I want to thank The New York Times for publishing today’s guest essay, “The Spanish Shylock Problem,” about the antisemitism embedded in everyday language. It is a welcome subject for a newspaper that has done so much to negatively shape the language used to describe Jews and Israel.

The author focuses on the Royal Spanish Academy, whose official dictionary includes a definition of judío, the Spanish word for Jew, as a miserly or usurious person. In 2024, an Argentine judge ordered the Academy to remove the definition following a campaign by Jewish organizations. The Academy refused, explaining that dictionaries record how people actually use words.

Which came first, the antisemitic stereotype or the dictionary definition? Did the Academy simply record centuries of prejudice, or has its dictionary helped perpetuate that prejudice by presenting Jewish stinginess as an accepted meaning of the word Jew?

The essay could have challenged the stereotype with some actual evidence. A national American survey found that 76% of Jewish households donated to charity, compared with 63% of non-Jewish households. Median annual donations were $1,200 for Jews, twice those of non-Jews. Among Jewish donors, 92% contributed to non-Jewish organizations. Hardly the portrait of a miserly people.

The essay also discusses Spanish expressions associating Jews with secrecy. Here, a little history would have been useful beyond generic persecution to the specific religious nature of the attacks on Jews.

The Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to convert, flee or risk death. The Inquisition existed in Mexico and Latin America for hundreds of years until the 1820s. Many converts continued practicing Judaism secretly, risking imprisonment, torture or execution. Their descendants spread throughout Latin America, where a 2018 genetic study published in Nature Communications found evidence of widespread ancestry – 23 percent! – associated with converso migration.

The persecutors forced Jews into secrecy. Their descendants inherited a language that characterized Jews as secretive.

Society has shown that it can change its vocabulary. Polite society has largely abandoned the N-word, recognizing it as an ugly racial slur. Muslim organizations have campaigned to separate Islam from terrorism, arguing that the association unfairly casts suspicion on nearly two billion Muslims rather than the radical jihadists responsible for terrorist attacks.

Yet centuries-old stereotypes about Jews remain embedded in dictionaries, journalism and everyday speech. The willingness to reconsider offensive language seems to stop when Jews are the subject.

William Safire spent decades examining the origins and meanings of words in his celebrated New York Times column, “On Language.” He understood how much a single word could convey.

In July 2014, as antisemitic attacks swept across Europe during the Gaza war, three Times articles described the protests as having an antisemitic “tinge.” A slight whiff of Jew-hatred. Dan Bilefsky used the expression on July 21, Helene Cooper and Somini Sengupta on July 24, and Jodi Rudoren on July 27.

And what was going on? On July 20, anti-Israel rioters attacked a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, while Jewish businesses were looted. A week earlier, demonstrators in Paris had threatened synagogues, chanting “Death to the Jews” and “Hitler was right.” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the violence, explicitly identifying the attacks on Jewish institutions as antisemitism and racism.

A “tinge” of antisemitism.

The newspaper seemed determined to preserve the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, even when protesters themselves had erased it. Calling the hatred a “tinge” allowed the events to remain principally political demonstrations, with antisemitism appearing as an unfortunate side effect.

“Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are continuing in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and other European cities, some of them assuming an anti-Semitic tinge.” – New York Times article on July 24, 2014, “As Much of the World Frowns on Israel, Americans Hold Out Support”

The Spanish Academy says it merely records how people speak. The Times cannot hide behind that explanation. Its journalists and editors decide how events are described, which words are emphasized and what readers are encouraged to believe.

I appreciate today’s guest essay. It is refreshing to see the Times devote space to the antisemitism that survives in ordinary language, especially as The Times has spent years choosing the words through which readers understand Jews and Israel.

It might begin its examination of antisemitic language with the words it chooses itself.