Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Jews Love: The word Jew

Unlike Google, Jews don't necessarily find the word "Jew" to be a derogatory one, as shown by its prevalence in the titles of blogs. For example, OUR inspired title. Jewbiquitous. Get it? It has the word JEW.

Besides the obvious Jewlicious and Jew School here are a few:

Simply Jews
Jew York City
The Jewish Blog I know, I know, this is Jewish, and not Jew, but still, the name is so all-encompassing. Yes, that is part of the satire, but it tickled my funny bone. Wow. I am lame.
Jew Eat Yet
Points of Jew

And so on. That doesn't even touch those that have the word "Jewish" or "AdjectiveJew." It boggles the mind.

Why do Jews self-affiliate so strongly on the blogosphere? I mean, a quick Google Blogsearch shows that Catholics do it too, including the amusingly titled Catholic Ragemonkey, but not as punnily as we Jews. Same with other Christian denominations, the religious affiliation might be in the title, but without the emphasis on wordplay. Is this because "Presbyterian" doesn't lend itself to jokes? Or because Presbyterians are less steeped in a culture of analyzing words for multiple meanings? Probably a little bit of both, but regardless I'd bet that Hindu Mommy and OrthoMom could have some really interesting conversations.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I've come to realize, some Jews only like the word if it is coming from another Jew.

When I first started my blog, my Jewish friends told me that I should be careful using the word "Jew" as those who don't know me might think I'm being derogatory. Hmmm?

Annie said...

I had no idea it was derogatory until one of my roommates pointed out that our non-Jewish roommate always refers to us as "Jewish people" instead of as "Jews."

I think that part of it is context, but it seems so silly, as the word "Jew" can be found in the word "Jewish" as opposed to Daled Amos' comparison between "African-American" and "black" which are clearly two qualitatively different words.

Anonymous said...

I think Jews have always had a good sense of humor and an ability to laugh at ourselves.