Mark Oppenheimer, in his thought-provoking op-ed piece titled, “Reclaiming Jew” surfaces a societal problem. Jews do not feel comfortable introducing themselves as a noun. Instead of “I am a Muslim” or “I am a Christian,” secular Jews say “I am Jewish.” It is as if using the noun is too solid and prideful, whereas the adjective feels slippery and insecure. An adjective can simply describe an aspect about something, but the noun is. The underlying question of this preference in title is: where in history did the word “Jew” become pejorative and how can we fix it so that we can stand tall in our identities? We have been conditioned to think that calling someone a “Jew” will pose insulting. This most likely originated from anti-semites blaming
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After the exile of the Northern Israelite Kingdom in 721 B.C.E, the only remaining tribe of the original 12 tribes was the tribe of Judah. When the kingdom of Judah was then exiled again in 586 B.C.E., the people became known as “yehudim” or Jews. The name “Judah” in Hebrew literally translates to “praise.” The name originates from Leah, Judah’s mother, praising god after giving birth to four healthy boys. She says in Genesis 29, “this time I will praise God.” This idea of “praise” has carried through for centuries. To be a Jew is to live with a constant attitude of gratitude, for God has been their to secure our safety and our vitality when generations of people attempt to extinguish us from existence. As Mark Twain writes in his short essay titled, “concerning the Jew”, “The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his
After the exile of the Northern Israelite Kingdom in 721 B.C.E, the only remaining tribe of the original 12 tribes was the tribe of Judah. When the kingdom of Judah was then exiled again in 586 B.C.E., the people became known as “yehudim” or Jews. The name “Judah” in Hebrew literally translates to “praise.” The name originates from Leah, Judah’s mother, praising god after giving birth to four healthy boys. She says in Genesis 29, “this time I will praise God.” This idea of “praise” has carried through for centuries. To be a Jew is to live with a constant attitude of gratitude, for God has been their to secure our safety and our vitality when generations of people attempt to extinguish us from existence. As Mark Twain writes in his short essay titled, “concerning the Jew”, “The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his