News Brief

Marcus Shloimovitz, a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has scored a victory in his campaign to have “insulting, derogatory and unwarranted” definitions of Jew removed from various English dictionaries, Shloimovitz has an action pending against Clarendon Press, the publishers of the various Oxford dictionaries, but has in the meantime been informed that the definition has been altered in the new edition of the “Twentieth Century” dictionary. It now reads: “Jew: A person of Hebrew descent or religion, an Israelite; (offensively) a usurer, miser; (offensively) to over-reach.” Shloimovitz said that the introduction of the word “offensively,” and the dropping of the word “cheat,” was a reasonable compromise. Other publishers, he said, have also informed him of their intentions to consider changing the definition of Jew in their dictionaries.