Zhyd (zhid) and Zhydovka (zhidovka) are terms for Jewish man and Jewish woman, respectively, in several Slavic languages.[1] [2] [3] In Russian and Ukrainian languages, they are now considered ethnic slurs.
In modern Russian (ru|жидовка / жид|label=none), it has been an antisemitic slur, similar to the word yid, since the mid-19th century.[4]
On December 4, 1762 Empress Catherine II issued a manifesto permitting all foreigners to travel and to settle in Russia, adding kromye Zhydov ("except the Jews").[5] In the legislative enactments of the last decade of Catherine's reign the term Zhyd was replaced by Yevrey, "Hebrew".[6]
Under the influence of Russian, the terms have also become pejorative in modern Ukrainian (uk|жидівка / жид|label=none, zhydivka / zhyd).[7] [8] [9] Nikita Khrushchev commented on the term in his memoirs:[10]
In the Western Ukrainian dialect of Yiddish, the term for 'Jew" is 'Zhyd' - as is found in the name of the Hassidic dynasty of Ziditshov. The dialect stresses the Y-sound of the Yiddish word "Yid" into a 'Zh".
In December 2012, Ukrainian politician Ihor Miroshnychenko of the Svoboda party wrote on Facebook that Hollywood actress Mila Kunis, who is Jewish, is "not a Ukrainian but a zhydivka." Ukrainian Jews protested the use of the term. Svoboda officials and Ukrainian philologist Oleksandr Ponomariv argued that in the Ukrainian language, the word does not always have the anti-Semitic connotations that it does in the Russian language, though Ponomariv warned that the term would be considered offensive by Jewish people.[11] [12] The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice declared that Miroshnichenko's use of the word was legal because it is an archaic term for Jew and not necessarily a slur. In a letter of protest directed to then-Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, the term Zhydovka was described by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center as an "insidious slur invoked by the Nazis and their collaborators as they rounded up the Jews to murder them at Babi Yar and in the death camps."
In Polish the words pl|żyd / żydówka|label=none are the neutral, standard and non-pejorative way to refer to Jews, which is being used by the Polish Jews to describe themselves (for example "Żydowski Instytut Historyczny" - Jewish Historical Institute or "Gmina Wyznaniowa Żydowska" - Jewish Religious Community). However there exist numerous derivatives, some of which can be pejorative, such as żydzisko, żydek or żydy (in plural. The non-pejorative form is żydzi).[13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
In most other Slavic languages, such as Czech/Slovak (Uncoded languages: label=none|cat=f|židovka / žid), Slovene, Croatian (Croatian: židovka, židov for "Jew"; and Croatian: Židovka, Židov for "Israelite", "Israeli national"[18])—as well as Hungarian and Lithuanian which are influenced by Slavic languages—these terms, similar to the usage in Polish, are not pejorative, as they simply mean 'Jew' and trace their etymology to the Old Italian word giudio, which was inherited from Latin jūdaeus.[19] [20]