The interesting history of the word "Jewry" ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

The interesting history of the word "Jewry"

I saw this in the 1775 edition of The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language by John ash:

Jewry: The country of the Jews, a place where Jews are permitted to reside.

That is certainly not what the word means today.

It turns out that in the word "Jewry" originally was a synonym for Judea. The King James Bible translates Daniel 5:13: "Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry?"

This 1683 edition of Josephus shows this clearly:

Later on, it became the name of Jewish quarters or ghettoes of European cities. London had an "Old Jewry" section where Jews had lived before their expulsion.

By the late 19th century, the word started changing meanings again towards today's usage. This is described in "Jewish Ideals And Other Essays" by Joseph Jacobs, 1896:

The name Jewry may perhaps legitimately detain us a moment. It is a French collective term, and reminds us that the London "Jewry" is a daughter of the Rouen "Juifverie." It is sometimes spelt Giwerie, Latinised variously as "Judearia" and "Judaismus," whence we find a Cambridge parish "in the Judeism," and a purely English collective is sometimes used, "Juhede." It does not necessarily imply a place at all, but merely a community of persons who were all responsible for each, as the Jews actually were under old English law.

Even an innocuous sounding word as "Jewry" reminds us of centuries of persecution and "othering" of Jews, who were forced to live in separate parts of towns.