I find Judaism super interesting historically (and have some Jewish ancestory and have spent a couple months in Israel), but still the term "gentile" in a modern, non-religious context feels abrasive.
That said, I also worked with the Safardic Jewish community doing tech in the garment industry and as the token gentile I was loved on and respected for my work.
Like every culture there is a broad spectrum, but if the Orthodox jews of NYC are anything to go on, I am seriously questioning why they are choosing to live here.
My issue isn't what they do in their congregations and communities, but how they interact with the rest of the world. I've personally been treated extremely poorly by strangers in the Orthodox community just going about my day in the city. Between that and other experiences, I'm just shocked at how prevalent racism is among the Jewish Orthodox community in particular.
You're not the only one. The use of the Latin derived gentile seems like a clear case of Othering.
I don't think you are in a position to get offended on this one. Doesn't seem to even be a Hebrew word.
> Unless we just want to be offended by existance of Jews
If you dislike the use of a world, you must be an anti-Semite? I guess the people who dislike the Spanish derived term must be anti-Hispanic.
Well, they're a minority. If the majority loses control then they are at extreme risk of being hit by an ethnic cleansing or something. It can happen pretty much anywhere with only a relatively short lead-up. Picking a stupid act and making it compulsory is a classic way to keep tabs on how the wind is blowing.
There isn't really any threat like that from the Jews posed to anyone else, they don't have the numbers. There is no need to police them; indeed policing the language of minorities trying to maintain their own culture is in really bad taste. The issue with negro doesn't have anything to do with the word itself being offensive; that has the same logical problems as objecting to 'gentile' does.
You aren't drawing a distinction here to show why your word is kosher and the term gentile isn't.
Non-Jew only presupposes the existence of a Jewish people. Gentile on the other hand is a neologism which uses Jewish ontology to Other everyone else.
The idea that what is acceptable behaviour is dependent on membership is abhorrent to me. I don't see how gentile is different from barbarian, kaffir or mleccha.
I put it to you that this is making up reasons to be offended as the conversation goes along. There is no difference between calling people gentiles or non-Jews, except possible one shows that your in-group is more important than the orthodox Jewish in-group (or whoever it is who uses the word gentile). You aren't drawing meaningful reasons out to support this position. The two terms have the same intent, same implications and same meaning.
You are spot on about "Othering".
I don't know, let's ask the United Negro College Fund, and it's work for African American youth, particularly at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Within the actual community, there's differences as to the most-preferred term for the community, and there’s generational differences in the distribution of preferences, but unless you are using one of the terms that historical principally a slur or indicating a racist attitude in some other way, it's not as big of a deal as white racists who like to place the blame for the anger they incite on nitpicking about anthroponymy rather than the substance of their ideas.
> It's almost as if intent and context matters more than etymology.
Which you'll notice is what I said earlier in this very thread.
I have worked with teens of the wealthy elite who are offended if one asks them to do chores (some call it abuse).
Our current culture glorifies victimhood, so people are more attuned to being offended.
Not everyone has adjusted their priors on what it means for global dialogue, especially in the framework where there will always be someone in the world that will take offense to almost everything one says.
I more just feel sorry for these people, as most of them are dealing with other pain and stress in life, and they lash out irrationally like this.