“The words and the definitions are taken from the actual dictionary, which is published by HarperCollins – and we’re not responsible for how they define them,” he claimed. However, HarperCollins responded that "the phrase ‘to jew’ has been listed as ‘obsolete’ and ‘offensive’ in our data and our products for more than a decade."
Mr Whiteoak, who is himself Jewish, said that following a discussion, the ABSP had decided “to take the time to go through the list and add ‘offensive’ to words that obviously were so”, including the word “jew”.
In the early 1990s, a Jewish Scrabble player, Judith Grad, challenged an opponent’s use of the word “Jew” because it was a proper noun, describing an adherent of the Jewish faith.
Her opponent responded that it was also in the dictionary as a verb, meaning to con, cheat or swindle.
Ms Grad later launched a campaign aimed at getting dictionaries to remove this usage of “jew”, as well as other words like “n****r” and “kike”.
The dictionaries refused to do so, pointing out that although such words might be slurs, they were also part of the language.
Ms Grad then attempted to get Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble, to remove offensive terms from its own Scrabble dictionary, which the company agreed to do, resulting in an updated version of the Scrabble dictionary, the OSPD (Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary), version 3.
But many competitive Scrabble players objected to the new dictionary, leading to the creation of two separate Scrabble lexicons – the OSPD series, and the OWL (Official tournament and club Word List), which included those words cut from the OSPD.
Reacting to the ABSP's decision, Mr Rich said: “It is progress of sorts that the ABSP has finally labelled their definition as offensive, but this still does not address the fact that they are helping to perpetuate, and implicitly legitimise, antisemitic usages of the word ‘Jew’.
“This is different from including swear words or other racist insults, because ‘Jew’ is a normal word that antisemites have given an alternative meaning as a way of slandering all Jewish people.”
