How to Be Antisemantic

There is also an issue of grammar at play. “Jew” is a noun while “Jewish” is an adjective. This is different from “Christian” or “Muslim” which can be either. You can say “she is Christian” and “he is a Muslim” but you cannot say “she is a Jewish” or “he is Jew”. Unless you are Chinese and don’t use articles. There actually is no difference between “Jewish” and “Jew” in Chinese. And the word “pig” in Chinese [豬] sounds like “jew”. I don’t know whose idea that was.

Obviously if you want to use “Jewish” as an adjective to describe a noun then by all means do so. “She is the first Jewish president of Saudi Arabia” is perfectly acceptable. Maybe not so much to the Saud family.