More than 20 Jewish groups from Spanish-speaking countries and beyond have written to Spain’s leading linguistic authority asking it to remove antisemitic definitions from its dictionary that describe a judío (Jew) as “a greedy or money-lending person” and the related term judiada as a synonym for “dirty trick”.
In a letter to the 300-year-old Spanish Royal Academy (RAE), which chronicles and oversees the evolution of the Spanish language, the groups urge the institution to rethink the two entries in its official Dictionary of the Spanish Language on the grounds that they are outdated, “utterly antisemitic” and contrary to the Spanish constitution.
The fifth definition of judío that appears in the dictionary – flagged as a pejorative term – is “in relation to a person – greedy or money-lending”. The first definition of judiada, which notes that the word was originally used “with antisemitic intent”, is “a dirty trick or an action that is detrimental to someone”, while the second entry refers to “a crowd or group of Jews”.
The letter, backed by Spain’s Federation of Jewish Communities, the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says such definitions belong to the tradition of antisemitism in Spain that led to the expulsion or forced conversion of the country’s Jewish population in 1492 under the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
“The definitions of the word judío and judiada in no way reflect the true meaning of these terms,” the letter says. “These descriptions are the product of a medieval and renaissance terminology of rejection, envy and hatred directed at the Jews who, because of their work, had the highest incomes – which was one of the factors that led to their expulsion from Spain by the Catholic monarchs.”
The signatories acknowledged that the RAE had attempted to explain that use of the word judío to mean “a greedy or money-lending person” was pejorative, but said “as far as the international Jewish community is concerned, the move has served only to confirm that we are dealing with an untrue definition that feeds antisemitism, harming the image of Jews by condemning them as a group of greedy people or moneylenders”.
RAE sources confirmed the institution had received the letter and said it would be studying the groups’ requests.
In recent years, Spain has attempted to confront its antisemitic past and to treasure the social, historical and linguistic contributions of its long-exiled Jewish population.
In 2015, the Spanish government attempted to atone for what it termed the “historical wrong” of the expulsion and persecution of its Jewish communities by offering citizenship to the descendants of those who were forced from their homeland.
The offer, which expired in October 2019, resulted in 132,226 people of Sephardic descent applying for Spanish citizenship.
Nine years ago, the 52 eligible residents of Castrillo Matajudíos – which translates as Camp Kill Jews – voted in a referendum to change the village’s name back to Castrillo Mota de Judíos, which means Jews’ Hill Camp.
The village, in the northern region of Castilla y León, is thought to have been established in the 11th century by a group of Jews who had been expelled from a nearby settlement. Although it became a popular trading hub and home to more than 1,000 people, life changed drastically after the 1492 expulsion.
Some researchers believe the name was changed to signal loyalty to Catholicism and the crown, while others think it may have been a slip of the pen, changing mota (hill) to mata (kill). Over the past two years, Castrillo Mota de Judíos has been subjected to two antisemitic attacks and daubed with graffiti reading: “Camp Kill Jews, twinned with Aushwitch [sic]”; “Juden Raus [Jews Out]” and “Long live the Catholic monarchs”.
