Zhyd

 ( Antisemitic Slurs ) 

On December 4, 1762 Empress Catherine II issued a manifesto permitting all foreigners to travel and to settle in Russia, adding kromye zhidov ("except the Jews"). History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, by Simon Dubnow, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1916, p. 260, Retrieved 8/13/2024. In the legislative enactments of the last decade of Catherine's reign the term zhid was replaced by еврей yevrey, "Hebrew". History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, by Simon Dubnow, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1916, p. 320, Retrieved 8/13/2024.

In the Western Ukrainian dialect of Yiddish, the term for 'Jew" is 'Zhyd' - as is found in the name of the Hassidic dynasty of Ziditshov. The dialect stresses the Y-sound of the Yiddish word "Yid" into a 'Zh".

In December 2012, politician Ihor Miroshnychenko of the Svoboda party wrote on Facebook that Hollywood actress Mila Kunis, who is Jewish, is "not a Ukrainian but a zhydivka." Ukrainian Jews protested the use of the term. Svoboda officials and Ukrainian philologist Oleksandr Ponomariv argued that in the Ukrainian language, the word does not always have the anti-Semitic connotations that it does in the Russian language, though Ponomariv warned that the term would be considered offensive by Jewish people.Winer, Stuart. 19 December 2012. " Ukraine okays 'zhyd' slur for Jews." The Times of Israel. Glavcom.ua, . The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice declared that Miroshnichenko's use of the word was legal because it is an archaic term for Jew and not necessarily a slur. In a letter of protest directed to then-Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, the term Zhydovka was described by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center as an "insidious slur invoked by the Nazis and their collaborators as they rounded up the Jews to murder them at Babi Yar and in the death camps."