Opuscula Some Jewish Pejoratives1

Am HaAretz

Goy

Shiksah and Shagetz (y)

Swartz in all its variations

Used by a Jew in the 20th and 21st centuries, all of the above are pejoratives.

Two are direct from Hebrew, the others via Yiddish.
But not all used to be (pejoratives).

Anyone who has spent time with the Talmuds (Bavil and Yerusalmi) should know that “am ha’aretz” once referred to ruling committees, vads (vadim).

Given the literal meaning of the word, People (am) of the (ha) land (aretz) it is probably that the people known as “Am HaAretz” were landed gentry.

According to mi yodeya², In Tana'ch, the term "am ha'aretz" meant either "the tribal counsel" as we see when Abraham wanted to purchase the Cave of Machpela, he bowed down to the "am ha'aretz". It also meant "the nation" or "people of the land" as we see this term used in Yeshayahu among other places in Tana"ch. In the mishnah and gemarah (Avot, for example), the term "am ha'aretz" means "ignoramus".

How did the meaning change?

I might speculate that when Ezra brought Jews back from Bavil he found a people who were, in the eyes of the returnees, “beneath them.”

This is human nature; usually new immigrants are considered the “unwashed masses.” This was true of the established Sefardim (Spanish/Portuguese Jews) when the German Jews first arrived on America’s shores, and of the Germans who were embarrassed by the shtetel Jews who arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s from eastern Europe.

Goy is used, repeatedly in the Torah to mean “nation.”

It is a Hebrew word, not a Yiddish word, albeit Ashkenazi Jews who know zero Hebrew use it freely in its negative sense.

HaShem promised Abram (Genesis 12 2) “I will make of thee “a great nation” — אעשך לגוי גדול .

All translations to English are from the Hertz/Soncino humash unless otherwise noted.

In Genesis (21 13) HaShem tells Abraham that He also will make Ismael “a great nation” — וגם בן האמה לגוי אשימנו .

Abraham was not the only patriarch told he would be a father to a great nation.

HaShem told Jacob/Israel (Genesis 46 3) אל-תירא מרדה מצרימה כי-לגוי גדול אשימך שם — “fear not to go down into Egypt ; for I will make of thee a great nation.”

In Isaiah (43 9) we read “כל הגוים נקבצו” — “All the nations are gathered...”

In the Pesach hagadah, we recite “Pour out Your fury on the nations [goyim] that do not know You.”. (When raising the Cup of Elijah just before Hallel in a traditional hagadah.)

Perhaps the context — the nations [goyim] that do not know You — that was added to the story in the so-called Middle Ages³ put the term “goy” in a (justifiably) negative connotation.

There IS a word (or several) in Hebrew to identify a person as a non-Jew: the word: nokar (m)/nokaret (f)/nokarim (p) — נוכר\נוכרת\נוכרים. The word literally means “foreigner” or “not one of us."

Nokar, because it is Hebrew and less known to European Jews, never took on the pejorative status of “goy.”

Cushie never was a pejorative until American liberals descended on Israel around 2005.

Ethiopian Jewish tradition identifies the land of Cush with their land of origin, but there are other ancient traditions that identify Cush with different locations in the ancient world.⁴

In any event, dark skinned Jews were known as “Cushim” before American liberals determined “Chushie” was not politically correct. To be politically correct, the Americans contend, black Jews must be called “she’hor’im” — “blacks.

שחור = black, but not to be confused with שיכור = drunk.

Was Malkat Sheba a Cushite? If she was, that certainly did not bother David, except perhaps when she returned to her own country.

Swartzah/Swartzer are Yiddish for a black person. It should NOT be a pejorative, but its use, almost always with a negative or condescending connotation, makes it so.

Perhaps the American liberals who insist on calling Cushim “she’hor’im” are thinking “swartzah” and “swartzer” but can’t admit it even unto themselves.

I recall a sweet young thing in 9th grade chorus who whispered into my ear “Swartz means black.” Swartz, German for black, was borrowed by the Yiddish-speaking Jews. I could not bring myself to call her “Carol Cushie” or “Carol Sha’hor.” Not even “Carol Black.” (I’m certain Ms. Swartz from my 9th grade chorus class long ago changed her name under the huppa. Mazel tov.)

Shiksah and Shagetz are Yiddish terms for nokarim – shiksah for females and shagetz for males. Unfortunately, too many non-Yiddish-speaking Jews have adopted the pejoratives, especially when their son or daughter is entranced by a non-Jew.

Hebrew is replete with pejoratives, but the pejoratives are not, unlike English, obscene. How can a word be obscene if it appears in the Torah?

That doesn’t mean casting aspersions on a person’s forebears won’t result in a bloody nose, or worse, but at least the person isn’t being obscene or profane.

Sources

1. Pejorative: https://tinyurl.com/ydb6l39o

2. Am HaAretz: https://tinyurl.com/r2zwfae

3. Goy in Hagadah: https://tinyurl.com/yxyf47rv

4. Cush: https://tinyurl.com/uq658gj

עינים להם ולא יראו * אזנים להם ולא יאזנו

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
 

Jewish Pejoratives

Opuscula Anti-Semitism Is many things To many people

EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT CONSTITUTES “ANTI-SEMITISM.”

Yes ◻     No ◻

Perhaps the statement should be: Everyone THINKS they know what constitutes “anti-Semitism.”

IS IT “ANTI-SEMITIC” to criticize Israel? Israeli Jews do it all the time, even so-called “orthodox” Jews have issues with modern Israel and its government.

As with most criticisms, it is wise to have an answer to a situation other than “throw out the bast*rds.

Is it “anti-Semitic to criticize a Jew?

Jews criticize Jews all the time. If you consider Bernie Sanders a Jew, then politically conservative Jews almost constantly criticize the man. Politically conservative Jews are quick to criticize politically liberal Jews, i.e., Democrats. Most do NOT, however, refer to the others as “nazis” or racists, but it has been known to be said by leftists, both Jewish and non-Jewish..

Jews are not exactly xeonophobic, but sometimes . . .

Black hats look with disdain on clean-shaven and kippa-less Jews who look at bearded, kippa-wearing and tzit-tzit dangling Jews as “extremists.”

There ARE some crazies among us — the harideem who stand along a roadside on Shabat and throw rocks at passing vehicles and those who strung a chain across a major Bnai Brak thoroughfare sans warning; the chain decapitated a scooter driver on Shabat.

These are Muslim tactics and they are rare among most Jews in Israel and elsewhere.

There is much to criticize in Israel. Not all Jews are treated fairly; nor are all Israeli Arabs.

Legal immigrant integration

New legal immigrants are not as quickly integrated into society as possible; read: As quickly as leftists would like.

To be fair — but who wants to be fair? — there are new immigrant integration issues everywhere. But what other country makes as much of an effort to integrate legal immigrants as Israel? (Personal experience.)¹

Netanyahu seems, or perhaps now “seemed,” to be “King for Life,” taking cabinet positions (“portfolios”) for himself if the incumbent displeased him.

Is criticizing Netanyahu either anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or even anti-Likud? Today’s Likud is hardly Begin’s Likud.

Is it anti-American to criticize President Trump? The Democrats and other leftists have been doing that, relentlessly, since Trump took office.

Is it anti-American to criticize laws passed that impact one group’s rights in favor of another? Hardly.

Do Muslims complain of discrimination in the U.S.? Silly question. Muslims complain of discrimination everywhere that they are less than a majority.

Yet, there are many Muslims in Israel who prefer Israel to life in PLO or Hamas-controlled areas.

Two — or three — state solution

Is it anti-anything if a person is for — or against — a “two state solution?” How about a three state solution: Israel, Jordan,, and Egypt. It might work except that Egypt won’t absorb Gaza with its Hamas/Islamic Jihad crazies and Jordan has all the “Palestinians” it can suffer. Gaza once was part of Egypt and the so-called “West Bank” was controlled by Jordan, “back in the day.”

When “Palestine” was ruled from Amman, there was no talk of a state independent of Jordan. Likewise, does anyone recall the residents of Gaza seeking independence from Egypt?

That, of course, is conveniently forgotten. Likewise forgotten is that the PLO’s first leader (Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hussein² ) was not “Palestinian” or even Jordanian, but Egyptian.

Also forgotten is the time when Lebanon “shared” Mt. Hermon and shelled Israeli civilians or the Katusha’s from Lebanon that fell on Zefat. (Personal experience.)

Critics can’t see own image

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the folks who criticize Israel is their blindness to all other countries less than ideal Human Rights practices.

One major talking point on which the anti-Israel groups harp is Israel’s so-called “occupation” of “Arab” lands.

Consider for a moment that no matter where an American lives in the U.S., he or she is on land taken — usually by force of arms — from the indigenous population, a population, incidentally, that was warehoused in ghettos, a/k/a reservations. America’s treatment of American Indians was far worse than anything Israel has done to Muslims.

The same applies for most countries. Russia recently took Crimea from the Ukraine as the world watched — and did nothing.

Ah, but Russia is not Israel.

Is it anti-Russian to remind the Russian government that it “stole” the Crimea?

Who does BDS hurt?

The anti-Israel folks who promote Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel hurt the people (residents of PLO areas) more than they hurt Israel.

They drove out Soda Stream, a company that employed Muslims from the so-called West Bank and paid them at the same rate as Jews. Sans Soda Stream, the former employees are financially worse off. (Arabs in southern Israel gained from the BDS effort; THEY now have jobs their kin in the north lost.)

Israel is training PLO-area residents in high tech so they can improve their communities’ economies.

BDS’ raison d'être, no less than Iran’s, is to destroy Israel.

If it did, the UN would have to close out at least two “Palestinian-specific” welfare programs: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and United Nations Development Programme's Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People.

Gaza, incidentally, with cooperation from the Israeli government, is shipping record amounts of strawberries to England as well as to the PLO territories.

When Israel, under Ariel Sharon, forced Jewish farmers out of Gaza in 2005, the Muslims destroyed most of the greenhouses and infrastructure left by the departing Jews. It has taken more than a decade of foreign funding to restore what was destroyed in 2005.

Palestinians harvest strawberries at their farm in the northern Gaza Strip, March 5, 2007. Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Bottom line

The bottom line is that most of the people who are anti-Israel have no first hand experience with Israel, Gaza, or the PLO-controlled areas. This includes the anti-Israel representatives in the U.S. House who, despite Israel allowing them entry to the PLO areas, declined the opportunity.³

People who DO know first hand what goes on in Israel can criticize the country’s government — but not the people; they are as diverse as the people in the U.S. — after taking a look at their own history and after looking at other countries around the globe.

People also can criticize Jews for being “clannish” or a bit “xenophobic” — and why not, given the centuries of persecution for their belief or ancestry — but tarring all Jews with the same broad brush is a sign or ignorance.

The true anti-Jew — Arabs also are Semites so “anti-Semite” is not accurate unless these people also hate Arabs — DOES know a Jew is a Jew is a Jew, regardless of level of observance, where the person lives, what he or she eats (or avoids), or with what political party the person affiliates (e.g., Democrat=Good Jew, Republican=Bad Jew — or maybe it is the other way around).

Ignorance.

The hallmark of a bigot.

Sources

1. Immigration: https://tinyurl.com/t5vgtmz

2. PLO leader: https://tinyurl.com/rrk2cdh

3. Rep. Tlaib: https://tinyurl.com/y6obleb2

עינים להם ולא יראו * אזנים להם ולא יאזנו

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

Opuscula Maybe it’s time To rethink about Guns at minyans

While this entry started with Jews as the sole subject, an article recently came to my attention titled A look at attacks on houses of worship over last decade (https://tinyurl.com/y6sqkp35)

Prehaps what applies to us may apply to others, too.

 

 
IT SEEMS IT IS “OPEN SEASON” ON Jews and the “hunters” go where they can find their prey.

Synagogues, kosher markets, Jewish schools, kosher restaurants, all places where Jews congregate.

Jews are not known as the type people to carry weapons of self-defense. Lots of rabbis (foolishly) prohibit firearms in the synagogues, etc.

MY SON THE COP reminds me that people should not depend on the police to arrive immediately after a Jew hater makes an appearance. There simply are too few cops to be everywhere at once, quotes my First Born.

In the interest of being politically correct, “cops” will be referred to as “LEO”s or Law Enforcement Officers. This is an umbrella term covering sworn officers, from the municipal to federal level.

Is anyplace safe?

In a word: NO.

Do Jews need to be alert for any easily-identifiable threat, e.g., skinheads, Muslim “extremists,” neo-nazis, militant blacks.

Again, in a word: YES.

But they also must be alert for those folks who are “just plain crazy.”

I live in a “gated community” in south Florida.

The subdivision has more than 400 residences. Of that number, perhaps 70% are owned and occupied by Jews. Not all are observant, to be sure, but recall the nazis didn’t make a distinction between observant and non-observant Jews — for the nazis then and today’s Jew haters, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew . . . and, therefore, a target.

Sometimes the person is not necessarily a Jew hater; the person can just be mentally incompetent — crazy. We recently had an “event” in the subdivision where a father and his children were at one of the lakes (retention ponds) when an elderly woman threatened the man and his children with a gun. The man, who had a concealed weapon permit, showed her he, too, had a firearm and she retreated. The local LEOs came, but in the end, nothing was done to prevent recurrence.

Armed and dangerous

There are two problems with the average Jew carrying a firearm.

One: The person — women can shoot, too — needs to practice until they are proficient with the weapon.

That means

Meeting the requirements to own and carry a firearm

Practicing at a gun range to assure the person can hit the target

Knowing when, and — more importantly, when not — to draw the weapon.

These are three measurable things that can be practiced.

The “crunch” comes — and no one knows until the final second — when it is time to point the gun at a threat and shoot the threat.

A recent event in south Florida that made the network news had four people killed in a gun battle between LEOs and two robbers in a stolen UPS truck.

It’s still being sorted out, but the question is ”Whose bullets killed the UPS driver and an innocent bystander? The robbers or the LEOs." Hundreds of rounds were fired.

Is it safe to assume that the LEOs were all highly trained marksmen?

Back to the one-word response: NO, at least in the opinion of my son the LEO. One of his sergeants IS a sharpshooter, but most LEOs in my son’s department are not as accomplished.

The obvious question locally is: “Why didn’t the local LEOs wait for sharpshooters to “take out” the robbers?” The initial response was the local LEOs were afraid what did happen — innocents shot — would happen so someone gave the order to open fire and not wait for the sharpshooters. Hindsight confirms that was a mistake.

On the other hand

Jews who ARE proficient with sidearms AND are legally permitted to carry a firearm, should be allowed to carry a firearm in any place Jews congregate: synagogues, kosher markets, Jewish schools, kosher restaurants, etc.

While some states have open carry laws — the firearm is exposed for all to see — unless the person is a guard, my preference would be concealed carry.

Flashing a sidearm may disconcerting to many. In non-open carry states, it could get the person with the gun arrested; that’s counter-productive.

I’ve always wondered, when I enter a building with a sign posted on the entrance (right) stating NO FIREARMS ALLOWED (or words to that effect) if a person bent on murder will abide by the prohibition and, if the person enters and injures (or kills) me, can I or my survivors sue the property owners and occupants for failing to allow me to defend myself. (I am not a lawyer and I don’t play one on tv.)

For too long Jews — particularly European Jews — have had a well-deserved reputation of ignoring the reality of Jewish hatred wherever they live.

For far too long Jews — particularly European Jews — have been in the pockets of leftists who care not a whit for Jews.

As we approach Hanukah 5780 — first wick after dark on Sunday, December 22 — perhaps it is time to give more than just a nod to the Maccabees of old.

We used to be fighters, even if we failed to win EVERY battle.

Jabotinsky ’s Jews were fighters.

The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto were fighters.

The Jews of the Irgun and Stern (LEHI) were fighters.

THE ONLY WAY TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS IS TO SHOW THE JEW-HATERS THAT WE WILL FIGHT BACK.

עינים להם ולא יראו * אזנים להם ולא יאזנו

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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