My son recently informed the word jew was racist. I had never heard that before so i started looking into it. As best as I can tell, it can be used as an insult by some but it is not actually intended as such.

One of the earliest uses of the word jew was used in the Book of Esther, where the hero was named Mordechai Hayehudi, or Mordechai the jew.

The term jew comes from the word yehudi, meaning a worshiper of Judah. When Isreal was divided into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom was the kingdom of Sumaria, whiloe the southern kingdom was Judah. After the fall of Sumaria, Judah became the sole Jewish state and the term yehudi, or jew was applied to all isrealites.

If the term is racist it is because we allow it to be. There is no historical significance to the word jew. I believe people associate the nazis with the term and assume its racist, but in reality the nazis referred to them as jews, because that is what they were called actually.