I was in a normal conversation with a friend of mine. He is jewish, I am not. We were having a normal conversation when I said "I don't have many jews in my life."

He made a point to highlight that I said "jews", and said that I should say "the jewish people" instead. I told him that he was arguing semantics, and being annoying. I don't use "jew" as an insult, either.

I don't think he's per se wrong that it is more humanizing to say "jewish people", but arguing over something so small seems completely irrelevant to me. I even went to his profile on one of our shared sites, and he had "jews" in the description.

When called out on it, he said: "Oh no, I'm not perfect. I'll change it after breakfast." I also read that most jewish people don't take offense to the term as long as it's contextually not used as an insult. It's even used in the Talmud. His counter-argument was "but you wouldn't say blacks, would you?"

So, tell me. Am I being an asshole for saying this is all unnecessary semantics? (Answers from the jewish people or people from jewish circles are preferred.)