Jewfish Out?

Another quirky apostrophe to the current culture appeared in last week's Christian Century. It read: "Anti-Semitic Fishermen Please Take Notice--A somewhat unusual episode in the campaign for better relations between Jews and Gentiles is the renaming of the 'Jew fish,' which hereafter is to be called the 'June fish,' at least in the New York aquarium. Jews protested that a fish 'so ugly and so named was an insult to their race.' "*

Last week, Manhattan Jews gazed resentfully at the groupers in the New York aquarium, and at the placard on the grouper tank. The Christian Century good news had not yet come true. The placard still reads "JEWFISH (Grouper)."

*The jewfish, socalled, is the hulking; giant of the grouper family. It has little eye set far forward and high up in its head ; a gaping, underslung jaw ; an oblong body. It grows, off tropical America and along the California coast, to a length of six feet, in the Pacific south seas to twelve feet. Although sluggish, it is a favorite of sea fishermen, for its mighty-seeming on the hook.