Derogatory terms

[ChinseG <ChinseG...>]

In a message dated 2/26/98 1:15:38 pm, Wolf Krakowski wrote:

:To the list:
:The words "yekke" and "yekkishe" to denote "German" (n) and "German" (adj)
are :derogatory.  Their equivalents would be "wop" or "dago" for "Italian",
for   example.  If use :of the Yiddish is necessary or desirable,  the word
"daytsh" would be appropriate. 

The origin of this word, I am told, is a Hebrew acronym: YKH (the letters yud-
kuf-hey, which read as "yekke"), standing for "yehudi k'she havana" (=  dim-
witted (lit. "hard-of-understanding") Jew).  The phrase per se has nothing to
do with German Jews, yet they were branded as "yekkes" anyway.  In Israel,
it's probably not as bad as "wop" or "dago," unless you call a German Jew a
"yekke putz," which adds salt to the wound.  I'm sure that in the 50's,
Israelis, upon hearing various calls of "yoo-hoo!" in the streets before
dinnertime, knew that it was a German call and would remark to their friends,
"ah, yekkes," without it always being derogatory.  Probably, it was an
inevitability of a multicultural society, where each group distinguished
itself from the other in different ways as a means of preserving their
identity.  Unfortunately, the Germans got slapped with "yekke."

Calling a German Jew a "yekke" is probably like referring to a brute as a
"yoven" (a Greek) in Yiddish, as in the Yiddish phrase "Alle yevonim hobn eyn
punim" = All brutes have the same face (lit. "All Greeks [i.e. brutes] have
one face").

-Barak