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It seems that the etymology is actually mistaken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hep-Hep_riots

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hip_hip_hooray

I've heard the earlier theory (that it was an acronym for "Hierosolyma est perdita" which was supposed to have been a Crusader slogan), but Wiktionary thinks this is a false etymology.

I'm Ashkenazi Jewish and have never heard any Jewish or non-Jewish person claim to have personally associated the "hip hip hooray" cheer with antisemitism. Perhaps that association, even if it's etymologically incorrect, would have been top-of-mind for many Europeans in the 1820s, but I don't think that's so today.



Yes, the use of "hip hip hip hoorah" (with three "hips") in English predates the Hep Hep riots.

Most etymologies attributed to acronyms for words pre-20th century are usually false.


Moreover, the same "hip-hip hooray" rally cry was used by the Red Army, who (while not specifically siding with Jewish people) liberated quite a number of people from the death camps.


> the same "hip-hip hooray" rally cry was used by the Red Army

Which Red Army? Unless it's the Chinese Red Army (which I have no knowledge about), but rather the Russian (Soviet) Red Army, then, firstly, the battle cry of its soldiers was not "hip-hip hooray", but rather "ura" (cognate of the English "hurrah"); and, secondly, this battle cry is much older than the Red Army. It's an old word; almost certainly a borrowing into Russian; but in which century (seventeenth? sixteenth? older?), and from which language, I do not know.


Well, this is the first time I hear "Hipp, hipp, Hurra" (the proper German version, since hurray is definetly not German) being linked to the Nazis and anti-semitism... And us Germans are rather sensitive about that




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