Shame on The Huffington Post’s coverage of the on again – off again – on again relationship between Ivanka Trump and New York Observer owner Jared Kushner, which manages to use the word shiksa numerous times in a piece of less than 100 words. In fact, shame on them, the person who tipped me to this story by calling it the best new example of shiksappeal, and anyone else who uses this term.

The fact that it’s commonly used doesn’t make it okay. The word literally means a female insect or bug, and it’s time to stop using it, even in jest. If you wouldn’t use the N-word, then you shouldn’t use the S-word either. And that holds for the male version, shaygetz, too.
The real story here is that in the space of 100 years the gentile elite of this country, who were once defined by a set of social mores that included hating Jews, now see Jews as totally desirable, and if joining the Jewish people is okay with us, then it’s okay with them. After thousands of years in which most Christians would have rather murdered a Jew than make love to one, it’s now the other way around. And to that reality, I say, “thank God!”
The ongoing question is whether Jews can stop fearing that reality and start thinking more seriously about its implications for new ways of understanding identity and community. There are many reasonable responses to this new moment of potential and I am intrigued by them all. But I know that no response based on fear or animated by a sense of the Jewish people’s demise, has ever been the way to go.
In fact, it has always been those leaders and thinkers who assumed the best about the future and the Jewish people’s ability to respond to it, that have made the greatest contributions. So let’s stop talking like people who are hated and have only the power to hate back. Let’s start asking what it means to embrace and celebrate Jewishness in a world where Ivanka would consider an Orthodox conversion.