Is the word "Jew" thought of as demeaning? Cos I usually use it just to mean Jewish person, but some people say it's used to be insulting. [Spirituality & Religion]

It's usage as I have friends who are Jewish and they use the term "Jew" all the time when referring to elements of their cultural history or referring to people that they know who are of the same faith or cultural tradition as it can refer to the religion or culture as in the case of a secular Jewish person.

This is like the whole "black" vs "African American" thing. Like no black person actually has a problem with being identified as black, it's mostly guilt-ridden white liberals with too much time on their hands and too much of an obsession with language that go around changing the terminology for no reason.

That's a really good question. It might be good to hear from some Jewish folks on this. As for myself, I'll usually say someone is Jewish rather than refer to them as "a Jew". It just sounds derogatory to say the latter (at least to my ears), but I really can't tell you why.

I've been trying to figure it out too. It seems to have a negative connotation, but my history books use it. It's like the word "blacks", in my opinion.

I grew up hearing that word as a verb and it was meant to be bad in a fun way. It is the way you say it that can make it bad.

Commonly people use it in a demeaning manor but the word it self isn't demeaning but i would stick to calling a person jewish to avoid any misunderstandings.

And those people are called anti semites. They're the worse kind of people.

All my Jewish friends are not insulted by that word. In fact they use it all the time

It's all about tone. It can be what they're called or offensive.

Context and tone.

Depends on the contexts.

My guess is that for a long time (and still the case in many places) when ever someone said "Jew" or "Jews" it was in a derogatory way, so after awhile it became a derogatory term
Just a guess

No.

Hmm...people who think the word "Jew" is inherently an insult. I wonder what they're mindset is?

words dont mean anything, its just the context of it

It's no more derogatory than saying, "Christian."

Jew brackets aren't demeaning either.

It's not as per se, but often it was kinda used in a pejorative way, so many people just use Jewish instead. It's like like with Negro vs Black.