Eugene Volokh wonders "What's with those Jewish people?".
Why do some people think that it's more polite to say "Jewish people" than "Jews"? I've heard some people say that "Jews" is somehow considered rude, and "Jewish people" is better, but I just don't see why.I've wondered about this myself. Perhaps it's because Judaism is a hybrid of race, ethnicity, and religion, and such hybrids aren't common? Maybe in some cases the speaker doesn't know exactly how to express that he's referring to the religious characteristics of Jews in some contexts, and their racial characteristics in other contexts.
Along the same lines, is it acceptable to call Jews "Hebrews"? Why are people from Israel called "Israelis" rather than "Israelites"?
People are generally very sensitive about political correctness when it comes to Jews, for understandable reasons. I'm sure that plain old anxiety over causing offense is at least partly responsible for the awkward phrasing, as if to say "You aren't a Jew to me, don't worry; you're just a person who happens to be Jewish."
Update:
David Bernstein elaborates.
To me, the term "Israelites" has an almost mythological connotion - an epic group of people who were characters in the Bible, enduring great historical conflicts and trials. I think of "Israelites" the same as I think of "Canaanites" and "Babylonians" and "Vikings" and "Celts" and "Saxans" - ancient or near-ancient, romantic groups of civilization.
But Jews has an interesting perspective to me here in the South. There are few people (that I know) here that are Jewish - either religiously or ethnically. I don't remember growing up with any, and if I met any in college I wasn't really aware of it. I knew intellectually what a they might look like, but there's just not a huge population base here.
And so, based on my limited experience, "Jew" has mostly been used either as a term of derision (in extreme cases) or one of dismissal ("It's the Jews...*sigh*). I don't often hear it in a positive or complimentary context.
"Jewish People", however, is used more commonly as a general ethnic term.
A lot probably stems from the difference between calling people "Blacks", or "Black people" - both very different in colloquial uses, very similar to "Jews" and "Jewish people".
I’d chalk “Jewish people” up to the PC crowd – though I’m surprised anyone cares if a Jew is offended. It seems that to make a term politically correct, one must at least quadruple the number of syllables in the original word (and span several word, and maybe add a hyphen).
It seems to me that “Jewish people” seems to explicitly refer to Jews of both religion and ethnicity. On the other hand the word “people” have been popping up everywhere. I’ve heard of politicians on both sides talk about, “the American people want this,” or “this is bad for the Iraqi people.” It seems that if something can be said with more words the speaker might be perceived as more intelligent.
In light of that last sentence I’ll stop typing now.