Why calling slaves 'enslaved people' now makes sense to me

And yet. The idea of using “enslaved people” rather than slave is not new and is well-intentioned. In fact, once I was aware of it, I started seeing it everywhere. It serves to stress the humanity of the people it describes, to underline that they are people first and not only slaves. In a way it seeks to offer them a little freedom from that label, to show that slavery was neither their definition nor should it be their destiny. It is very similar to the suggestion that we talk about “disabled people” and not “the disabled”. People are more than the bad things that happen to them.

We Jews know what it is to be enslaved — not just from biblical times, but throughout history and into the 20th century. Maybe, I thought, the reason I was hitherto OK with the word “slave” was that for me it was so firmly in the past.

We were slaves aons ago, when the pyramids were built, and we aren’t slaves any more. Our view of slavery is in the far distance. We make charoset to remember our ancestors’ tribulations and we munch on coconut pyramids.

But then I thought of the time I spent talking to Belsen survivor Mala Tribich. As a teenager she was a slave labourer in a plywood factory, treated as less than human, exploited and abused, because she was Jewish. Enslavement is not purely biblical for us. I have drunk tea and eaten biscuits and joked and laughed with a wonderful woman who was once a slave. And who is so far beyond being defined by that small, malevolent word, that it is hard to believe that she was ever in that position.

Yet some of the most powerful aspects of Mala’s testimony come when she describes the sense of despair and loss of identity when she was sent to Belsen. That stripping away of self is the core of slavery, and this is what the phrase “enslaved people” is trying to address. It may sound and look clumsy, but it’s in a good cause.

The other thing I’ve found is that being robbed of the shorthand word “slave” and trying to avoid as far as possible the gob-stopper “enslaved people” has forced me into thinking more deeply about how to write about the experience of slavery.

How do you describe living without freedom? How does that affect your everyday life, from the food you eat to the way you talk to your family?

There’s a big fuss at the moment about “woke censorship”, sparked by ham-fisted edits of authors such as Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie to produce editions that won’t upset supposedly modern sensibilities.

As someone who does “sensitivity” reads for authors and playwrights, I’ve followed the debate with interest. The problem, as I see it, is a lack of skill and confidence in the editing of these editions. It should be an editor’s job to make sure that any alterations show respect for the original author’s skilful use of language, something that seems to have gone out of the window with some of these changes.

My aim when asked to report on a book or play is to alter as little as possible. In fact, I have no power to make changes — I am no censor, just an adviser — but I let people know if something is inaccurate or could cause offence. I’m like an additional researcher.

I’ve suggested, for example, that an East End Jewish bakery in the 1930s would not be selling sufganiyot for Chanukah, and a young girl in the 1950s would be unlikely to talk blithely about bat mitzvah parties.

I respect the writer — dead or alive — and try to make suggestions that respect their intentions and language.

But ultimately, the most important people I have in mind, especially when advising on children’s books, are the readers.

I see myself as a champion of Jewish kids who like reading. They deserve to see their people represented as well as possible. And if that includes losing the word “slave”, well, I’ll go with it.