Is 'yid' a term of abuse?

I heard that sunseeker. David Baddiel was, understandably, very passionate about it wasn't he.

It just highlights this whole thing of defining people by colour/religion/race/whatever doesn't it?
We are who we are - not our colour or our creed and it is time these descriptors were dispensed with for once and for all.

Although racism still exists in Britain, I think it is still one of the most tolerant countries in the world. The younger generation, in particular, seems happy in the main to have friends of every race, colour, creed or sexuality. They don't make news, though - some of the media love to recount stories that stir up hatred. Good news doesn't sell.

That makes you despair (football fans chanting as per sunseeker's post)

Agree Sunseeker - I've only ever heard it used in a derogatory manner. I agree it's going to be so hard to change the football culture in relation to offensive chants. I occasionally go to the city of dreams to watch the reds - the atmosphere is fantastic, but some of the chants are very offensive. It seems to fit with the macho culture that says anything goes as long as there is a ball involved....

I find it sad too, Greatnan. Living near to Leicester, which I consider to be one of the most tolerant areas in Britain, I feel that the ethnic mix adds hugely to the vibrancy of the city.

Football is not just another world, it's another universe isn't it.

Every one of my dictionaries describes the word Yid as offensive.

I am quite sure that none of my Jewish friends over the years would have found it acceptable to be called a Yid. I don't think any of them spoke Yiddish, their families having been established in the UK for generations, so it would have been an absurd misnomer anyway.

Great comment on the Last Leg just now. David Baddiel is Jewish and thinks it's not ok. David Cameron thinks it's ok if Jewish football fans use it for themselves. 'Now if David Cameron wants to reclaim "Eton twat!".........'

when

POGS Nobody is Yiddish in the way that people are British or Chinese. Yiddish is a language that started out as a German dialect – a mixture of German and Hebrew. Other Central and Eastern European countries developed their own forms of Yiddish. The people who speak Yiddish are Jews.

Yid has always been a racist term: acceptable only when used by Jews themselves, though most wouldn't. It is like the way some African Americans refer to themselves as 'nigger' - it would be another matter entirely if a white person used it.

It is just from the German Juede: the u is pronounced like the French u, a cross between ee and oo.(you put your mouth like oo but say ee).

I can understand Yiddish - it is near enough to German; in fact I once got a job that way. The younger boss of a Jewish owned firm was interviewing me, but the old patriarch kept putting his fillings in, in Yiddish, telling him to ask this or that. In the end I cut out the middle man and answered the old man's questions - in English. I didn't think my rather posh Viennese German would go down too well in Jewish company. Later I found out most Jewish people of my generation in England would understand Yiddish but never speak it.

They gave me the job assuming I was Jewish. I didn't realise they had made this assumption, as I told them I had lived in Vienna, but my new (gentile) workmates were a bit stand-offish and sometimes quite hostile. Jewish employees were given time off for Jewish holidays, so when I turned up for work on Yom Kippur there were questions. I explained I was not Jewish. Shock horror.

Then the truth dawned on me. The stand-offishness was racism/antisemitism. I looked for, and got, another job. I refuse to work with racists.

So - never use the word Yid. It reflects the German word for Jew, and is not nice.

I think we are all racist in some way. Recently I hesitated to point out to an Asian woman talking loudly into her mobile that we were in a 'Quiet Zone' in the train. If it had been a white person I would have told them outright.
I know there's difference between treating people badly because of their race, and yes I have friends of different races, colours and religions.
So exactly what is racism?

Well certainly in Yiddish the word "Yid" merely means 'Jew" - cf German
"Jude". It is not an English word...

Is shiksa a term of abuse?

theshiksa.com/what-is-a-shiksa/

I define racism as the act of judging somebody on the grounds of their race rather than as an individual, and allowing that judgement (prejudice?) to affect the way you treat them..

In what way 'treat' them?
I regard my action in the train as 'racist' but the person did not know I was hesitant to say anything to her.......I did tell her though when she started up a second conversation.

Actually I wasn't judging her was I?

I merely gave my definition of the word, it was not intended to reflect on your actions, which were obviously governed by sensitivity.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiksa

This gives the usual contemporary use of the word, which seems to have meant simply a non-Jewish (gentile) woman, but now is usually applied to a gentile girl in a relationship with a Jewish man.

That's kindly put Greatnan

I know exactly how you felt, because I have found myself in the same position. I am not afraid of being thought of as a pc do-gooder, but I think that when I worked in a multicultural office in London I did sometimes lean over backwards to be helpful and fair to the people in the ethnic minority groups. I hope they didn't realise it, and feel patronised.

Shiksa comes from the Hebrew word sheketz which means 'the flesh of an animal deemed taboo by the Torah'.

Well, that's not very nice then is it?

Yes, the word Yid is definitely pejorative - I'm Jewish by the way, and have only heard it used as an insult (I've also been called "you Jew" as an insult, as if being Jewish was an offence! (to many racists it is, of course). By the same token, the word "shiksa", used of a Gentile woman, has overtones of "tart" and the word "goy" which originally means "other" (i.e. non-Jewish) is pejorative. Yiddish (the language) is not just a mixture of German and Polish; it also incorporates many Hebrew words as well as Russian, Romanian, etc. depending on where your personal ancestors originated. It's a wonderfully rich language. The only Jews who never spoke it were the German and Austrian Jews who considered themselves a cut above people from Eastern Europe. My first husband, who came from Vienna, once described my parents as "ignorant little East End Yids". We live, unfortunately, in a racist and antisemitic society; humanity needs to evolve for another millenium or two! Not nearly as antisemitic as the French, however - a Frenchman who wants to insult you (whatever your creed or colour) will call you a "Sale Juif."
I have gone off on one, haven't I? Enough already! and zeyen mir gezint to Gransnet and all who sail in her!