Is it just me?
December 15, 2009 5:19 AM   Subscribe

Is it just me or is the headline on this page offensive?

The Toronto Star article in question is:

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/yourhealth/women%27shealth/article/738787--cancer-test-urged-for-jewish-women?bn=1

I thought you could be of any ethnicity and be Jewish, if for none other reason than that you converted.

Why is the term Jewish being used when they clearly mean to talk about a particular line of DNA as opposed to religious or cultural affiliation?

(Gentile asking.)
posted by SNACKeR to Writing & Language (25 answers total)
 
It's just you.
posted by rr at 5:24 AM on December 15, 2009 [6 favorites]


It's just you. (The headline may be slightly inaccurate, but man, it's The Star. It's not offensive.)
posted by meerkatty at 5:25 AM on December 15, 2009 [2 favorites]


Yep, just you. Not offensive, lot's of people see Jewishness as simultaneously ethnic and religious, and aside from the recent converts, that's an ok fuzzy logic. All ethnicitiy is similarly problematic.
posted by molecicco at 5:26 AM on December 15, 2009 [2 favorites]


I don't see it as offensive. They're talking about people of Jewish ancestry, not people like Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew (he converted). I don't see any easy way to separate the same named religion from the ethnicity in something as small as a headline.
posted by inturnaround at 5:26 AM on December 15, 2009 [7 favorites]


Best answer: Approximately 1 per cent of Ontario women of Jewish ancestry have mutations in two genes that significantly increase their risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers, according to a study published online Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Far more people self-identify as Jewish because they were born into a Jewish family than those who convert. Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, and conversion is relatively rare.

In any case, this is a headline in a Canadian paper based on a study of women of Jewish ancestry from Ontario. Most of these people will probably consider themselves Jewish.

I suggest you recalibrate your outrage meter.
posted by flabdablet at 5:27 AM on December 15, 2009 [9 favorites]


You can be, but the vast majority of Jews in the US (and probably Canada too) are Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi Jews have a number of genetically-inherited diseases. I guess the title could be "Ashkenazi Jewish Women" or "Women of Jewish Heritage," but it's a headline.
posted by gramcracker at 5:27 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


I would call it sloppy rather than malicious. The gene in question is linked to Ashenazic ancestry - I don't believe it's a significant risk for Sephardic heritage and obviously not for converts. (I'm of Ashkenazic heritage and that's what my doctor has told me)
posted by leslies at 5:28 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


It's just you.

Compare: US Men Accused of Crime Spree in Waterloo

(Not anti-male or anti-American, is it?)
posted by rokusan at 5:28 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Best answer: The vast, vast, vast majority of people who are religiously Jewish are also ethnically Jewish. The modern North American strict separation of ethnic and religious identity is a product of Christianity, many religions worldwide don't accept converts at all.

In any case, the title refers to "Jewish women" in the ethnic rather than the religious sense for obvious reasons.

On preview, yeah it's Ashkenazim not just all Jewish women who should be tested.
posted by atrazine at 5:32 AM on December 15, 2009 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I thought you could be of any ethnicity and be Jewish, if for none other reason than that you converted.

Depends on what "Jewish" means. Like many words, it has multiple definitions. When people ask me, "Are you Jewish?" (which happens often), I don't know what the right answer is because I don't know which definition they're using.

If you're using it to mean the religion, then your statement is accurate.

But in an article about a group that's at risk for a disease, they obviously mean the ethnicity, not the religion.

For instance, I have a Jewish last name and Jewish family members. This holiday season I'll be celebrating Christmas, not Hannukah. I've never been to Israel or had a bar mitzvah. I've never believed in or practiced Judaism. I'm Jewish. It's my ethnicity, not my religion. That's not offensive. In fact, what's more offensive is to say (as people have said to me because they don't understand the multifaceted nature of Jewishness) that I'm mistaken about my own ethnic heritage because I don't practice the religion or because my mom isn't Jewish. (I'm not sure what these people are thinking -- do they think I just don't have any ethnicity?!)

Saying there's no "Jewish" ethnicity because "Jewish" is only a religion is like saying there's no "Arab" ethnicity because "Muslim" is only a religion, or like saying there's no "Irish" ethnicity because "Catholic" is only a religion. You'd never say either of the latter two statements because "Arab" and "Muslim" are two different words, and "Irish" and "Catholic" are two different words. But again, it's common for one word to have multiple meanings. An article about a "bank" may be about a financial institution or a snow bank depending on the context; we realize that it's "bank 1" and "bank 2" in the dictionary. So, I recommend thinking of "Jewish" as actually being "Jewish 1" and "Jewish 2."
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:39 AM on December 15, 2009 [2 favorites]


Would you be less offended if the headline was "Women of Jewish Origin..."

Because the problem there is that it takes up too much space. Headline writing is hard.
posted by rokusan at 5:47 AM on December 15, 2009


"Cancer test urged for Jewesses" might be more along the lines of what you're imagining this headline to read?
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:49 AM on December 15, 2009 [4 favorites]


I wouldn't be too hard on the question poser here. It's a well-intentioned mistake.

Political correctness is difficult, especially if you're not bathed in the culture from birth. I know a couple of immigrant Americans (hey, is that an offensive term?) who avoid calling anyone "black" or "African-American" because they are so confused about which is the right term when, and they're so worried about offending that they seize up. I pray they never notice what UNCF or NAACP stand for, because that'll lead to a long night.

I have gently shot down "colored" and "dark people" a few times, but once I saw one of them so genuinely frustrated trying to decide what to say that they actually just said "those people" with a clear tone of frustration.

I bit my tongue hard, out of compassion.
posted by rokusan at 5:53 AM on December 15, 2009


Response by poster: >I suggest you recalibrate your outrage meter.

Just to clarify, there is no outrage. The headline set off alarm bells when I read, but I immediately questioned my response, thus the question. This was not meant as a callout on the Star.
posted by SNACKeR at 5:53 AM on December 15, 2009


Best answer: In North America, "Jewish" is at least as much an ethnicity as a religion. Few North Americans convert to Judaism, while large numbers of ethnic Jews are secular.

The headline could have said "Ashkenazi" women, but it's not a common word outside of the Jewish community.

I don't get offended unless someone's throwing around cultural stereotypes. The fact is that the Jewish gene pool has higher rates of certain genes than the general gene pool. As, for example, the African-American gene pool does, or the Native American, or the Asian-American.

The concept that all men are created equal has finally run into the scientific fact that all men are not created the same. It's important that the law treat everyone as no better than anyone else. But the plain fact is that everyone is not the same. See the recent studies that show that a ridiculously high percentage (around 20%?) of middle-distance Olympic champions come from a couple of tribes in East Africa... that happen to have a habit of raiding cattle from each other. Which involves a lot of middle-distance running. Men who excel in raiding cattle tend to have more kids. So in those tribes, there is a preponderance of genes for middle-distance running (i.e. the ratio of slow-twitch to fast-twitch muscles).

The Ashkenazi community has been isolated enough genetically to have certain genetic patterns, e.g. higher rates of Tay-Sachs.

It's racism when you assume people are better or worse for no good reason. (E.g. when you say this group or that group is "lazy" or "stupid" when they are in fact just poor and get no benefit from striving.) It is not racism when you assert, based on correctly interpreted statistics, one group has more of this or that. It's just science.
posted by musofire at 6:03 AM on December 15, 2009


Best answer: I remember my 7th grade science teacher telling us about a disease that Jews were susceptible to and calmly raising my hand and asking "why don't they just change their religion".
posted by travis08 at 6:04 AM on December 15, 2009 [10 favorites]


Well, I personally understand and share the OP's discomfort, on the grounds that some people *reading* the headline (and article) will have incorrect assumptions strengthened. For instance:

According to Metcalfe, about 1 in 45 women in the Jewish population will have a mutation, while 1 in 250 women in the general Caucasian population will have one.

This supports the false assumption that all Jews are Caucasian, and might dissuade those non-whites who might be interested in exploring Jewish spirituality with the idea of future conversion. I actually know of a black guy who expressed just such a sentiment: "I wouldn't feel comfortable being a freak, the only black person in the entire temple", until I told him that in my congregation, there are a number of blacks, as well as Asians and any number of mixed-race combos.

Conversion has ALWAYS been accepted in the Jewish religion (the beautiful book of Ruth in the Bible tells the story of a convert to Judaism who was so fully accepted as a Jew that her grandson, David, became King of Israel).

Also, there are black Jews whose families have been Jewish for so many generations that they really don't know of ANY ancestors who were "converts.". And let's not forget the Beta Yisrael ("Falasha") people of Ethiopia, who practiced a very ancient form of Jewish worship for centuries when still in Ethiopia (almost all have emigrated out by now, most to Israel).

I understand that the article was referring to women of Ashkenazic genetic ancestry, and in no way was intended as insensitive or a slight. But it would have been nice (and would not have been too time- or space-consuming) to be clear about this. And also would have been educational to explain briefly what "Ashkenazic" means.
posted by RRgal at 6:39 AM on December 15, 2009


I was diagnosed with a condition almost never found outside the Ashkenazi Jewish population as a kid. I'm ethnically 3/4 Irish Catholic and 1/4 Hungarian (we thought) Christian. Identity's obviously a fluid thing (we don't know exactly when my ancestors converted from Judaism), but the millennia of Jewish self-selection for breeding (despite some communities' acceptance of converts) are a pretty good and reliable study in how genetics work.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:46 AM on December 15, 2009


Best answer: I don't find the headline offensive. But I find the article to be an example of sloppy journalism that perpetuates ignorance. If sloppy work and ignorance, especially when perpetuate by those institutions whose mission is to inform (such as the news media) offends you, then yes, you should be offended. But be ready to be offended, well, every time you read the newspaper.

I find it sloppy journalism because it perpetuates the false assumption that Jews = Ashkenazi. I understand that the headline used the word "Jewish" because it assumed (correctly) that most readers will not know the word Ashkenazi, and was merely fulfilling its goal of providing as much information as possible and grabbing attention within a limited amount of space; however, a GOOD reporter would have provided additional information in the article with more information that better informed the readers, and explained what is meant by "Jewish," for example, and about the actual genetic basis for the current research being reported on. A good reporter also would not have passed on FALSE information: "According to Metcalfe, about 1 in 45 women in the Jewish population will have a mutation, while 1 in 250 women in the general Caucasian population will have one. " should have read "According to Metcalfe, about 1 in 45 women in the Ashkenazi Jewish population will have a mutation, while 1 in 250 women in the general Caucasian population will have one."

Sloppy journalism not only perpetuates ignorance, but also results in abetting bad medical science because it allows people to think of it as a "Jewish" disease, which in turn results in people whose genetic ancestry puts them at a higher prevalence rate category but not religiously Jewish from being proactive and getting tested.
posted by jujube at 7:57 AM on December 15, 2009


The headline could have said "Ashkenazi" women, but it's not a common word outside of the Jewish community.

This. Ashkenazi Jews know who they are but many [most?] other people don't know or care about the difference between them and, say, Sephardic Jews (one side of my family is an intermarriage of both which is probably the only reason I know anything about this). So I'm annoyed only because it's sort of sloppy journalism [as jujube says] the same way I get annoyed at headlines that say Computer Virus Affects Millions when really what we're almost always looking at is a Windows virus. So it's inexact, but I think it's that way because of journalistic practices not any weird racial issues.
posted by jessamyn at 8:01 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


There are people who are of Jewish blood and who are not Jewish (religion).
posted by JJ86 at 8:48 AM on December 15, 2009


Just looked up the stats on Wikipedia for the two largest groups of Jews, Ashkenazi (10% of whom carry the BRCA gene) and Sephardi (for whom no link has been identified):

US Population
Ashkenazi 5-6 million
Sephardi 100,000

Canadian Population
Ashkenazi 240,000
Sephardi 60,000

So, for the US, Sephardic Jews make up 2% of the total Jewish population. But in Canada, they're 25% of the Jewish population.
posted by electroboy at 10:24 AM on December 15, 2009


Gramcracker has it. The headline should have read, "Cancer test urged for Ashkenazi women". More accurate, and the people in the risk group would know immiediately what they're talking about. Anyone who doesn't know the term would get it from the article.
posted by Citrus at 7:53 AM on December 16, 2009


"Jewish Women of European Descent" would've worked just fine too.
posted by electroboy at 10:52 AM on December 16, 2009


For the record, Ashkenazi Jewish women are NOT the only ones at higher risk of breast cancer due to the BRCA1 gene. Latina women whose ancestors lived in places like Colorado and northern New Mexico are also at high risk of this mutation, and the breast and ovarian cancer it can cause. That's because the BRCA1 gene arose in the Jewish population shortly before the branching off of the separate Sephardic (Spanish-Jewish, later Mediterranean-Jewish) and Ashkenazic (German-Jewish, later Eastern European Jewish) Jewish population groups.

Many of the Sephardic Jewish families went underground after 1391* and fled to the outer reaches of the undeveloped area of the Spanish Empire (later Mexican, then American) to escape the Inquisitioners -- thus ending up concentrated in areas like Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and the mountains near the Rio Grande. Their descendants still live there today, although of course most have become Catholic over the intervening 500+ years.

In other words: saying that this gene is dangerous for Jewish women is actually more correct than merely saying that this gene is dangerous for Ashkenazi women. But best of all would be saying that this gene is dangerous for any woman who has ethnically Jewish ancestors in her not-so-distant past.

*1492 may be a more famous year, but it was the date of the final expulsion order, whereas the real troubles actually started for Spanish Jews 101 years earlier.
posted by Asparagirl at 9:28 PM on December 16, 2009 [1 favorite]


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