Without looking it up first, Kushi means simply Ethiopian, from the name of Cush who was like a grandson of Noah. It picked up slight pejorative intent over the millennia like many other ethnonyms but I have never seen it synonymous with monkey. Any claim that it actually means monkey for any other reason than that people recently attributed nonhuman characteristics to people genetically tied to Ethiopia, and pretended that was the new definition, would be fictitious. When I see the sources I'll comment further.
Yeah, perhaps a decent phenomenological translation of "Kushi" would be "Negro" because it's stilted, antique, mildly pejorative now, and very rarely used.
Per the source subtext, the solution to my confusion was simple: The rabbi used both words separately, both Kushi and whatever is the Hebrew word for monkey. He's known for using controversial rhetoric in sermons and getting in trouble for it. Tsk.
Without looking it up first, Kushi means simply Ethiopian, from the name of Cush who was like a grandson of Noah. It picked up slight pejorative intent over the millennia like many other ethnonyms but I have never seen it synonymous with monkey. Any claim that it actually means monkey for any other reason than that people recently attributed nonhuman characteristics to people genetically tied to Ethiopia, and pretended that was the new definition, would be fictitious. When I see the sources I'll comment further.
Ethiopian is rather specific, and not a good synonym for "African Americans".
There are Ethiopian Jews who are black.
Yeah, perhaps a decent phenomenological translation of "Kushi" would be "Negro" because it's stilted, antique, mildly pejorative now, and very rarely used.
Per the source subtext, the solution to my confusion was simple: The rabbi used both words separately, both Kushi and whatever is the Hebrew word for monkey. He's known for using controversial rhetoric in sermons and getting in trouble for it. Tsk.