What's in a name? Swine!

We are all concerned about the spread of swine flu in the United States and abroad. A comment in Israel on what to call this outbreak of influenza may seem laughable to many people.

You see, Jews don't eat pork and don't keep pigs as pets. Hence "swine" might be offensive, according to one Israeli official (who shall remain nameless in consideration of his already tarred public image), to those who do not keep pigs in their homes.

This official suggested an alternative name: Mexican flu. As a government official one would think he'd know better. Would he want someone to call a virus that originated in Israel the "Israeli flu?"

On the other hand, this discussion shows the power of language and labels, in particular.

Thus it's interesting that no one talks about the alternative definition of swine, namely, "a contemptible person." This association came to me because, as a child of a holocaust survivor, I recall that Jews were often called SWINE! by their Nazi persecutors.

Hugo Chavez understands this power in his use of Anti-Semitic language against Jews in Venezuela. His centuries-old strategy is to label the Jewish citizens as the source of all the world's problems. Similarly, the head of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calls Israel "a cruel and repressive racist regime" and blames it for the hatred of its enemies.

These leaders are using oft-repeated canards against Jews - euphemistically labeling them as Zionists or Israeli fascists - to deflect pressure from their citizens to deal with the economic, social and political problems of their respective countries.

So too, within the family, when one labels a child as the problem, the parents can focus on the child rather than on themselves. All of his actions are seen as evidence of that problem, whether they are or not. Eventually the child internalizes the label. It will be part of his self-image, one that he may spend the rest of his life trying to change.

Let us hope that with alert people all over the world monitoring the spread of disease, we will succeed in educating people of the dangers of "swine" - both physical and mental - and prevent its lethal consequences.