Who is a Jew? What is the difference between a Jew and a Jew?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Each of us more than once managed to hear from unfamiliar and close relatives an unflattering mention of some objectionable figure - "Jew". It is always pronounced confidently and with mockery, with a bit of contempt and a twinkle in the eyes. The meaning is captured at some deep, subconscious level - few people know exactly who a Jew is. But if you put it this way, in response you can definitely hear understanding assent and reinforced nods of the head. It just doesn't explain much here. Why such an attitude towards a seemingly ordinary word? What does it mean? After all, who is a Jew?

What does Orthodoxy have to do with it?

They say Jews are called Jews, only with contemptuous overtones. But if everything were so simple, the question would not arise, what is the difference between a Jew and a Jew, and the nickname would not be shrouded in some kind of mystery. In addition, during the trial, for some reason, a clarification from religion immediately arises: they say, this is what the Jews are called. It turns out that they, the followers of this faith, have two names: Jews and Jews. Then it really comes outunclear. You will have to deal with this with the help of famous historians, historical facts and other reports.

Quoting A. Nechvolodov

A well-known Russian historian wrote that the origin of the word "Jew" is more than simple. It is no secret that the Jews are the descendants of Judah, so that each European language has its own name for them. The Germans call them "Yude", the British - "Dzhyu", the French - "Juif", but the Poles chose the "Jew" so beloved by the Russian people. Both chroniclers and historians borrowed the nickname and used it everywhere. This can be seen in their works of a long time ago, when there were no complaints about the term.

Why then contempt?

It would seem, why did the "Jew" not fall in love then, since the etymology does not contain anything like that? Here it is worth returning to faith and religions. For Orthodox Jews, the enemies of Christ, as already mentioned above, they descended from Judas, a traitor, as Christians assure. This means that the Jews are a people who have renounced God. Therefore, Orthodoxy confidently declares that the problem of the fact that the Jews themselves do not like to be called so is a consequence of the struggle of creeds, and not anything else. Therefore, a "Jew" in the eyes of a true Christian can be a person of any nationality who converted to Judaism, which means he turned away from Jesus Christ.

Great and mighty…

Let's turn to Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. A Jew in this Talmud is defined as "a miser, a miser," and so on. Not a very flattering definition, but, betweenby the way, the fact that this is a synonym for the word "Jew" is not even hinted anywhere, not even mentioned. That is, the question of who a Jew is in Russian can be honestly answered - a greedy person. Without reference to anything national, religious, and so on. But for some reason this completely consistent fact is omitted against the background of everything else, is not perceived as a sufficient argument.

Or maybe national strife?

Where, then, did the total dislike for Jews come from? Perhaps, anti-Semitism as a phenomenon in Russia is only being fomented, and it is completely groundless? Very similar.

An interesting fact: Dahl's dictionary, published in 1978-1980 and completely unchanged (according to the editors), no longer contains a page with the definition of "Jew". So ideal conditions have been created for the formation of a new stereotype. According to him, a Jew is a nationality, and not a member of a religious Jewish community.

Interestingly, why the Jews are Jews, in fact, is not explained anywhere. The distortion of these two concepts is artificial, and the interpretation of the second of them is falsely attributed to the first. And suddenly it's an enemy nation.

Another sophistry - hidden logical fallacy

"Enemy nation": what's wrong with this expression? First of all, perhaps, the fact that the Jews have never been a nation. It is belonging to faith, religion. To Judaism, already mentioned in this article. From this point of view, the position of Orthodoxy, although not particularly ethical, is presented logically.

Although, of course, with the question of the nation, everything is also notso smooth. And here's why: in Hebrew, "Jew" means both belonging to a people and religion, and in Israel it means a legal status.

The tale of how they tried to make the Jewish community a nation

Theodor Herzl gave his definition of a people-ethnos. According to him, this is not only a group of people with a historical past and solidarity in the present, but also with the cause of this community - a common enemy. That is, according to Herzl, there is no enemy - there is no unity. A controversial statement, but it explains the concept of anti-Semitism so well: national oppression breeds an oppressed nation.

There are Jews and there are Jews…

Does everyone remember the axiom that there are Germans and there are Nazis? Here. Jew, Jew: the difference between them is the same, fundamental. At least there are always those who say so.

Some people genuinely wonder why there is such hatred towards the Jews. At some national level, even if a person doesn’t really know how to hate, folk art in the form of anecdotes is simply dotted with inserts like “Jew”, supposedly exposing their mentality to ridicule. And it would be okay if this was a stereotype that does not harm anyone, but here, after all, there is a whole list of bad consequences.

And this despite the fact that among the representatives of the Jews a whole bunch of scientists, creators, geniuses. The Jew, on the other hand, the miserly merchant, is rather a frequenter of old retellings, a bright secondary face of literary works.

A bit of historical information

In order not to be confused: skaz and Orthodoxy with their contempt for the Jews, as well asDahl's explanatory dictionary, with its skillfully evoked anti-Semitism, is not two fundamentally different points of view. Firstly, one does not interfere with the other, and secondly, one does not deny the other.

So, let's take the following as a historical fact: the origin of the word "Jew" from "Judas" and its initially completely non-scornful meaning. This name began to be removed from official reports with the beginning of the reign of Catherine II. There was a transformation similar to the current rethinking of the word "Negro", which sharply became offensive.

By the way, while in Russia Russian writers have already had to make excuses for their alleged hatred, expressed through the use of the "wrong" word in their works, the Polish-Ukrainian environment lagged behind in this, so to speak. In the territories of these countries, everything remained the same.

Exclusively Russian problem

Let's continue the list of interesting facts: when we translate the word "Jew" into English, we get "jew". When translating the word "Jew" (attention!) - also "jew". Then what is the difference between a Jew and a Jew? The fact that the first at some point became objectionable.

The situation escalated during the Soviet era: at first, the word was associated with counter-revolution due to the anti-Soviet propaganda of the White Guards. And during the Great Patriotic War, the "Jew" acquired a mocking "superstructure" over what was called, which did not contribute to his emotional susceptibility for the better - everythingonly got worse.

Then the changes were so ingrained that now it will be more than difficult to reverse the transformation.

"Jew": Meaning

Dahl's explanatory dictionary has already been referred to in this article. And if you believe him (and not to believe him, in turn, there is no reason), then the "Jew" is a greedy, stingy person, in other words, a miser. The well-known stereotype about Jews is immediately recalled. Immediately, a chain of name-calling is built very logically. But, having found the answer to this question, we come across the following: not about why Jews are Jews, but about why Jews are considered stingy.

Lion Levinson once said that Jewish greed certainly exists. As well as French, and American, and Ukrainian. Surprisingly accurate remark. Every nation has everything in moderation: there are not the best representatives in it, but there are also embodiments of virtues.

Jew Greed Association

The first reason. Religious. And again Judas, and again spoiled his people's life. The traitor Iscariot sold Jesus precisely for money, for thirty pieces of silver (which, in fact, is not so much), therefore, greed ruined him. The stingy character is associated with the Jews, but, by the way, they came from a completely different Judas. It was not for nothing that at the beginning of the article there was a clarification: the Orthodox associate the Jews with Iscariot, but this does not mean that they are right. Because really, no, not at all. Judas was also called one of the followers of Christ, who was not noticed for anything.

The second reason. Purely historical. In fact, this reason is somewhat related to Christianity. The Church in the Middle Ages forbade almost all types of monetary relations. Credit, however, is important not only in the economy, but also in agriculture, which was already carried out by Christian peasants. What about the Jews who have nothing else to do? That's right - settle in the niche of the loan. And then everything is like clockwork: naturally, each creditor works, first of all, for his own benefit, and the fact that the Jews have become associated with this stingy and greedy area of \u200b\u200bactivity is a matter of time, nothing more. In the modern world, this nation realizes itself in other areas, and not only in trade and banking.

Results and conclusions

So, what can be concluded? Let's go over everything written just above:

1. The mystery of the origin of the word "Jew" ascends to the name Judas.
2. Orthodox believe that Judas, the progenitor of the Jews, is Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. Therefore, for Christians, the answer to the question of who a Jew is is any Jew, since this is the faith of traitors who turned their backs on God in favor of the Devil (Satan).
3. "Jew" is an old name for the Jews.
4. Starting from a certain moment, the "kid" began to wear a negative emotional connotation. From official documents, the word began to be deleted, rewritten, ashamed.
5. Interpretation of the word "Jew" - stingy, greedy.
6. Jews are called greedy because Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for money.
7. In addition, the association with greed comes from the fact that the Jews of the worldMedieval mainly engaged in trade, banking, credit and economics.
8. The question of why Jews are Jews is asked only in the post-Soviet space, since these words have the same translation in foreign languages.
9. There is a theory that the negative connotation of the word "Yid" is one of the points of the plan to artificially induce anti-Semitism among Russians.

As you can see, inaccuracies still exist. Unfortunately, this is not a topic on which a clear conclusion can be drawn. The process of rooting stereotypes in thinking, hatred of certain nations on the part of representatives of others is a long and historically established process. But the "Yids", whose photos are sometimes used for ridicule and hard-hitting captions, are just people who, as you know, are not only good or only bad.