On Jewish Identity

[gaudior]

The other night, I dreamed that someone (I think thespooniest, actually) was telling me I hadn't updated my journal with anything meaningful in way too long. Which is accurate. So, therefore:

Last Friday, as my (you know that stage where you know someone, but s/he's not quite a friend yet, but s/he definitely could be and probably will be when you know him/her better? She's like that.) K and I drove home from field placement, she brought up something she had been wondering about. In our class's many discussions of race, one of our classmates had frequently argued that as a Jew, he wasn't white. This puzzled her, because he certainly looks white (he doesn't even "look Jewish"), and he'd occasionally mention that he had white male privilege. So, she asked, what's going on?



Jews, I explained, have a long history of being Everyone's Favorite Group to Hate in Europe. Oh, there were certainly other groups who were treated badly, but when I went to Sunday School (I was Reform. I don't think I ever went to Saturday morning services in my entire childhood until my Bat Mitzvah, but I was sent to get a Jewish Education one day a week from the ages of about six to thirteen), the impression we got was certainly that Jews got it most and worst. We learned about pogroms, exiles and blood libel in detail-- spent an entire year studying the Holocaust. Jews, we were taught, have always struggled on against persecution, and have never really been safe anywhere. That's why Isreal is so crucial-- it's the first country that we can't get kicked out of, and so would be our safe haven if America ever turns against us.

Which is interesting because America seems, at the moment, extremely unlikely to do so. True, when the first waves of Jewish immigrants came to the country, there was a fair amount of discrimination. My grandmother told stories about want ads making it clear (usually through questions about "regular church attendance") that Jews were not wanted, and my grandfather told about hitting a man ranting on a streetcorner about how Hitler was right. There's a movie (I wish I remembered the title), sort of a precurser to "Black Like Me," about a Gentile reporter who posed as a Jew for six weeks just to see what all the discrimination was like. But even then, the persecution was just not as bad as it had been in Europe at its worst. There were, as far as I know, no massacres of American Jews. And time went on, and Jews took advantage of the educational system, and gained power and prestige and acceptance. Jews were neither a threat to the Christian majority nor sufficiently different to be scapegoats (especially as Reform and Conservative Jews shaved their beards, moved out of the Jewish neighborhoods, and, at least on the part of Reform Jews, started eating cheeseburgers and working on Saturdays and being pretty much indistinguishable from non-Jews), and other groups came to the prejudice-forefront, and anti-Semitism... kind of melted away. I'm sure that it depends on where you are, but for me, growing up in Shorewood, WI, I never faced any anti-Semitism of any kind. No-one has ever in my life called me a "kike," or a "dirty Jew," or a "Christ-killer." No-one has set fire to my synagogue or even spray-painted it. The closest I have ever, ever gotten to prejudice was my step-mother's friend earnestly informing me that "Judaism is an ancient and beautiful religion!" As victimization goes, that just doesn't cut it.

And yet, in the back of my head is the firm conviction that, as a Jew, I am a member of an oppressed minority. Despite never having personally faced any oppression of any kind based on the religion of my birth, I still remember the lessons to me taught by Sunday school teacher and family stories and hundreds and hundreds of Jewish jokes about outwitting Cossacks and Nazis and country-club owners, and those lessons teach me that Jews are just as hated as Blacks or Arabs or any other group.

The problem with this, I think, is that some Jews hold onto the idea of ourselves as victims, or at very least potential victims, and so tend to think of ourselves as a minority. This is obviously true in terms of numbers (2% of the population last time I checked), and it often gives Jews a splendid sort of solidarity with oppressed peoples and makes us do things like be very involved in the Civil Rights movement. However, I think it also gives us a somewhat unrealistic idea of what oppression actually is. I don't have statistics for this, but my impression is that Jews are strongly divided on affirmative action, with some of affirmative action's strongest opponents being Jewish. I suspect that this has much to do with said people saying, "Look, my ancestors were discriminated against-- Jews are hated, too-- but we got over it through hard work. Why can't you?" The answer to which is, of course, that hatred against Jews in this country was just not as bad, historically, as hatred against Jews in other countries or hatred against other groups here. Here, Jews have not been massacred, enslaved, imprisoned, systematically raped and beaten, etc. We've had some nastiness here, definitely, but nothing as bad as we talk about.

And we do talk about it, too. As soon as any discussion of race and discrimination comes up, Jews will talk about our experiences as Jews, and how left out we feel when all the other kids have Christmas trees. In fact, in my experience (particularly this semester), Jews will talk more about our discrimination than members of other groups. I suspect that this has to do with the fact that if people have had really bad experiences in the past, they tend to want to keep that from happening again. Someone who is talking to members of other groups about his/her past experiences with discrimination is running the risk that one of the people to whom s/he is talking will have precisely the prejudices s/he is talking about, and will try to hurt him/her again just as s/he has been hurt before. If, like me, one hasn't had many bad experiences, that possibility doesn't seem that scary, so I'm pretty comfortable talking at length. If one has been hurt that way, I could see being more reluctant to speak up. My (see above re: almost friends) M is a good example of this. She and I are both queer, but I came out in a very supportive environment and time, and have never had that much trouble from it (though certainly more than I have from being Jewish). However, she's about fifteen years older than me, much more butch (there is no mistaking her on sight for a straight woman), and grew up on a rural sheep farm. I talk about being queer all the time at school-- I mention my wife in the first or second conversation, and I loved talking about things from "the queer perspective" in class when issues of sexual orientation and gender came up. She barely mentions it until you get to know her well enough to talk about families and she mentions that her son and daughter are actually the biological children of her partner from her partner's previous marriage. Now, much of this undoubtedly has to do with personality-- but she's fairly outspoken about other things. So I think a great deal of it has to do with the fact that I feel safe talking about being queer, and she doesn't. So I talk about it a lot.

The other thing K said which surprised me was how prominent Jews are at my school. I honestly hadn't noticed, although when I think about it, we're definitely much more than 2% of the school's population. I'm not sure why there are more Jews getting PsyDs in Boston than is proportionate to the general population, but there it is. And K said that some of the students who are members of other minorities-- Muslims and Latinas, to take the example of the people she'd talked to-- feel that discussions of dealing with other races/religions get hijacked by discussions of Judaism. K said that she personally feels no objection to the lack of sensitivity to Scottish people, but that it seems like a shame that people don't talk about their experiences because the discussions that are supposed to be about their experiences--

--are taken over by the experiences of people who have had much less negative ones, I said.

She agreed, and I got out of the car feeling my head spinning a little. Questioning your assumptions is odd.

Comments

[homasse.livejournal.com]

You know, only tangentally related, I remember learning about the Holocaust for the first time when I was eight. I was reading the encyclopedia trying to find out why, in "An American Tail" the catsacks had been going after the little Jewish mice. So I looked up "Jew" in the encyclopedia, and followed the "see also" references, and found the Holocaust.

And as I'm reading this, my little eight-year-old brain could not process this because of one fact. I, in fact, still remember my first coherent thought:

"But...but...but they're all WHITE! Why did they hate other White people?"

And back when I was dating a Jewish guy, we had a lot of the "No, sweetie, you're White. You are not a minority. Deal." discussions.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Because the weird thing is, in Europe, Jews weren't White. Jews were Hebrews and Semites and very definitely a different race from the Russians or Germans or French or Poles or whoever. Here, we're White. It's that thing where race and skin color have, like, nothing to do with each other. Is all socially constructed. Is weird.

(Also, "catsacks"? *snerk.* Fond of that movie. Hate the sequel.)

[homasse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is all weird, isn't it. It's all a construct.

And I read an article recently that said in about fifty years in America, Hispanics will probably be considered "White," too.

(And I avoided the sequel on principle. Just NO. GYAH.)

[khava.livejournal.com]

I consider as White anyone who isn't Black. That includes Asians and Hispanics and even dark-skinned South Asians.

I didn't actually realize that I do this until sometime in the middle of college, when I overheard someone on my hall (A) complaining that another woman (b) didn't like A because A was "dark-skinned." My immediate thought was, "What is A talking about? She's White." Then I looked at A again and noticed, for the first time, that A was a very dark-skinned South Asian woman.

[q10.livejournal.com]

well, our culture doesn't mostly acknowledge that South Asians even exist, so that's sort of a distinct case.

under this system, do, say, second-generation Ethiopian immigrants also count as white?

[khava.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I think it must be something like that I identify blacks by characteristic African features, excluding skin color. It doesn't matter how they act, dress, or talk, or how dark or light their skin is. So a second-generation Ethiopian-American would still look black to me.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Which is, I think, the thing about socially-contructed race which is so odd-- that what you consider someone to be may be wildly different from what they consider themselves to be, both of which are different from what a third person thinks they are. I mean, I suspect that the South Asian woman you're talking about would be really startled to hear that she's White.

On the other hand, as I said above, a lot of Jews think we aren't White, while lots of other people think we are.

Ideally, I think I'd like to consider everyone to be what they say they are, but thinking about it that way exclusively rather seems to miss some of the complexity of what's really going on. Hm.

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

That would be nice, but it totally misses the wider context, both historical and present-day. Which is really why any kind of racial identification is relevant. I mean, you or I or khava can not notice someone's ethnicity, but that doesn't mean that the world at large doesn't notice it, and that it doesn't affect them in ways that us three completely miss.

Which is ultimately why I have a problem with the idea that Jews of European ancestry aren't white. My history and experience might be a bit different than your average WASP but the person on the street sees me as white, and treats me accordingly. This gives me a lot of privilege, likely a lot more than I realize. I don't treat being white as some kind of self-identification, but it is a powerful category that the world at large places me in and I think it's important to be aware of that.

[q10.livejournal.com]

i'd actually picked Ethiopians as an example because they lack many of the stereotypical subsaharan-African physical traits. (they also speak a language from a different family, and have tended to have a lot more in common, culturally and religiously, with north-Africans and middle-easterners.)

[q10.livejournal.com]

replies to two things:

first, the fact that right now America seems infinitely unlikely to kick us out doesn't do much to address the fear that underlies the zionist movement. we trusted in liberal democracy once, and (to be literal but tasteless) we got burned. it had looked to many educated Jews like developed Europe was on the brink of becoming some kind of paradise of moderate-socialist cosmopolitanism, and then things went to hell very quickly in a way that seemed at the time to come almost out of nowhere. it's hard to rule out the same thing happening in America, and, the theory goes, Israel is insurance against that. (i don't buy that it's very good insurance - i think it just creates an easier target, especially since there are a growing number of world powers that, if fanatically dedicated, could destroy all multicellular life in Israel pretty fucking quickly. i'd have preferred the plan where we stayed dispersed, and formed an international conspiracy complete with secret handshakes and Jewish militias. but then, i don't have a strong interest in participating in the Jewish community or way of life, and am mainly interested in this to the extent that, if history is any indication, when they come they'll come for me too.)

i think that the Jewish hostility against affirmative action is motivated in part by certain particular bad experiences. the major barriers to Jews getting access to higher education were quotas that turned them away at the door, not social and economic factors that kept them from getting to the door. i won't comment on which is worse, but it doesn't seem surprising that people who remember this experience should be hostile to anything that looks even remotely like quotas.

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

we trusted in liberal democracy once, and (to be literal but tasteless) we got burned.
Ouch. But I do think this is the key. A lot of people took the Holocaust to be an object lesson that paranoids have enemies too, and see another one waiting behind every anti-Semitic comment. It's a hard mindset to get past.

Coupla responses to the main entry: I think it's worth remembering, when discussing socially construction of race and such, that this conversation about who is and isn't white is much larger. Italians, Eastern Europeans, even Irish people weren't considered white for a long time in this country. And there was, in fact, systematic discrimination against them and against Jews, in terms of housing, employment, education and so forth. I'm not saying that it's comparable to segregation and the racism faced by African Americans because it clearly wasn't, just a clarification.

Another thing to think about is the way that negative stereotypes of Jews differ from stereotypes of other groups. It's not that we're dirty / stupid / poor / what-have-you, it's the opposite. Jews are too powerful, they're running the world secretly, etc. It's been a justification for a lot of violence. I can see understand a gut-level response that "we're oppressed too!", as obnoxious as it is. The one thing you don't want is for your power to be overestimated.

Someone who's written very well on the nature of anti-Semitism and how it relates to other prejudices (particularly racism and sexism) is Letty Cottin Pogrebin in Deborah, Golda and Me. Worth checking out.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

(Came here from q10's post):

Honestly, Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Irish people were always still considered white. Even during the worst of discrimination against them, if they had to go to the bathroom, they did not go to the "colored persons" bathroom, they went into the white one. To tell the truth, my guess is that Asians did too. There's no equivalent to Jim Crow laws in the white-ethnic-minority-in-America experience.

I know you're acknowledging the difference, but I feel like in today's society every ethnically-based discriminatory practice is lumped into "race," whereas back-in-the-day, there definitely was a pretty serious distinction. I'm still not sure that I accept, even now, the practice that people make of lumping the Hispanic/Latino population into some separate race, when such a large proportion of that population is not recognizable as such on sight, and a lot of the bases for discrimination are clearly language, culture, and immigrant status, not physical features. I'm aware that stereotypes about language/culture also true of racial minorities, but a black person who behaves indistinguishably from most white people will still be treated as black, and an Asian person who has never learned a language other than English will still run into people who assume, on sight, that they will understand Chinese. It's just a very different phenomenon.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Honestly, Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Irish people were always still considered white.

Um, no, actually. No, they weren't. My professor told us fascinating stories about how Irish orphans in the nineteenth century could not be adopted on the East Coast by non-Irish people, because they wanted "White babies," not Irish ones. So they were put on trains and sent West, out to where people would adopt them because they looked White-- until they got to New Mexico, where Mexican-American parents wanted to adopt them, and the adoption agencies were upset, because "non-White" people wanted to adopt these formerly-non-White-but-now-White babies.

I'll agree that the easiest way to distinguish race is on sight by skin color, but skin color varies. Some of the White people I know have darker skin and heavier features than the Black people I know.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

Are you sure the word they used was "white"?

I've also heard 20th-century stories in which Asian families had to choose between "white" or "black" on the census, and expressed confusion, and were asked, "are you black? No? Then check 'white.'" Obviously those same people were discriminated against, and probably their children would not get adopted by people who wanted "white babies." But what I'm trying to say is that the American government at the very least considered all European people to be white, for a very long time. Were there always bigots who didn't feel that way? Sure. There will always be random bigots. But it's a little bit different to be a race that was considered by the law, from the beginning of the country's existence, to be altogether another species of human.

I'll grant that there were weird hazy lines, and possibly that certain non-black minorities were considered "white" for some purposes (like whether or not they could legally marry a WASP) and "not white" for others (like whether or not they'd get discriminated against by individuals).

I'll agree that the easiest way to distinguish race is on sight by skin color, but skin color varies. Some of the White people I know have darker skin and heavier features than the Black people I know.

Of course. But you can still tell that they're white, just by looking at them. If you can't, then they probably suffer a lot of the same crap that racial minorities suffer, regardless of their actual ethnic heritage. And in fact, the fact that a European who "looks black/Hispanic/whatever" will get discriminated against on sight anyway is kind of my point- our understanding of "race" is tied up with culture/class/ethnic heritage/language/whatever, and stereotypes about that feed into racist beliefs, but targets of racism can be targeted immediately, based on appearance. This point was sort of tangential in any case because a lot of Irish and Jews back in the day were instantly recognizable by facial features as such, but every once in a while I've been confused by people who are not at all easily recognizable as non-white, who have experienced ethnicity-based discrimination, and called it "racism." It's like racism, but the whole "people can drive by you, see that you're Black/Asian/whatever, and scream ethnic slurs at you, or police will be more likely to ticket you and search your car because of how you look, or people in stores will follow you around/etc." really seems important to me.

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

what gaudior said, and there were also some laws restricting Asians' freedoms in the nineteenth century (when they weren't completely banned from entering the country, or for that matter interned).

Just for example:
With the rise in the number of Asians in the United States, a backlash grew among native-born “whites.” This rising tide of discrimination resulted in violence and a series of legal restrictions imposed upon Asian-Pacific immigrants. As far back as the Naturalization Act of 1790, the right of naturalization was reserved for "free white persons" only, in order to deny slaves the opportunity to become citizens. When confronted with Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were neither white nor black, special laws were passed declaring them ineligible for citizenship and denying them the right to hold office, own land, or file mining claims. NOTE 6 Although the Naturalization Act of 1870 granted the right of naturalization to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” Chinese immigrants would be forced to wait until 1943 before obtaining the right to become citizens. Filipinos and Indians would not gain the right of naturalization until 1946.

Much of the early hostility towards Asian immigrants was directed against Chinese workers, who were attacked in mining camps and subjected to special onerous taxes and laws that excluded “Asiatics and South Sea Islanders” from mining activities. “Chinese Quarters” were established in cities. In 1860 California forbade Chinese American children from attending public schools. Despite these enormous hardships, immigration continued, but with limitations negotiated by the Chinese and U.S. governments under the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, California suffered an economic depression, and Chinese rail workers were blamed. Nineteen Chinese died in the Los Angeles Massacre of October 24, 1871, followed by anti-Chinese fires and riots throughout the state.

from here.



I understand your discomfort, but I'm not saying that anything was equivalent to Jim Crow. That experience was unique, and I'm not trying to trivialize it. But the history of institutionalized discrimination in this country is a lot more complex than that.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

That's actually really interesting. Thanks for the links. For the most part I had thought most institutionalized discrimination against Asians (including internment) was based on immigrant status, not race, and I hadn't known that people were explicitly prohibited from being naturalized. I think my point still stands, though, when applied to European immigrants. Discrimination that comes from individuals is certainly serious, but it's a new kind of special when you're defined as a different class of human by your own government.

(oh, and by the way, if you get me talking about Europe, I'll argue that, because they were for hundreds of years defined as second-class citizens, Jews weren't white. I really am mainly talking about America).

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

You're right about the systematic discrimination-- do you mind if I go back and edit my original post so that I don't say there wasn't? (When I do an entry like this, I like for it to reflect what I actually feel about the issues, which changes when people make good points.) And you're right about the difference in stereotypes.

Ooooh, book. I needed more books. (Been reading terrifying amounts of non-fiction lately...)

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

Sure. And this book is nonfiction, but an easy and fascinating read, IMO.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

For the first point: yeah, I've heard that argument before, often-- that Jews trusted that they were safe in Germany because it seemed so enlightened. I would need to do more research, but I really suspect, from what I remember people saying, that actually they felt that they were relatively safe. That Germany was less anti-Semitic than other places had been, not that it wasn't anti-Semitic. And as goat_girl points out below, there's still anti-Semitism here, but I get the feeling that the degree was greater there/then than we would consider acceptable here/now.

And I agree with you that Isreal is not good insurance, especially considering how loudly midnite_phoenix, who lived in Isreal for many years, cracked up when I suggested that one might consider Isreal to be safer than anywhere else.

Good point about the quotas, yeah. Those are what I found Jews complaining about when I googled "Jews" and "affirmative action" trying to find statistics. I think people who are making that objection are missing the point, but ah well...

[q10.livejournal.com]

sildra who's one generation removed from the state of Israel, has had similarly cynical things to say about its status as a source of safety.

as for missing the point with affirmative action - so many pro-affirmative-action people make their case so very ineptly that it's really, really easy to miss the point. my current ‘pro-’ status on this issue comes from arguments i had to made up to convince myself, not from anything i heard from anybody else.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Slightly unnerved to follow a link to a complete stranger's journal and find myself mentioned... But having been so conveniently introduced, I guess I'll comment, since this is a topic I have something to say about.

Anyway, I'm pretty cynical about anywhere being a safe haven for Jews, although I'll freely admit that America appears to be our best bet right now.

q10 has already heard this from me ad nauseum, but anti-Semitism in the United States is not just feeling left out at Christmas. I've never been directly called a "Christ-killer" but I've been told (by classmates who knew I was Jewish) that the Jews (collectively) killed Jesus. And I've been told that I'm going to hell. And I've heard classmates (although at least this was never directed at me) use "Jew" synonymously with miser.

Furthermore, I've been in a class where a group of people stood up, said, "Heil Hitler!" and saluted when their friends made arguements they liked during current events/politics discussion every week. Even if they weren't looking at me when they said it, they knew I was there. And, of the 25 IB diploma candidates in my senior class in high school (that is, people who took all honors classes and lots of AP-level standardized exams), only two with grades good enough to apply were rejected from our school's chapter of National Honor Society. Me, and the other Jew. For that matter, by virtue of being an IB diploma candidate, someone else (who didn't have the grades to qualify) was allowed in right before graduation so that he could wear the collar like everyone else.

When I was in high school, a man walked into a day camp at a Jewish Community Center and opened fire, injuring five people (with the intent to kill, as he freely admitted to the police). This happened about an hour from my house. Since then, there have been police patrolling at High Holiday services every year at my parents' synagogue.

I'm not trying to claim that this is in any way as bad as the discrimination real racial minorities face in America. It isn't. And it isn't as bad as what my European ancestors encountered. But it isn't trivial, either.

[q10.livejournal.com]

sorry about the unnerving thing.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

That's ok, I just wasn't expecting it.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I certainly haven't been overtly discriminitated against for being Jewish, either, but there is this undercurrent, this "I didn't know you were Jewish?" because of course everyone is Christian until proven otherwise. Once you're proven otherwise, there isn't any prejudice that I've experienced or seen in any of the places I've lived/studied/worked. But there's something about being assumed to be a member of the majority which I find very off-putting. I got it about disability before I started using a cane in September - "I didn't know you had a disability" as though disability has a certain "look" and no one without the look could be a member. And I see it at my school where there isn't overt homophobia, but the assumption is that everyone is straight except for the 2 or 3 people who have declared they aren't.

But I do think we should talk about all these things. The Jewish experience, the Muslim experience, the queer experience, and yes, the Scottish experience and white male experience too. My dean of diversity calls it a Salad Bowl (improvement on a melting pot because each piece retains it's own characteristics.) It's a nice premisce - pride in your own group and healthy curiousity and sharing with other groups. But it only works if we all talk about all of it.

[khava.livejournal.com]

I understand the discomfort with being assumed to be a member of the majority when you're not. (It happens to me all the time with being a political minority in the social circles I travel in.) But I think it's entirely unavoidable in any society. We have to make assumptions about people.

How would you prefer I behave if I don't know you have a disability? Should I treat everyone I meet as potentially having a disability, even if they appear perfectly healthy? What does it even mean to treat someone as (potentially) having a disability, since I should basically treat disabled people the same as "normals" anyway? Certainly there's something wrong with finding out and saying something to the effect of, "Gosh, I didn't know you were defective." But there's nothing wrong with, "Gosh, I didn't know that about you."

Similarly with being Jewish. Should everyone be required to ask for your religion before wishing you a merry Christmas? I think it's fine to make the assumption that someone is in a majority group, as long as you don't react badly when your assumption is proven wrong.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

*nods* plus, this is true of totally nonstigmatized abnormalities. Like "I don't know that you had a twin!"

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I try my best not to bring my assumptions about these things- and yes I admit I have assumptions and I work very hard to work through them - to the table. If I don't know someone's religion (and their feeling towards it - wishing me a Happy Chaunkah is a sign someone really doens't know me all that well) then I don't wish them a happy anything having to do with religion. If I don't know someone very well, I figure their religion is none of my buisness anyway, unless they've mentioned it or they're the faculty advisor of a religious group on campus or whatever.

If I do know someone, or in the process of starting to get to know someone, I really would be as unsurpised to find out they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan or anything else. I might guess they are more likely to be one or another based on name or race or location or whatever, but I won't let those statistical liklihoods get in my way of being open to whatever turns out to be true on the individual level. Or at least if I do let it get in the way, I consider that a failure on my part.

And if someone tells me something about themselves I didn't know, I do my best not to act suprised about it unless I know them pretty well and am mostly suprised that I hadn't heard that fact about them before, or that it goes counter to other things about them.

By the way, I would prefer, as a person with a disability, to not be treated the same as "normals." Certainly I'd like the same level of respect they get. But much of the time, their needs and mine are very different. For example, they can climb stairs and handwrite essay exams.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I have a friend from my Judaism class whose grandmother survived the camps. She lived in a small town in Poland, and when the Germans marched in, the Jews all went out into the streets to cheer, because the Jews were treated so much better in Germany, and the Germans were so cultured.

It wasn't that long ago in this country that McCarthy went on and on about the "Communists," when what he and everyone else actually meant was "Jews," and this country responded by putting crosses on everything that didn't move and words like "In God We Trust" in the pledge and on the money and adding "faith in Jesus Christ" to state and city charters across the country that are only now just being removed, and not without a fight. And all it would take is one charismatic leader to get up and say "The reason we're at war, the reason things like September 11th happen, the reason you can't afford to buy a house and the reason you have no health insurance, is because of Israel, and those goddammed Jews who take our money to keep themselves safe while they eat the blood of little Palestinian babies!" There were plenty of people saying exactly that throughout 2002, quite a lot of them on street corners in my own fucking neighborhood. The poet laureate of New Jersey, that year, wrote a poem about how all the Jews knew about the hijackings, which is why none of them were in the towers. My synagogue was defaced the weekend The Passion came out. The Passion came out, and people called it "accurate." My Jewish friends have left France by the dozens, because they got tired of being beaten up in the streets and having their synagogues burned. And neither you, nor I, am allowed to go to more than a dozen countries in the Middle East because we are Jewish. Quite a number of those countries are our allies, and hold more than a little political sway here.

Are we systematically raped in this country? No. Were Black people being put in camps and raped, tortured, and murdered anywhere in the "civilized" world within the lifetimes of anyone alive to remember while this and every other country stood by and did NOTHING? No. Were we? Fuck yes.

The reason Jews talk about it so much is because, well, it was pretty fucking bad, and it happened extremely recently, and all the reasons it happened? Are still there. The blood libel is still around. The blood libel is still around IN THIS COUNTRY. You can't wear a Star of David in Germany, or Poland, or even France these days. And this country looks a lot like Germany in the twenties, minus only the massive economic depression and the crazy charismatic leader.

To sum up, do Jews right now have a harder time getting a mortgage than Black people? No. But discrimination, and forced "otherness," historically precedes mass murder for Jews in ways that it does and has not for Blacks and Latinos. So yes, we're a little touchy about it. I don't think that's inappropriate.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I am quite vocal about not accepting responsibility for things that people of my ancestors or my race did or are doing. I'm trying to become more aware of how my race (religion, sex, orientation, ethnicity etc) affects me, now, and how my actions affect other people, but I'm not willing to say that, say, slavery in this country is something for which I should feel guilty. I had no control over it-- I had nothing to do with it. But by the same token, I can't claim other people's persecution. Other people of my religion were put in concentration camps, lynched, randomly insulted in the streets, etc. Not me. I haven't been. And so I have no business claiming to be oppressed when I haven't been oppressed in that way.

I'm not talking about the 50s. I'm not talking about France. I'm not saying that I should forget history, and I do think I should be aware that these things can happen but they have not happened to me. And so I really have no business complaining about them when questions of prejudice come up. I can discuss them as a form of prejudice which affects people, the same way I can discuss any form of prejudice happening to anyone, but they're not my experience.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

And none of the Black people in our peer group have ever been slaves, or lived under Jim Crow. Does that mean it doesn't affect them? I think you're using the word "experience" in an incredibly narrow sense which doesn't take into account the fact that a person's experience with their race/religion/ethnicity/identity is a lot more complex and has a far broader reach than just what they, personally, have directly experienced.

For example: Jane lives in a bad neighborhood. Jane has never been mugged, but her next door neighbor has been mugged, and her friend who came to visit her has been mugged, and her roommate has been mugged. Jane is now afraid of being mugged, and lives her life accordingly. Are you suggesting that the mugging of people in her neighborhood has no effect on her experience because she herself has not been mugged? Because I don't think you would.

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

Are responsibility and guilt the same thing, though?

I mean, I don't consider myself guilty for the actions of American slaveowners. That would be ridiculous. But do I benefit from the racial hierarchy of this society (which was at least partly created by slavery)? Sure I do. I think that means that I do have a significant responsibility.

[signy1.livejournal.com]

Historically, yeah- Jews were not white. Jews were ostracized, lynched and persecuted; there were- and still are, don't kid yourself- quotas at universities and country clubs.

Personally, the worst prejudice I've ever gotten was from other Jews, but that's another story. I've never dealt with a whole lot of gentile negativity- a few ignorant comments here and there, which for the most part I found rather funny. I also live in the New York area; everyone uses Yiddish phrases whether they're *actually* Jewish or not. Maybe prejudice is worse elsewhere- it's possible.

It's hard to know, sometimes. On the one hand, the seemingly endless whining about how rotten we Jews have it pisses me off to no end. The Babylonians conquered the country three thousand years ago and we're *still* not done complaining about it. On the other... q10 is right. Europe gave almost no warning before turning into a nightmare. I don't know that perpetually reliving the past is a good way of dealing with it, but maybe people are afraid of the false sense of security that had people refusing to leave Germany.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Heh. Jews are good at complaining. It's a talent. *Pauses. Questions whether that was a stereotype, or self-hatred, or what. Concludes that Jews of her acquaintance do not necessarily complain more than other people, but often do so far more entertainingly. Considers that that may also be a stereotype. Decides to put it on the backburner, as this may be overthinking.*

Although actually... I kind of think that the answer to the dilemma of perpetually reliving the past versus false sense of security is to try to actually be aware of what's actually going on. Which is, y'know, tough and all. But still.

[susiesworld.livejournal.com]

Goat Girl, I have to take exception to your saying that black people were not raped, tortured and murdered anywhere in the civilized world within living memory. NO, they were NOT put in camps, but the entire south was their camp. If you take a close look at what was going on in the south around the time precipitating the civil rights movement you will see that it very much resembles the holocaust in that black women and children were routinely raped and black men beaten and castrated and further tortured and murdered, thier churches burned, thier store fronts shattered if they were allowed stores, burning crosses (christian sybolism) burning in thier lawns, the list goes on. This is living memory, the 50s, the golden era, more recent than WWII. The deeper I looked into it, the more and more it looked like a holocaust. Yes, the whites too were occasionally killed for helping the blacks.

I feel like a shmuck, pardon the expression from a shicksa, but I had never in my life heard of any of these stories about Jews until I heard them from your mouth in college. In the time since past, I have ONLY heard stories about horns and tails and baby eating FROM Jews. The WORST I have heard from others is accusations and slurs about penny pinching, or hoarding money. Even that has been limited to calling people "Jewish" for giving a bad tip, to which I reacted like I would if someone used the word nigger at your place of work.

I don't know what to say because the only persecuted minority I have ever been in is in being female. And I can attest that even despite being told at my job (Changing Oil) that I was not allowed to replace the oil filter because 'women's wrists aren't strong enough', I have never in my life felt persecuted here the way I did in Egypt. That was a different world where women truly had no legal rights and were considered property. Certainly we must fight these injustices, and the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. But somewhere along the lines I think people end up losing touch with what's really important (Such as cultivating a feeling of global brotherhood) and end up perpetuating thier own stereotypes. Like Gangsta rap and Spike Lee films. Which may be fine in and of themselves, but then a black person cannot wonder where these stereotypes come from when they are being celebrated and glorified within the oppressed culture itself. I think I'm done, Crucify my white ass now. Why do I feel that as a slovenien-italian- scottish (otherwise white) woman, I am not allowed such opinions? I dunno, nail me and get it over with.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

You didn't know any Jews until you got to college, though, right? I thought I was the first Jewish person you knew. And it's hard to discriminate against people you never see, which is why I'm not at all surprised that neither you nor Susie had ever experienced much in the way of anti-semitism until you heard about it from me.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I know that there are Jews in Indianapolis - there are Jews everywhere. But you told me freshman year that I was the first Jew you'd ever met, or at least the first Jew you'd known was a Jew. It's very easy to not see or hear about anti-semitism when there are no visible Jews around.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that the treatment of Blacks in the South absolutely rose to the level of torture, rape and murder, even systematic torture, rape and murder. The differences between that and what happened in Europe, as I see them, were a) there was no element of systematic elimination of a people in the South, quite the opposite, and b) there was quite a lot more freedom of movement for the people being persecuted. No one was preventing blacks in the South from moving to the north to escape segregation. During slavery, absolutely, but that's not within anyone's memory.

And as I said to April, I'm not in any way surprised that you hadn't heard anything about anti-semitism before you came to the east coast. They don't have much racial discrimination in New Hampshire, as compared to Virginia, but there aren't really many Black people in New Hampshire.

I'm not trying to weigh whose persecution was worse: that's a no win for everyone, and I don't think it serves any purpose. My point to Gaud was just that just because she herself has never experienced serious anti-semitism doesn't mean it's not there, and doesn't mean it's not worth talking about, or that because it "isn't so bad" as other people's persecution it doesn't matter.

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

This is a fascinating post, and I have to admit I don't have any directly relevant experience myself, but a couple of things you wrote, particularly about the prominence of Jews at your school, made me think about the problems that Jews encountered in early Communist Russia. So, with the disclaimer that it's all from books and lecturers -

A lot of Jews were prominent in the first wave of Russian Communism, precisely because there was prejudice against them and they were attracted by Communism's vision of equality. In the very early days the Communist party tried to live up to those ideals. They deliberately promoted Jews in their ranks.

But to consolidate their power, the Communists needed to fire up the passions of the people against their enemy. Since the enemy was rich people (or people perceived to be rich, even if it just meant they had a cow), the capitalist Jew stereotype was too useful a propaganda tool to pass up.

Then in the 1930s, the first wave of Communist enthusiasm was petering out, and people were beginning to realise that paradise might not be just around the corner. But they didn't want to lose the dream they'd worked so hard for, so there some casting around for people to blame - "hey look at all the Jews in the top cadres! conspiracy!"

The early 30s also saw the ascendancy of Stalin, who chiefly defined himself against Trotsky. Trotsky's Jewishness became the perfect lowest-common-denominator spice to add to the ludicrous accusations that he had been in league with the Kaiser etc.

Russian Jews also have a strong tradition of education and learning. This persisted into the Communist era - in fact it got stronger, because for a while opportunities genuinely were available for the able, and their work ethic ensured that a lot of Jews took full advantage of that. But come the inklings of disillusionment with Communism - "Hey, the universities are full of Jews! Communism's not at fault - the problem is, we've been infiltrated!"

So in Russia the situation came to a grim full circle: Jews' enthusiastic participation in what appeared to be a levelling movement still led back to them being demonised as rapacious conspiratorial capitalists.

This throws up some possibilities for why Jewish people might feel insecure even in a cultural and political environment where things appear to be going well for them. Among the various prejudices, anti-Semitism is one of the easiest to take off the hook and reanimate for political purposes, precisely because it is easy to point to and demonise rich/powerful/educated Jews in a way that it usually isn't for other minorities.

[susiesworld.livejournal.com]

Wrong entirely Goat Girl. My uncle, my mom's brother married a Jewish woman and raised their daughter Jewish. I don't know exactly how religious they were only that they certainly didn't celebrate Christmas, which crushed me as a child, to learn that for some reason Santa didn't visit my cousin. This is the same uncle I work for, and at this point in my life, he's a lot closer than any of my other extended family. And it's not as if Minnesota is completely devoid of Jews, as you seemed to have thought when we first met. Hell, there was even a jewish family in my private christian school, poor souls! Anyways, I'm just questioning your assumptions, not trying to say that I was anything like an expert on the subject. Same holding true though, that I have since to hear any of the really bad antisemitic stories from anyone other than jews.

Interesting post about the Russian Jews, I wondered when it would come up. Years ago I started volunteering at a nursing home talking with Russian immigrants who don't speak english. Ukrainian, actually, and let me tell you it is one hell of an experience to listen to these little old people talking about being 14, or 17 during the war, and having nowhere to turn, Germany closing in on one side, and Stalin on the other. We forget how many millions more than Hitler Stalin killed, but it was a political clensing and not ethnic. Still, incredible stories. I tape recorded one and wanted to compile a book of stories, but the language daunted me. One of these days...

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I didn't say there were no Jews in Minnesota, and I didn't say you'd never met any Jews. (My stepmother's whole Jewish family lives in Minneapolis.) I said that there aren't many, especially as compared to, say, where I came from, which I think is still a fair statement. So, again, I don't understand what point you're trying to make when you say that you never heard anything bad about Jews except from Jews. Most of the "really bad" anti-semitic stories I seem to reacall telling you - horns and such - were things that happened to my grandparents and great grandparents here in America. The "not so bad" stuff - like my synagogue getting defaced, me being told that I'm responsible for September 11th, you hearing your co-workers suggest that all Jews are misers, little, insignificant things like that - well, it's only not so bad if it's not happening to you.

Now, is this stuff major, life altering discrimination that prevents me from going about and living my life? As long as I have no desire to go see the village my great great grandparents left in Poland, no. Is it stuff that affects me, and other Jews, in ways that most people don't realize? Absolutely. That's all I'm saying.

[susiesworld.livejournal.com]

In my head I was making a distinction that I didn't effectively communicate. By 'really bad stuff' I meant truly outlandish stories about horns and tails and baby eaters. Strangely enough, (as you know) the first Christians were persecuted as baby eaters too, what with the eating of body and blood down in catacombs and all. But I was not, however, referring to the truly horrendous realities of antisemitism which you describe and which are apparent to anyone who follows the news.

My point was that when we educate those around us we should do it in a very inclusive way. From me to you, I felt like my opinion was trivialized by you, and I felt an undercurrent of "What do you know? You midwesterners (or non-new yorkers) don't know any jews, so why WOULD you know anything?" It's not what you said, but judging from Isabel Gold's respeonse, she felt the same thing. I realize my posts too could have pushed some buttons, but the point is to SHARE the experience and emphasize the uniqueness AND similarities of the experiences of those around you. My point of only hearing these outlandish (though once believed) stories about jews FROM jews, seemed like it was these people who were telling the stories keeping them alive. It was as if real, present persecution were not enough, so that one had to keep alive old prejudices to futher the image of jews as a victim. It may seem narrow minded that I got that from the experience, and the only way I can try to convey it to try to critique the METHOD of sharing these stories. I am not saying they should be forgotten, that would be idiotic.

It seems, and seemed to me at the time, to convey an attitude of "You don't get it, you never will, you're not a Jew". Of course not. We can NEVER know what it's like to walk in another's shoes. But all of our experiences have commonalities, and I beleive the only way to bring people together is to emphasize those commonalities, and not the differences in specific details. The details ARE very important, but in speaking about the similarities of discrimination, you can include the entire world, and invite everyone to reflect on thier own experiences as a human being.

[susiesworld.livejournal.com]

I just went back and reread some of the posts I missed. I think it's fair to summarize that descrimination exists all across the board, for every possible sub-catagorization of humanity, to some extent. Also fair to say that every example of persecution is different and unique and completely incomparable to one another. Where I get stuck is that I want to know what can be done about it.

We obviously must remember, that being the first step when we are not currently, personally, being persecuted. But beyond erecting memorials, filming documentaries, and writing books, what can be DONE about changing the present. I feel like there is such a thin line between remembering the past and dwelling on it. Certainly there can be no denial of what is presently going on, by comparing it to the past and saying "It's not as bad as it was." But I really feel that if people could stop talking about guilt and resposibility, the idea is that every generation of children grow up (Unadulterated that is by adults) completely colorblind until about puberty. Then they start to really wonder about the implications of ones differentness. I really don't know what I'm saying other than a lot of these types of discussions are incredibly fascinating, and informative, but I'm always left with the feeling of "Now what?" I so firmly beleive that actions speak louder than words that I feel like one must educate where necessary, but lead by example in all things.

It's like the feminist movement. After seeing and feeling firsthand the implications of legally having no rights, and hearing more details about the plights of women in africa, I could hardly stand the feminist movements here bitching about 70 cents to the dollar. It seemed to me to be so much more pressing what was happening in other areas of the world, that our concerns were trivial. That is not to say they are acceptable and we should be complacent. It is also quite another matter to enter any foreign culture and start dictating our values. But the question for me is how do we use this knowledge, share it in a very INCLUSIVE way, in which we can start healing, and not continuing to tear apart. Anyone out there know how to solve racism?

[ifnotnow.livejournal.com]

Wow.

My first thought is that there is an enormous difference between how we see ourselves and how other people see us. Both of those factors affect the course of our lives. I can respect the fact that someone might not think of himself as white because he's Jewish (or more likely, would see being white as fairly irrelevant to his identity), but he still needs to understand that other people see him as white and that he benefits from being seen that way, even though he doesn't choose it.

Why do many Jews not think of themselves as being white? It could be because of the history of persecution you've described. I'd suggest also that being white feels relatively empty of culture, either because it is a meld of so many different cultures or because it is the majority and dominant culture in the United States. Meanwhile, even non-religious Jews may participate in Jewish culture and see this as a much more significant part of their identities than anything about being white. Furthermore, for white Jews who grow up mostly surrounded by white non-Jews, it is being Jewish, not being white, which stands out because that's what makes them different from the people around them. I wonder if there might be some correlation between how likely white Jews are to identify as being white and how many of the people they interact with on a regular basis are not white.

Finally, for the record: There are plenty of Jews who aren't white.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I think the reason that many Jews don't describe themselves as white is this: when someone looks at me, they see me as white. But when someone sees "white," they think of someone who isn't me. Does that make sense? Same way a certain high school teacher I knew when I was in high school, who was Haitian, said "When people see me, they see me as African-American. But I'm not African, and the history that you associate with people who are African-American don't apply to me."

[ifnotnow.livejournal.com]

But when someone sees "white," they think of someone who isn't me.

I get your point about not being part of the history, and I think it makes a certain amount of sense. But when I think of how my students perceive whiteness, it seems to be about how they (nearly all students "of color") are treated today vs. how they perceive white people being treated today, with history really being secondary. So when they think of what it means to be white, I suspect they do think of you and me.

[batshua]

When I was in fourth grade, another student tried to kill me at recess because I was Jewish and she wanted to be a Nazi when she grew up.

She probably would have succeeded, too, except that another classmate rescued me.

[occurrednancy.livejournal.com]

Hi, hope you don't mind a random surfer butting in (I randomly found q10's blog & made my way here from there)

I'm Irish, and since September 11th I have been amazed to note that the only acceptable form of racism amongst 'liberals' in Ireland is to be anti Semitic. Now this antiSemitism is often cloaked in terms of being anti Israel (which equals anti war which equals anti American) but it is to my eyes blatant racism. It's ok to say anything you want about the Jews and their evil plans to take over the world etc. Jokes about Jewish looks and personality traits are acceptable even in company which would never talk about any other minority group (say blacks, immigrants, and our own Irish travelers) in such a way. On the other hand to say something like "I can see why Israel feels the need to defend itself, the holocaust was not so very long ago & an event like that must have a huge psychological impact on a race (or whatever term you prefer). In a way it is similar to our own feelings & reactions to the 1850s famine.” is to make oneself a social pariah. I have had to stop talking to my friends about the Israel issue because I find myself frightened & ostracised by their attitudes. & these are people who you can normally have a rational cool headed debate about pretty much any subject with. People snicker & sneer when news of a suicide bombing comes on the news. They do it in jest but they do not laugh when trains crash, or news of massacres in Darfur come through. Then they respond in an appropriate & empathetic way. I have often challanged people on these attitudes & have been laughed at.

I think there are a couple of reasons why antiSemitism is acceptable. Firstly the Nationalist movement in the North has aligned itself with the Palestinians. (”http://www.scotchirish.net/scots%20irish%20murals.php4”) they both like to portray themselves as freedom fighters against an oppressive state. The Palestinian flag flies in Catholic areas & the Israeli flag flies in Protestant areas. The massive irony of two different denominations of basically the same Christian religion finding themselves ideologically closer to Islam & Judaism than to each other is, of course, completely lost on all concerned.

Secondly, we Irish like to think of ourselves as the underdog & tend to ally ourselves with other perceived underdogs. But still everyone needs a hate figure & the Jews seem to fit the bill for a lot of Irish people (& many other Europeans). It is acceptable to hate Jews because they are traditionally seen as a powerful group in society. We all learned about WWII in school, but not a lot of emphasis was put on the holocaust. For one thing it might have made the British army look good & that is definitely not a purpose of our curriculum! I also think that the fact that Jews are classed as white (from an Irish perspective at least) makes them an acceptable target for racism especially from people who do not regard themselves as biased in anyway.


Thirdly, the war in Iraq has caused a lot of anger in this country. But because of the close ties (economic & personal) between America & Ireland a good portion of the political protest which should more correctly be directed at America has instead been directed at Israel. The antiSemitism is not new either. Our much loved founding father Eamon deValera was (as far as I know) the only national leader to send condolences to Germany on hearing of the death of Hitler.

On the subject of race & whether it is a genetic or social construct there is a very good chapter (The Grasshoppers Tale) in Richard Dawkins book The Ancestors Tale.