Strange the JC should be accusing Trotsky of robbing "Jewish shopkeepers as pillars of anti-Bolshevism", because he said the following just 30 days after this article appeared:"Anti-Semitism has grown stronger among the bourgeoisie, among the shopkeepers and tradesmen ... The very first order of the Bolshevist government was that pogrom makers shall be shot down on the spot without trial."
- Leon Trotsky, March 3, 1918, Petrograd
As for the word "Szidi" or Zhidy (Yids):"The Slavonic terms zhid and evrei both mean "a Jew." Zhid did not carry a pejorative connotation until the middle of the nineteenth century," (source)