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Sharon Stone has probably never before been compared to one who chows down insects.

Yet Stone — perhaps the epitome of the tall, blond “Shiksa Goddess” — and every other shorter, less-blond non-Jewish woman pejoratively branded a “shiksa,” is being insulted in much the same way as the tribes that crunched and munched on locusts and other unsavory fare.

The origin of the word shiksa is derived from sheeketz, the term used in the Torah to describe the strange religion — and cookbook — of the Canaanite people, a word that translates something like “an abomination” or “the loathing of an unclean thing.”

With that kind of etymology, shiksa is a pretty loaded word, even when used in jest.

“Some people will say it’s not, but with this origin, I think the meaning is embedded in the word,” said Christine Benvenuto, author of “Shiksa: The Gentile Woman in the Jewish World.”

“Interestingly, though, even people who feel comfortable hearing this word are shocked by my titling my book with it. So everyone has picked up that this is not a pretty term.”

Benvenuto, an Amherst, Mass.-based writer, will make two Bay Area appearances in early May. She was raised Catholic in Brooklyn’s heavily Jewish East Flatbush neighborhood, and, after years of involvement in Jewish communities, converted about a decade ago.

While friends always urged her to write about converting to Judaism, she felt there was already a glut of literature on that subject. There was not, however, anything she could find on women who don’t convert, yet live within the Jewish community.

Interviewing dozens and dozens of women, Benvenuto uncovers numerous situations, some good, some bad, some in-between. Many women, like her, felt welcome in the Jewish community, and Benvenuto was happily surprised at the large number of female converts in positions of leadership within the Jewish community. Other women, however, felt marginalized — “partial citizens” in one woman’s words — and left their synagogues or other Jewish enclaves.

Benvenuto was most shocked, however, by the large number of non-Jewish women who participate in synagogues and take their children to religious school and simply don’t bring up their religion — the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” of the Jewish community, if you will.

When Benvenuto was living in Israel while writing her book, a study was released claiming that all Jews originate from a single, male line.

“It seems that, genetically, there are strong indicators that in all the different places in the world Jews settled, Jewish men have come from the Mideast and created families with locals. And even though I was someone who would have said non-Jewish women were always part of Jewish families, it came as amazing surprise that it would be proven scientifically,” she said.

“So many Jewish communities were founded by Jewish men and non-Jewish women. Even the Ashkenazi community most American Jews trace their descent to.”

“Shiksa: The Gentile Woman in the Jewish World,” by Christine Benvenuto (St. Martin’s Press, 279 pages, $23.95).

Christine Benvenuto will speak at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 3, at the Berkeley-Richmond JCC, 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley. Admission is free. Information: (510) 848-0287. She will appear 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 4, at Parent’s Place, 600 Fifth Ave., San Rafael. Tickets: $15. Pre-registration is required. Information: (415) 491-7959.