Yes . . . That Word is Insulting

September 2019 Readers Letters

The word Jewess

Your response to the letter in ESRAmagazine 199 about the above word is unexpected. Google the word and you'll find that it is old-fashioned, insulting, unacceptable. It is a word that is both anti-women and racist.

Anti-women? Since World War II the addition of 'ess' to words such as manager, editor, poet, author, director, has been dropped as far as English is concerned. Even women stars of stage and screen are now actors. (I don't know what happens with royal families. Princess? Duchess? Baroness?)

Racist? Have you heard the one about three grannies rocking on the porch of their retirement home, one Christianess, one Muslimess, and one Jewess? Of course not.

Isn't it interesting that we have lioness, tigress, leopardess, Negress, Jewess? So Colored and Jewish women have been classified along with animals. No one else.

By the way, you write that 'Jewess' has been popularized by "wake" Jews. I thought they'd be ''woke'.

R.M. Kiel
Tel Aviv

About the author

R. M. Kiel

R.M. Kiel was born and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She qualified as a high school teacher. She studied at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from where she has two degrees (BA majoring in English, history and political theory, and a BA Honours in linguistics) and two diplomas (H Dip Communication Studies and H Dip Education).
She worked in theater on stage, backstage and in the lighting box from the age of six; ran the high schools Play Festival; adjudicated teams in the Helen Suzman Debate League; was awarded a gold medal for the promotion of English education by the University of South Africa in 1989.
She edited the South African edition of Julius Caesar, and has had stories, poetry and articles published in Israel and in South Africa.
R.M. Kiel came to live in Israel in December 2002, and volunteered through ESRA at an Ort School in Tel Aviv and a high school in Jaffa, then transferred to Bar Ilan University. She has given talks at ESRA Tel Aviv monthly meetings and at the AACI.

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