One of the definitions of the Spanish word for Jew, “judío,” in the official dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, is “a miserly or usurious person.” In 2024 an Argentine judge ordered the Academy, which is based in Madrid, to remove the definition, following a campaign by Jewish organizations in Latin America.
The Academy refused. If the official dictionary defines “Jew” as “miserly,” it is because that’s how people use the word, said Santiago Muñoz Machado, the Academy’s director. Two years later, the dictionary retains that definition, while acknowledging that it is considered offensive.
Beware of old false beliefs, which take a very long time to die and continue to cause trouble. Look at Donald Trump, a self-professed anti-antisemite, who repeatedly evoked the image of Shakespeare’s Shylock, one of literature’s most antisemitic tropes, during the midterm campaign.
In part, this reflects the debate over the role of dictionaries in society. Are they a snapshot of daily speech or do they tell society how to use words? Are the makers of dictionaries responsible for the views expressed in them? Who decides what a definition should be?
Since its inception in 1713, the Royal Spanish Academy — its motto used to be “clean, fix and give splendor” — has legislated the Spanish language’s orthography (proper spelling, for example), syntax and punctuation. Mostly it keeps in its dictionary the words it believes speakers should use and rejects those it deems unworthy. Its reputation is snobbish: Many see its imperious behavior as the reflection of a self-proclaimed supreme, implacable authority. That it is compiled in Spain often infuriates people in Latin America, who feel the language is as much theirs, if not more, based on the number of speakers.
To that end, frustratingly, Mr. Muñoz Machado told the news media that an Argentine judge has no jurisdiction over the Academy’s dictionary.
In this case, altering the definition is essential to righting a profound wrong. Antisemitism in Spain and Latin America is deeply entrenched. That is, in part, historical in nature: The arrival of the Spanish colonizers in the Western Hemisphere coincided with the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, and persecution — not to mention stereotypes — continued on these shores.
Antisemitic thinking and acts are far from a new phenomenon. But after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the subsequent wars in Gaza and Iran, the Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 Global 100: Index of Antisemitism reported an increase in antisemitic acts in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala and Peru.
In Argentina, where the largest concentration of Latin American Jews is found, the ADL found 58 percent of people surveyed believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Argentina; 60 percent believe a small group of people secretly controls world events; and many respondents believe a raft of other antisemitic beliefs.
In my own native Mexico City, shortly before the start of Rosh Hashana this September, hooligans with Palestinian flags arrived in buses in the Polanco neighborhood, where I had my bar mitzvah decades ago. They screamed, “Out with the Jews” (“Fuera judíos”) and held a sign that read, “We demand disinvestment from Jewish businesses; we want them out of Mexico” (“Exigimos desinversión de las empresas judías; los queremos fuera de México”).
Does a problematic definition affect that? It certainly can’t help.
“We can presume that those terms as crystallized in the dictionary are a sign of an antisemitic prejudice,” Ariel Gelblung, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for Latin America, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency when the petition to the Royal Spanish Academy was sent in 2023. Two of the organizations behind the campaign to eliminate the negative definition of “judío” in the dictionary are the Latin American Jewish Congress and the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations, Argentina’s 90-year-old Jewish political umbrella organization. Scores of groups outside the region have joined the petition, including Spain’s Federation of Jewish Communities and the ADL.
Language is a barometer through which one is able to assess a society’s opinions and beliefs. The word “judío” is far from the only one in the Academy’s dictionary that casts Jews in a negative light. Others like “judaizar,” which means to practice Judaism in secret, and “judaizante” and “hebraizante,” used to accuse someone of being a secret Jew, are pejorative. (Nobody uses them in Spanish today). And there is “judiada,” which has two definitions: “prejudicial behavior,” which the dictionary defines as a colloquial usage, and “a multitude of Jews.”
Spanish is the most spoken first language in the world after Mandarin Chinese. There are hundreds of millions of people who speak Spanish as their first language and an additional roughly 100 million who speak it as a second one. And yet, while there are numerous dictionaries in the Hispanic world, none is as important as the Academy’s dictionary.
Every so often, the Academy does agree to change a word. In 2023, a Spanish lawyer, Borja Luján Lago, persuaded the Academy to modify a definition of the word “abogado,” “lawyer,” that described the profession as “habladora, enredadora and parlanchina” — that is, “talkative, troublemaking and a chatterbox.” As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, that success led the Jewish groups to turn to Mr. Luján Lago for assistance in altering the definition of “judío.”
Dictionaries are living entities. They have always included misconceptions, since they reflect the society they define. They also have the capacity to redefine, and push us to recognize our own prejudices. Now we just need the bravery to change them.
Ilan Stavans, who teaches at Amherst College, is at work on a cultural history of Spanish dictionaries. His latest book is “Fictional Translations.”
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