I have been majorly overthinking this one and its put me in a bit of a block. So I’m putting it out there, unsatisfied as and self-conscious, so I can move on.
About two years ago now I was in talks with an old friend I met studying abroad in South Africa. She runs a DEI consulting company and educates on diversity, and I had this idea that we could build a coalition of Black and Jewish women- create a community, share resources, and ya know, smash the patriarchy and stuff. I was concerned about what seemed like at best, an exclusion of Jews or addressing antisemitism in anti-racist/diversity education spaces and at worst, these spaces themselves were veering into antisemitism.
(the outline I never got a chance to present)
For a number of reasons this project has since fizzled out and my “friend” blocked me on social media a few weeks into the war. But it’s had me thinking about Jewish identity in the context of the anti-racist/Black Lives Matter movement that swept the nation in 2020. And since we’ve gotten a better look at what’s happening on college campuses and the growing popularity of the Free Palestine movement, the Jewish community is realizing that the typical model of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is potentially damaging to Jews, who in this context are considered to be white and overrepresented in certain (important/influential) industries—essentially, Jews are considered to have an extra serving of white privilege.
(I don’t agree with everything Bari Weiss is saying here but she has been railing against DEI for a while now and as a Jewish woman I appreciate her perspective)
In the process of planning this coalition, I took an anti-racism course online. I was seduced by the description of “spiritual activism” which ultimately turned out to be a bit of a catfish. It involved some breathwork with music but otherwise had nothing to do with spirituality or activism. It was essentially an exercise in recognizing your white privilege, something I did for years in my Social Work program and subsequent professional work and even with this experience, found it challenging to do alone and self-guided. Anyway, I found myself struggling with being considered white in this framework, and the best I could come up with was “white passing”- that one essentially passes for white but is actually an identity that isn’t European/caucasian.
But even that didn’t sit well with me. To some people I look white, and I definitely recognize that my light skin has afforded me certain privileges, but I also haven’t exactly had a typical “white” experience. Growing up I was teased for my identity— I was told I’d be hot if I weren’t Jewish, lumped together with other Jewish kids even if we weren’t friends, and at one point I was approached by a teacher who intercepted someone writing notes making fun of me and our weird Russian math teacher for being Jewish and eating matzah ball soup together— she asked if I wanted her to talk with the student about bullying. In college I was teased for my Jewish nose (thank you, it’s my dad’s, who is not in fact Jewish) and told I was going to hell because I didn’t believe in Jesus. I have been targeted on the streets of NYC by Orthodox Jews to join them, and asked if I am Lebanese. Obviously none of this is particularly harmful and it never really bothered me, but from what I understand this experience aligns with other minority groups who haven’t necessarily faced systemic oppression but also haven’t exactly been treated like they’re white, either.
And from what I’ve seen, even this “white passing” category doesn’t really stand up when I look at how other identity groups are treated. Because according to the anti-racist, a white-passing Indigenous person (or South American, or Middle Eastern/Arab or anyone else who looks like they have white skin) isn’t actually white. They have some white privilege in terms of access and perhaps bias/treatment but they have an experience that is different than the average white person and therefore they are not white. But that doesn’t seem to apply to Jews. Even if one understands that there are Black Jews (or Sephardi or Mizrahi), Ashkenazi Jews are considered European and therefore white.1
Herein lies the problem for me. Because just a couple generations ago, Ashkenazi Jews were kicked out of Europe for not being white. Literally dating all the way to the time Judea was conquered by Rome and Jews were brought back to Europe as slaves, we have been persecuted, kept as second-class citizens, and in many ways both systemically and socially barred from European society because of our Jewish identity—not to mention the recurring massacres. My great-grandparents were from what is now Poland and Ukraine, but when they lived there the region was known as the Pale of Settlement and was an area of Western Russia that Jews had been designated to live in and kept in poverty and destitution since the 1790s and until the deadly pogroms of the 1900s. If you’re familiar with Fiddler on the Roof, this is my family’s story. Whether your family escaped the pogroms or the Holocaust, our persecution goes back thousands of years.
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Because race is a social construct, how it is defined varies immensely, and not just geographically. In America, how race is defined changes by political party; right wingers think Jews are a race a la Nazi Germany, while lefties say Jews are extra white. And this is exactly how antisemitism functions. The Jews are whatever you need the problem to be, no matter how egregious or contradictory it may be. In other words, no matter how you construct race, the Jews lose.
Ultimately, Jewish identity is complex and can’t be understood through the simplistic and inconsistent model we’re currently using in the United States, but no matter how I look at it I can’t square it with white- European, Caucasian, WASP, whatever- Jews are different. Genetically we all carry Middle Eastern DNA, and though we exist all over the world and come in every skin tone, hair texture, and facial feature you can imagine, we also share certain physical characteristics. No matter where you live now or where your ancestors are from, all Jews escaped (2000 years of) persecution and death and were forced to flee to foreign countries. Even in the United States which has generally been the most comfortable and successful that Jews have been in history, it hasn’t always been easy and we’ve always been “othered”. We’re also connected to every other Jew in the world through our DNA, religion, and culture. We’re a religion and more than a religion. We’re an ethnicity and more than an ethnicity. We’re a race and more than a race. We’re a TRIBE.
L’Chaim,
Alissa
Antisemitism around the world
A Jewish ceramicist
Resources for understanding Jewish identity & race
A nostalgic (Jewish) camp song
*all underlined and photos are links
Antisemitism in the United States & Canada
Jewish dentist shot and killed in San Diego (hit quite close to home if you know me)
Elderly Jewish man beaten after Shabbat services (bs headline)
Swastikas at free Palestine rally in Florida
Pro-Palestine supporters enter synagogue during services in Miami, FL
Rosie O’Donnell posts blood libel against Israel
Bella Hadid shares Louis Farrakhan video praising Hitler to 60 million followers
There have been over 1,000 antisemitic incidents reported on campuses since 10/7, a 700% increase from last year :: Protest on McGill campus calls to end “Zionist courses” // Violence erupts on UC Berkeley campus,Jewish students assaulted and Israeli speaker evacuated // Harvard faculty group posts antisemitic posters
Jerry Seinfeld heckled after Jewish event in NYC, called ‘genocide supporter’
Man in Indiana arrested after threatening to ‘kill every Jew’
*Evidence of fundraising for Rashida Tlaib linked to terrorism (this appears to be older news but I saw this this week)
Antisemitism in Europe, UK & Australia
Orthodox Jew in Switzerland stabbed
Pro-Hamas advocate kidnaps and tortures non-Jewish employee of a Jewish-owned business
Jewish man assaulted on a bus in Paris
‘From the river to the sea’ projected on Big Ben (really appreciated this response and lol’ed at this one- too real)
Synagogue burned in Sfax, Tunisia
Brussels Imam publicly recites Quran passage calling for death of all Jews
Antisemitism in Denmark at highest levels in a decade
More than 300 threats recorded against UK Rabbi after reserve IDF duty
Celebrated our first shabbat back in our own house after 5 months with these beautiful hamsa candleholders from Ovnayim.
Some resources that are helping me think about race & Jewish identity:
This is about the I/P conflict more generally but the last 15 minutes Gold answers the question of whether he feels white
This Atlantic article from 2022
This doesn’t address Jewish identity specifically but I really appreciate Coleman Hughes’ perspective and alternative approach to racial issues in the US. Also recommend subscribing to Sam Harris to get the full episode.
On a different note entirely, this song has had a revival in our home. If you’re a peacenik from the 90s or went to Jewish summer camp or Birthright or any other Zionist Indoctrination Program (jokes) you might know it. I was reminded of it when our synagogue held a ‘songs for peace’ program shortly after 10/7 and now my 4 year old is running around town singing it.
And, call me crazy/paranoid, but this “white passing” thing is giving me “sneaky jew hiding in plain site vibes.” Shall we all wear yellow stars on our shirts so that you know how to treat us?