Discussion
#ScribesAndMakers Oct11 Is there a word whose meaning is benign that still grates on you for some reason?
Judeo-Christian.
Doesn't exactly fit, it's more a 'seems benign' or 'is assumed to be benign' than actually benign, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.
FYI -- this word grates on most Jews and many of us consider it a microaggression. Please don't use it unless you know for sure that what you're talking about actually applies to Judaism as well as Christianity.
@JessMahler Should we say “Abrahamic”? That makes sense, except it’s difficult for me to characterize our country’s professed value system as including Islam — which it excludes.
@WhatACharmingHouse
I'm curious -- how do you know that this countries values include Jewish values? Do you actually know this? Or are you simply assuming because this is what you have been told?
Most people who use this term don't know enough about Jewish values to know when they ACTUALLY overlap with Christian values and when not. The truth is that by-and-large Judaism has more in common with Islam than with Christianity.
@JessMahler Well, that’s why I said “professed” (or “supposed”). Usually I’m pointing out a hypocrisy in a common belief about what our values are.
I know our values come from far and wide — but what I’m interested in is what the non-offensive way would be to name those.
I am not, let’s be clear, claiming our values are that.
@WhatACharmingHouse
I think @gaditb has a better answer to this than I could manage right now:
https://icosahedron.website/@gaditb/117422672360371358
You know what? Since it's come up, and I'm in a mood, I'm going to go off on this one.
Judeo-Christian is a shit term used almost exclusively by Christians who want to either co-opt Judaism or shit on Islam, sometimes both. It is both antisemitism and Islamophobic.
One of the biggest places 'Judeo-Christian' is invoked these days is discussion of abortion, well guess what? Judaism not only allows abortion, it actually requires it in certain circumstances. By invoking 'Judeo-Christian values' in defense of a pro-life stance, people are coopting Judaism in support of their belief while erasing what Jews actually believe.
One of the other big places you see it is anti-Islamic rhetoric. Along with 'Western civilization' it's one of the talking points for Why Muslim's Are Bad.
Judeo-Christian values inherently excludes Islam from the 'our values' discussion, othering is even while 1) Islam and Judaism have more in common with eachother than either has with Christianity and 2) there are far more Muslims in 'the west' than Jews and a large part of 'Western Civilization' (including a large part of modern medicine and science!) is based on ideas and advances from Islam. (Don't believe me? Look up the Islamic Golden Age. The word 'Algebra' actually comes from Arabic.)
@JessMahler@indieverse.social As Ezra Koenig once said,
"Judeo-Christianity, I'd never heard the words
Enemies for centuries, until there was a third."
By the way, it is more than just the word "algebra" that comes from Arabic but that whole form of mathematics and calculations. Not to mention the very numerals that we use, the "Arabic" numerals of 0 through 9. Oh, and the very concept of the number "zero".
Basically, before Fibonacci introduced the work of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi to Italy, the entire Western world was calculating with abacuses and recording the results in Roman numerals.
@JessMahler And is, actually, mostly specific to Judaism and Christianity as opposed to shared -- e.g. if it's the particular style of "there is a God unambiguously supreme and all-powerful" monotheism then that's actually common to most every religion that positions itself downstream of Abraham and is often referred to as "Abrahamic".
Also if you /do/ know a more specific mechanism by which if is common, you can just use that? Like "the Judeo-Christian creation myths" -> "the Genesis creation myths", if that's what you're talking about. If you don't, like, fine, but it's imo nicer.
Also most importantly you can literally just say "I don't know" if you, like, don't know?
Like "I wanna talk a bit about the way sacrifice/slaughter works in Christian (and maybe others? I don't know Judaism or Islam or others well enough to say?) religious practical mythology and moral frameworks."
You can and should just do that, just be explicit about the bounds of your personal knowledge.
@JessMahler I don't think it's benign at all! I think it's a white supremacist dogwhistle. More macroaggression than microaggression really.
@youseeatortoise
You might be surprised how many people use it. I once sat through a workshop given by a Black leftist on progressive spiritualism that talked about abortion in 'Judeo-Christian' terms. When I tried to (discretely and politely!) correct, the speaker adjusted to say that SOME Jews support abortion - and some Christians do to.
@JessMahler The Education Act in my province uses it, and I raised a huge fuss saying that it was racist and antisemitic, only to be shut down by Christians.
Noted, though, I usually use Abrahamic. Does the same thing apply?
@NaraMoore
Abrahamic has less issues then 'Judeo-Christian' (which I'm in process of writing a whole screed on). But do you really know enough about all Abrahamic religions (there's more than just Christianity, Islam and Judaism) to say for sure that what you are saying applies to all of them? The only thing I know for sure they all have in common is (theoretically) monotheism, though many Jews and Muslim question exactly how monotheistic some branches of Christianity are.
You meantion others beside you consider these words "microaggressions." How much is this a personal peeve vs. general perception with in the Jewish community.
@NaraMoore
"Microaggression" isn't a commonly used term in the general Jewish community, but "Judeo-Christian" is generally considered to be antisemitic and many will add that it is also Islamophobic.
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@JessMahler Interesting. I had no idea. What is the beet word to use if one is describing a set of values derived from Christianity and Judaism?