What is the origin/meaning behind use of "Member of the Tribe" for Jews?

January 10, 2022 2:15 PM

What is the origin of the modern use of the term "Member of the Tribe" as a description for Jews? When did it come about? What is the (historical) (linguistic) context in which "Tribe" is being used?
posted by andoatnp to Writing & Language (12 answers total)

The Twelve Tribes of Israel.
posted by phooky at 2:23 PM on January 10, 2022

A rabbi discusses the issue here.

Historically, there were 12 tribes (or 13 - it's really confusing). 10 were supposed to have been "lost" after the defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians. But today, only people who are Levites (including Kohanim or priests) would identify as being from a specific tribe, thus everyone else being just "member of the tribe" or "MoT". It's slang - and not necessarily literal. But it is seriously metaphorical: a Jew-by-Choice is spiritually adopted by Abraham and Sarah (and get the Hebrew name ending in ben/bat Avraham v’Sarah), and so are considered to be members of the tribe descended from Abraham and Sarah.
posted by jb at 2:32 PM on January 10, 2022

I'm a Gen X Jew and don't remember hearing it until at least the 90s, possibly later, and according to this page, it's typically used by younger Jews, "Jews in their 30s or younger." But this NY Times column from 1986 says "A couple of decades ago, denizens of a New York restaurant run by Toots Shor called themselves 'the Tribe' (Shor called us 'crumbums') and, for a time, American Jews used M.O.T. - ''member of the tribe'' - as a self-mocking identification." And it was the title of a 1977 novel about American Jews, set in the early 20th century. So maybe its origin is from the 1960s, but then its usage was revived in recent decades?
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:55 PM on January 10, 2022

Yes, my sense is that the modern usage started around the 1960s or 1970s in America.

While I'm certainly aware of the tribes of Israel, "tribe" has many meanings, and I'm not sure if that ancient history was the only or primary reference for the term.
posted by andoatnp at 3:03 PM on January 10, 2022

for a time, American Jews used M.O.T. - ''member of the tribe'' - as a self-mocking identification.

Yeah this is definitely a reference to the tribes of Israel being used in a kind of jokey (and somewhat opaque) way. I know when I say MOT now, which I sometimes do, it's in a jokey way like "Oh hey didn't know you were MOT, welcome!" kind of thing.
posted by jessamyn at 3:05 PM on January 10, 2022

I am too young for it, but I think “MOT” was supposed to be kind of obscure in meaning when talking in front of non-Jews.
posted by 8603 at 4:24 PM on January 10, 2022

I would have said mid-90's and guessed maybe Ben Stiller, but I just found it cited in this William Safire Language column from 1986, so it's already a lot older than I thought it was... even here it seems that it's meant to be said at least somewhat ironically.
posted by Mchelly at 5:07 PM on January 10, 2022

Just dug down a little further and found it in the "Jewish American Princess Handbook" from 1982 (a takeoff on the Preppy Handbook).

So then I went and sank deeper into Google books, and this turned up, and I found it again in Merriam Webster now. So I think it's actually something we came up with out of an archaicism that people were saying about us anyway. Doesn't help for dating exactly when it started to be used ironically, but I'd feel pretty comfortable calling that the likely source.
posted by Mchelly at 6:05 PM on January 10, 2022

I agree that pointing out the existence of the Twelve Tribes of Israel does not really answer this question, and people noting that this is the association they draw when they say it is not inherently anything more than a potentially post-hoc folk etymology.

I poked around a little in Google Books and the oldest usage of the phrase in its relevant sense that I was able to find dates back to 1948: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Now_Then/HLscAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22member%20of%20the%20tribe%22 This doesn't answer your question either, but it could be a useful lead.
posted by dusty potato at 3:09 PM on January 11, 2022

There is also a 1977 novel about Jewish intracommunal relationships called Members of the Tribe. I'm not sure how popular it was, but presumably more widely-read than the very obscure publication I found above.
posted by dusty potato at 3:17 PM on January 11, 2022

Sorry, will stop live-tweeting my research here momentarily, but a 1975 book review reveals that the MOT acronym already had currency at that time and attributes the phrase to Southern US Jews. The "Members of the Tribe" novel I referenced above is set in Savannah, so there are some compelling hints of a possible regional origin here.
posted by dusty potato at 3:31 PM on January 11, 2022

It's not just the twelve tribes, though -- (and it took seeing the old dictionary to remind me, so I feel pretty dumb) -- the English word "Jew" is directly derived from "Tribe of Judah" (in Hebrew too - you get Yehudi יהודי from Yehuda יהודה - we're not called "Jews" in the Torah) (at least not until around the book of Esther). So calling it "the Tribe" ironically or jokingly would have been an easy outgrowth from the English definition. Especially from the perspective of living as a Jewish person in a Gentile world that is literally defining you in terms that frankly have nothing to do with what being Jewish is.

So I wouldn't be shocked if it started with Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl, and I also wouldn't be shocked if it came from Jack Benny or one of the other Vaudeville players in the 20's, and just took a long time before you started seeing it go from an inside joke into the wider culture.
posted by Mchelly at 8:11 PM on January 11, 2022