User:Weirdoactor/Jewdar

Jewdar, a recently-coined jocular slang word that is portmanteau derived from "Jew" and "radar", is the supposed ability to intuitively discern whether or not a person is a Jew via subtle (often non-verbal) cues such as appearance, general mannerisms, body language, clothing, voice, or other non-specific information.

Urban Dictionary has several entries on Jewdar and correspondents involved with the American Dialect Society noted that comedian Judy Gold used the word on Comedy Central.^[1][2] A writer for the Russian magazine The eXile facetiously claimed to have created "Jewdar2000" software.^[3] Although it seems to be mostly used by Jewish people themselves, one can find examples of it being used by people who are anti-Semitic.^[4][5]

Based upon radar, gaydar and Jewdar, the "-dar" suffix may take on the status of a morpheme meaning "detection ability" which can be used to improvise other terms.^[6]

• "David Bergman tells us that there is 'Jewdar,' just like gaydar. Absolutely truthful: When I lived in almost Jew-free Germany in the late '70s, ..."^[7]

• In extreme examples, some allege to be able to discern a Jewish person with a quick glance. A writer for the Washington Post recollects:

You may have heard the term "gaydar," the ability claimed by some gay people to detect other gays. My mother has a similar skill -- call it "Jewdar" -- the knack for identifying fellow members of the tribe. ... When I was growing up in northern New Jersey, my mother would demonstrate this talent when we went to restaurants, methodically shifting her gaze from table to table. "Jew, Jew, Christian, intermarried," she would pronounce, with the certitude of the preternaturally gifted.^[8]

• Another author also uses "Jewdar' in the same passage as the older portmanteau word "gaydar":

In the 10 years since I came out as gay, I've had two principal relationships -- one a relatively short disaster, and one a lasting dream -- with gentile men, both of whom I mistook at first for Jews. This suggests that I ought to disengage my faulty Jewdar. Except that I can't. Uncertain as it is -- just like my gaydar -- it's a survival skill I'm afraid to be without.^[9]

• New York Press has also coupled the terms:

...McCain got a free pass for his acute gaydar; not that Bush would’ve. But I wonder if Carlson would also applaud the Senator’s Jewdar?^[10]

• In a 2006 article in Artforum International Magazine, writer Rhonda Lieberman uses the word without pairing it with "gaydar". She also slips in a Yiddish word that many, but certainly not most, English language speakers would know:

Schorr had hitherto evaded my Jewdar, but my shiksa friend was right.^[11]

• Joseph Epstein, contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, talked about Jewdar in a serious tone in 2003 (and, incidentally, inaccurately implies that it is a nonce word that he is improvising on the spot):

And yet Jews remain, at least to most other Jews, identifiably, unmistakably Jewish. "Gaydar" is a word, formed from "radar," that describes the ability to discern a gay man, especially one attempting to pass as heterosexual. If there is an equivalent power of discernment that allows one to spot Jews, even where they do not conform in any obvious or even subtle way to stereotypical notions of the Jew--let us call this "Jewdar"--I like to think I possess it in reasonably good working order.^[12]

{{wiktionary:Jewdar}}

• Cultural Judaism
• Secular Jewish culture
• Yiddishkeit

• "Jewdar" Column -- from the Jewish Heeb Magazine
  • "Jewdar" Column -- from the Jewish Heeb Magazine
• "Funny, But I Do Look Jewish?" -- from The Weekly Standard
• "New -dar word?" -- from the American Dialect Society LISTSERV
  • "New -dar word?" -- from the American Dialect Society LISTSERV
• Article: "Oh, Kramer" mentions 'Jewdar' throughout -- from the editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times

Category:Jewish society -- Category:Portmanteaus -- Category:Vocabulary -- Category:Word coinage -- Category:Neologisms