The Romanian Academy will alter its definition of an anti-Semitic slur in a dictionary to make it clear the word is pejorative.
The academy wrote to the Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism on Wednesday, saying it should have described the word as pejorative. The DEX dictionary says the term is used in a "familiar" sense but omits that it is an anti-Semitic slur.
The academy said in a letter "we will do all we can to make an immediate and permanent correction of its definition".
The center had protested the usage of the word, saying it was "heard by Jews when they were put on the trains of death," referring to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews in World War II.
Slurs are bad. Makes sense. But, I was curious, what exactly was the slur?
There was a link to another Ynet article, so I tried that. It had more details, but still no slur.
A prominent Jewish group on Monday called on the Romanian Academy to change its dictionary definition of an anti-Semitic slur to make it clear that it is a pejorative.
Maximilian Katz, director of the Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, told the Associated Press in an interview Monday that the commonly used Romanian word is offensive, but that is not explained in the official DEX dictionary.
He says the word was "heard by the Jews when they were put on the trains of death," referring to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews in WWII.
"The Romanian Academy have taken a deeply anti-Semitic expression and transformed it into a legitimate word," he told the AP. The dictionary explains it is used in a "familiar" sense but omits that it is anti-Semitic.
The two-page letter said that the slur "is racist, it shows hatred toward the Jewish race, hatred toward the Jewish religion, it defames Jews on ethnic grounds and incites violence against them."
It says that usage of the word is illegal in Romania because it falls under a law banning symbols with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character. Breaking the law is punishable by fines and prison.
...The word is the most offensive that exists in the Romanian language for a Jew, but it is also used colloquially by mainly elderly Romanians who would not consider themselves anti-Semitic.
...Csaba Ferenc Asztalos, the director of Parliament's National Council for Combating Discrimination who also received a copy of the letter said he agreed with the Jewish group. "Their request is justified," he said in a phone interview. "The word must show the real sense, that it is pejorative, that it is racist for both Jews and Gypsies."
Man, this word is one terrible bastard. But what is it?
Seriously, media. I get that the word is offensive. I really do. But since most people reading this story aren't octogenarian Romanians, you may want to actually tell us what the word is. Now you're just forcing us to use our terrible and inappropriate imaginations. At least give us a hint! Beardies? Goldpinchers? Hemosexuals? Help me out here, my racist Romanian slur knowledge is quite poor. Not to mention that repeating "the word"and "the slur" fifteen times makes your reporting sounds downright silly.
To Google!
...Lame, Google, very lame.
Ok, what about... this?
Fine, you don't want to help. I get it. Everyone just keeps ripping off the two AP articles. Be that way. Maybe there's some original reporting somewhere.
... After ten minutes of clicking links, I finally found it, courtesy of JTA:
JTA- Romania's highest cultural forum, following a request by a watchdog group, agreed to make clear in the definition of an anti-Semitic slur that the word is a pejorative.
The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism on Tuesday had urged the The Romanian Academy to change its definition in the official DEX dictionary, or The Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language, of the word "jidan."Thank you. Was that so hard?
(I wonder if this is what it's like trying to read frum newspapers...)
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