Home › Forums › Rants › A Complaint About The Terms 'Frei' & 'Shiksa' › Reply To: A Complaint About The Terms 'Frei' & 'Shiksa'
Among good frum Jews in Europe and America the words “Shiksa” and “Shaygetz” were rude ways of referring to goyim or to Jews who act like goyim. Among the secular Yiddish speakers who lived in America in the latge 19th and 20th century (before the holocaust refugees arrived, which for the first time in America including many frum Jews), the words had a much stronger sexual overtone. The terms are well known to many Americans from the frei Jewish usage, and that usage is one that is not proper for frum Jews to use. A correct translation of the word, as used in secular Yiddish, and therefore American English, would not be allowed on YWN.
An interesting analogy is when Alphonse D’Amato wanted to both insult Charles Schumer (then running for D’Amato’s Senate seat) and used a phrase that based on the usage he had heard (from secular Jews) was mildly rude – and in fact in was (in the Yiddish of the frum Jews whose support he was seeking) extremely vulgar and obsence. Unfortunatley, there is some evidence that choice of word is why Schumer is today a leading Senator.
