…shiksa is indeed an abusive word still used by some Jewish people. Does it hurt? You should have asked my late mum how she felt when it was applied to her by some of the less enlightened members of my Jewish father’s family. Sometimes it’s supposed to be innocuous, but usually it’s intended to be carelessly nasty.
And people have every right to use it, just as others have every duty to then regard those people as morons and to tell them so or just ignore them. Which is what we should do when anyone — including Jews — uses insulting language.
But while the Canadian Jewish Congress believes rightly that the Crown would have no legal basis to prosecute for use of such a word, it has been one of the main groups traditionally and vociferously calling for state intervention on offensive speech issues.
In Canada, it seems, I am offended therefore I am. Everybody has to be a victim and the list grows ever longer, supported by compensation from tax-funded human rights bodies.
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Those who deny that “shiksa” can be an “offensive” term should google “shiksas are for practice.”
I personally do NOT find the idea that “shiksas are for pracitice” offensive. And that’s as much as I’m prepared to say about that…
