What is a Heeb?
JENNIFER BLEYER, EDITOR IN CHIEF, “HEEB”: Well, a heeb is a Jew. A heeb is really a archaic, derogatory term for Jew that I don’t think anybody has heard used in the derogatory sense really in the past 50 years. I have not met anyone who was. But, probably at the turn of the century, it was the derogatory term. And, in this magazine, we are sort of trying to reclaim it and give it a tinge of pride, a tinge of sort of endearing quality, and just reclaim it. ATKINS: Heeb is short for Hebrew. And Steve Maltzberg, talk show host, you think this is a bad idea. Why is that? STEVE MALTZBERG, TALK SHOW HOST: I think it is a bad idea for a name. Certainly, I could think back to Archie Bunker, who quite frequently would refer to Jews as heebs and other derogatory names. Just knowing that it is a derogatory name and it has a derogatory history, you have to start thinking, well, if it was a black magazine trumpeting African-American history or events or culture, would it be named the N-word? Or it
Heeb, a word derived from the anti-Semitic slur hebe, has been reclaimed by Jewish youth to proudly describe a person of Jewish identity and take the venom out of an offensive term. The term, a pejorative abbreviation of “Hebrew,” has been reappropriated by the young Jewish intellectual community in New York City and sits at the center of the Jewish youth movement. People belonging to the “heeb generation” are often referred to as “heebsters,” a take on the term “hipster,” “rejewvenators,” or members of Jewish counterculture. Arts, urbanity, intellectualism, and politics, typically progressivism, are often associated with Heeb culture. Heeb Magazine: The New Jew Review embodies much of this culture, with a young Jewish intellectual readership and contributor pool. The subtitle is a play on the 1970s children’s show, The New Zoo Revue. The magazine was founded in 2001 in Brooklyn by young student activist Jennifer Bleyer, but soon after changed hands to Joseph Neuman, a Harvard Divinity
