An organization representing Jewish communities in Europe are demanding the removal of a “racist and humiliating” depiction of Jews as having large hooked noses from an online dictionary of Flemish sign language.
The portrayal is one of more than 10,000 signs on a visual online guide recognised by the Flemish government as a “knowledge and coordination centre” for sign language in the Flanders region of Belgium.
According to the dictionary, there are three ways to sign the word “Jew”. The term can be represented by stroking over the chin – an action used in British sign language – or by displaying pipe curls with the fingers or gesturing with the finger over the nose.
The dictionary has been recently updated to indicate that the latter two signs have negative connotations but the University of Ghent, which hosts the Flemish sign language centre on its website, is facing calls for the signs’ removal.
Menachem Margolin of the European Jewish Association said: “The one with the hair strands is acceptable, although misleading. The videos using a gesture of a big and crocheted nose to define a Jew are just racist and humiliating for Jews.”
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3 Responses
While this is horrifying, I have to laugh.
hashem should make them all “deaf” and “dumb” (which they actually are lol) and not be capable of learning the “language’!
I have a hand motion with which I usually describe Belgians…..