent senses? --Yair rand (talk) 04:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that the definitions of ethnic groups are negotiable does not make someone who is a practicing Jew necessarily an ethnic Jew. Nor would the fact that senses overlap, or even that one is entirely inclusive of another, mean that they are not distinct senses. By definition all "Americans" (people from the United States) are also "Americans" (people from the Americas), but there is still an important distinction. Even if a Jew is a Jew according to both senses of the word, it does not mean that the word is always meant that when used in reference to them. Consider the sentence "He is a good Jew," where the intended meaning is that he is a conscientious practitioner of the religion, and the referent's ethnicity or identity is not being invoked at all. Dominic·t 06:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Kept, bit of an odd nomination. As far as I can see the nominator could have tagged either or even both of the senses with rfd-redundant. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Jews as a religion

Since almost all jews are atheist (Albert Einstein, Woody Allen and so on) to give the definition of jews based on religion is at least odd. — This unsigned comment was added by Aufels (talk • contribs).

Doesn’t the second definition cover that? — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 18:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

ok, I had missed that sorry

Aligned with aristocrats

In the derogatory meaning there is also the European usage of the term "jews" to refer to aristocrats, or their serfs who might have been Jewish, given two basic realities of extortion upon the European Jews to conform to the European aristocratic system, and to an assertion of Jews belonging to an aristocratic ideology, due to their honor for prophet kings long predating democracy. -Inowen (talk) 05:01, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Possibly; where did you see it? Can you find examples in print that aren't covered by our existing definitions? Equinox ◑ 05:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

List of slurs?

Is there any need to provide a long list of slurs after the definition of "Jew"? Wouldn't this be more appropriate in its own page? I don't see any other entries on Wiktionary that have a comparable list following the definition. If these were neutrally valenced synonyms, it would be a different matter, but almost all of them are extremely derogatory. 2600:1700:FE10:4430:9145:BEED:AD09:28B0 23:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Moving it to its own page is a good enough suggestion; I have offloaded it to the Thesaurus: namspace, as I see we also do with Thesaurus:Muslim. (Hyponyms could also be moved, I reckon.) - -sche (discuss) 17:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

RFD discussion above

I agree with merging the definitions. Jews are an ethnoreligious group; you cannot be a practicing Jew without also being an ethnic Jew. The definition of Yazidi lists them as a Kurdish people whose religion is Yazidism, and the definition of "Jew" should say something similar, e.g.

1. A member of an ethnoreligious group tracing its origins to the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the Southern Levant, whose original language was Hebrew and whose religion is Judaism.

פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 11:27, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

We're not interested in your religious gatekeeping, thanks. Theknightwho (talk) 01:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

White Supremacist - Quotations

Under the Verb - Jew (third-person singular simple present Jews, present participle Jewing, simple past and past participle Jewed) (chiefly offensive, transitive) To make (more) Jewish.

The following “quotation” is used as reference:

2014 March 15, rebcar...@gmail.com, “Jewing of South Africa”, in soc.culture.israel‎[2]:
In both cases, the Jews used Blacks as political
weapons to wreck healthy White countries.

The quotation above references a link to a white supremacist usenet article that in turn links to https://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/. The Vanguard News Network titles its newsletter with the phrase “No Jews. Just Right.” The newsletter is full of anti-Semitic, racist content.

The author of the usenet article uses a picture of Adolph Hitler as an identifier image.

By allowing such quotations, Wiktionary is serving as an amplifier for vile hate speech and is complicit in the resulting harm caused by such speech. 2600:4040:A007:C600:28F9:1ADB:34BF:1095 05:24, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

requesting temporary unlocking of the article

I need to delete "patrilineal Jew" from the list of derived terms, since it was entered into RFD and ultimately deleted. Also, I need to enter "Jewz" (an Internet slang term) as one of its plural forms. newfiles (talk) 21:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

removed (and added, respectively). - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. Should "Jewz" though be included in the noun and its plural forms section or the derived terms section? newfiles (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2024 (UTC)