If you googled the word “Jew” on Tuesday morning, you would have been shocked to find that the first definition offered was a reference to bargaining in a “miserly or petty way.”
The definition came with a warning label that the verb was “offensive” and that the term’s genesis was a 19th-century antisemitic trope “associating Jewish people with trading and moneylending.” Tenses were even offered for the verb—“jewed” and “jewing.” The reference was attributed to the Oxford Languages source.
In the 1800s, Jewish people often made a living by lending money or trading goods, primarily because the countries where they lived (in Europe, Russia, etc.) had laws preventing them from other professions. We can see in America, where Jewish people are allowed to work in any profession, God’s blessing is in His people. We can see in Israel that same blessing, as the…
