#Jew vs Jewish person gets into sticky reclaimed slur territory like LGBT vs Queer

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I have a legitimate question about Judaism. So I was raised Baptist and my father was always weird about other christians. He hated lutherans, protestants, and catholics. But always made sure we respected hebrews. In fact we were never allowed to use the terms Jew, Jewish, or Judaism. It was always Hebrew and the Hebrew faith. My question is "is there a difference?" And if not then does using either term matter?

OK, so I'm not an expert but my gut is that "Hebrew" used in that way isn't necessarily offensive, just weird and a bit outdated, and that nowadays Hebrew is used almost exclusively to refer to the spoken and written language. Fortunately, I have an expert on speed dial, so I ran it by my dad, who happens to be a rabbi and scholar who specializes in Jewish-Christian relations. He says:

You are correct. There was a time when the term Jew was avoided by some Jews because of the negative connotations connected to it. Hebrew was perceived as less laden. Hence the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism) and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (now HIAS, which does great work!) Historically, Hebrew is biblical - Abraham is called a Hebrew and Jonah identifies himself that way. I am emailing you a short article about the term both in the tanach and after if want to nerd out. I’m guessing your friend’s father also viewed the term Jew (also mainly a post biblical word) as pejorative while Hebrew was considered more respectful.

*Tanach or tanakh is how Jews refer to the Bible.

Anyway, I like being told I'm right! I will add that some Jews still don't like non-Jews using the word "Jew." Though I'm not one of them and I've only very recently heard that anyone still felt this way, if you want to err on the side of caution, "Jewish person" is the safest way to go. To the extent that all Jewish people can ever agree on anything, I think we’ll all agree on this.

The article he mentions is actually the full definition of “Hebrew” cut and pasted from The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (1992) and is extremely dry. I’ve placed it below the cut if you’re really interested.

HEBREW [Heb ʿibrı̂ (עִבְרִי)]. In English, generally synonymous with “Jew,” but in the Hebrew Bible it mostly designates members of the Israelite nation.

The use of this expression is confined to certain parts of the OT, the story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50), the history of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 1–15), and 1 Samuel. Apart from these major narrative compositions the Hebrews are mentioned in a few other passages, notably in Gen 14:13, where Abraham is called a Hebrew; in the Book of the Covenant, Exod 21:2–11, which regulates the service of Hebrews who had been enslaved; and in texts dependent on this law (Deut 15:12; Jer 34:8–20; see Lemche 1976: 43–45, 51–53). Finally, in Jonah 1:9 the prophet describes himself as a Hebrew who has run away from his country. The last mentioned example is the only one where a person describes himself as a Hebrew, in all other instances they are described as such by other peoples, in the story of Joseph and in Exodus by the Egyptians, in 1 Samuel by the Philistines.

The etymology of the expression is not yet totally clear (see proposals in Loretz 1984: 235–48) and the possible derivation from the Akkadian expression ḫabiru/ḫapiru, thought to mean a population element of fugitives and outlaws, remains a subject of discussion. See HABIRU, HAPIRU. This discussion about the connection between Hebrews and ḫabiru/ḫapiru is, however, fundamental for understanding the ethnic term “Hebrew” in the OT. If this derivation is correct, it would hardly be reasonable to deny the significance of the more general ḫabiru/ḫapiru-movement in the ANE in the 2d millennium b.c. for the population processes in Palestine and adjacent areas which led to the formation of the Israelite society in the early Iron Age, just before 1000 b.c. (against Loretz 1984; cf. already Mendenhall 1962, and 1973: 122–41). Therefore the rise of the Israelite nation cannot be separated from the social upheavals during the Late Bronze Age, of which the ḫabiru/ḫapiru-movement is evidence. According to this view we shall have to reckon with a considerable element of ḫabiru/ḫapiru in Late Bronze Age Palestinian society as one of the single major factors behind the emergence of Israel.

Since the expression ḫabiru/ḫapiru evidently covers a social phenomenon, whereas Hebrew in the OT, with perhaps one exception (Exod 21:2–11, the law concerning Hebrew slaves), always stands for members of the Israelite people, a certain shift of meaning has taken place. It is, however, interesting to note how some aspects of the former social meaning of the expression have survived almost everywhere in the OT where the expression is used (Lemche 1979; see also Naʾaman 1986). Thus in the story of Joseph and in Exodus, the word “Hebrew” is always used to refer to the Israelite refugees in Egypt, in contradistinction to the local population or authorities, and in 1 Samuel only the Philistines speak about Hebrews, normally in a derogatory sense, to indicate runaway slaves or renegades (David, who is considered to have deserted his own master, King Saul, is thus styled by his Philistine superiors in 1 Sam 29:3). Even in such late texts as Gen 14:13 and Jonah 1:9, relicts of the former sociological meaning of the expression may be supposed to be behind the present usage.

Irrespective of the relative age of those texts in the OT which mention the Hebrews, it is therefore true to maintain that the OT usage is based on an old and historical tradition. On the other hand, it is hardly possible to argue that all instances are postexilic, or that the use of the expression also derives from such a late period as maintained by O. Loretz (1984: 271–75). First and foremost, in the postexilic and pre-Hellenistic periods, “Hebrew” was never understood as a general term denoting ordinary Israelites or Jews. Moreover, in Exod 21:2–11 we have a testimony of the survival in Israel of an age-long societal connection; here two distinct terms are used which in the Late Bronze Age indicated two different though interrelated social categories (the ḫabiru/ḫapiru and the ḫupšu [Heb ḥopšı̂] respectively, i.e., “peasants” according to general opinion [a variant interpretation is mentioned by Lemche 1975: 139–42, “copyholders,” or simply “clients”]). These distinctions disappear completely from Near Eastern documents after the collapse of the Bronze Age social system.

Only in the Greco-Roman tradition did Gk Ebraios become the ordinary way of indicating Jews, and thereafter this tradition was taken over by the Christian Church and became a general way of designing members of the Jewish people. The three passages using the term Hebrew in the NT (2 Cor 11:22; Phil 3:5; Acts 6:1) do not enlarge the meaning of the expression. In 2 Corinthians and Philippians, Paul calls himself a Hebrew, thus indicating that he is a Hebrew-speaking Jew in contrast to those Jews whose language is Greek, or perhaps he wanted to distinguish between himself as a Jew and the Gentiles. In Acts the expression is applied to characterize the so-called Jewish Christian congregation.

ANE Ancient Near East (ern)

2d second

 Lemche, N. P. (1992). Hebrew. In D. N. Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Vol. 3, p. 95). New York: Doubleday.