I am old enough to remember when no Jews were considered white. I remember when we weren’t allowed to drive through certain white towns — this in New England! I am Ashkenazi but I’ve seen photos of Iraqi Jews who look like me. As a child we always filled in “Other” in government forms because we were not considered white by anyone, and there was no “Middle-Eastern” or “Jewish” on the forms. And then suddenly we were white, which at the time I thought was strange, but I figured it’s the same as what happened to the Irish and the Italians, who originally also were not considered white. What constitutes whiteness? Is it class? Accent? I have no idea. Now our transitive whiteness is being used against us, but in my mind we were never white because whiteness can be given and whiteness can be taken away.
It's most interesting when you go through immigration records prior to as late as about 1965. My Italian great uncle in 1948, for example, was designated "northern Italian" under "race" on his immigration document, and not "white." Like other eras and concurrent proceedings in US history through also well into the 1990s in some regions of the US, especially from those who would have any one of us so designated otherwise rather forget, such an era was not as long ago as has been represented in recent times.
Thanks for this! Want to recommend Eric Goldstein's The Price of Whiteness - he offers a similar framework to what you are saying - "whiteness can be given and whiteness can be taken away"
Well written and nuanced. Another example of non-white Jews not fitting into Simple American narratives about race is that Florida, not a hotbed of progressives, has Jewish communities much more diverse than NYC.
Heshy, I have a forthcoming study on Sephardic Jews and we looked at South Florida's Sephardic/Hispanic population. Our findings align with what you wrote!
I love this so much. The pressure to conform with anti-Jewish views disguised as concern for racial justice is great. Your voice is so important and I hope it seeps into the cracks of the hearts and minds of those who would demonize us.
I really appreciate your perspective here Mijal. Reading this helps me understand why, despite my own caught-up-ness at times in the racial justice dogmas of the past decade, I have always felt a deep resistance to those who wish to discuss reparations in Jewish communal circles. The insistence of our “whiteness,” in the proponents’ view, subjects us to a reductive CRT analysis of America’s legacy of chattel slavery — and therefore our necessary place within it.
What’s lost in this analysis is any sense of irony about potentially aligning ourselves with legacy white institutions (like the Episcopal church down the street from my shul which created a reparations fund because it was founded by actual slave-holders). But, the sometimes participation by Jews in the oppression of Black people was not “Jewish participation.” And suggesting it was only provides ammunition to those who want to insist on the erasure of our own Jewish history.
Thank you. I think this is 100% correct that we are asked to assimilate into whiteness but in ways that seek to highlight "Jewish participation".
Re: CRT - yes. And also, the whole intellectual exercise of CRT is helpful as a lens but becomes really destructive when offered as dogmatic truth, and not just for Jews.
I have thought about this subject a lot because of my own life experience (a term I much prefer to the trendier "lived experience", (a nod here to your use of the term))
I love your thoughts on oppression. Who gets to determine who is oppressed? Sometimes I feel that in today's politics there is a competition for victimhood instead of a shared sense of suffering.
Labels to identify individuals or groups are useful for medical diagnoses or self-defining purposes only. No one should have the right to label anyone else. Then it's simply name-calling. So Jews are Jews. Any specifics and variations of what it means to be a Jew ought to be met with curiosity and welcome. If we want to lift up our communities, rather than disingenuously use numbers to manipulate a political or ideological idea, we Jews can take responsibility for our past failings while noting our strengths. We can do both. We must do both and we need to do a better job as a whole of doing both and educating how to do both. This expectation of ourselves is no different than the way an improved world would work. It is a model. We don't need numbers to prove it. We all know how we all fall short of what it means to welcome. How do we change that? We are obligated to examine ourselves and our peoples' history to learn lessons. By rejecting bandwagons of what are considered acceptable terms suiting the guilt trend of the moment. And not by simply elevating stories of suffering, but elevating the unique, diverse qualities, cultures, experiences within our people.
Thank you for addressing this and digging deeply into it. It is so important.
Love what you wrote, Amy. "Then it's simply name-calling" - what a great line!
And agreed 100% that we need to be able to do multiple things at once. I have been concerned about reactionary responses to weaponized ideologies - i.e., I don't want us to stop doing diversity and inclusion work - I want us to do it better and more honestly.
Thanks for an informative article that parses the issues of Judaism and race. I would love to see a synthesis of your thoughts with those of another Sephardi who has written about race in a Jewish context, Devin Naar, https://jewishcurrents.org/our-white-supremacy-problem
Thanks Robert! Devin's work has been very interesting to me - mostly because of how different it is what we look at. Devin has especially looked at the historical ways in which Ashekazni Jews racialized Sepahric Jews in the US which came together with bias and discrimination. I study contemporary Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews so have a different ventage point. In my forthcoming study on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews we dig into this a bit more!
"None of this lessens my commitment to the urgent work of fighting racism and bias inside and outside our communities. Recently, I met a young black Jew who shared how awful it’s been to walk into synagogues and be repeatedly asked whether he belongs. I was furious that this still happens. It is a desecration of our covenant. Our dispersions have for millennia made us what we might now call a multiracial and multiethnic people. Our covenant reminds us that every Jew belongs, every Jew matters, and that our vision for a better world must include the fight to make this a reality. But we must reject falsehoods and the distortion of our Jewish stories. This cannot be the path to a better world.
Many of our conversations about Jews of color relied on two false assumptions. First, that racial oppression in the Jewish community was a scale model of that in the broader world. Second, that accentuating racial differences within the Jewish community would be the means for strengthening it."
Dr. Bitton, firstly, thank you for your courage and effort to tackle such a fundamentally challenging and uncomfortably lingering matter in our Jewish community, which has also been akin to a rusty can kicked down the proverbial old road (and exactly what road and where that road would lead, I have no clue, but it's probably not a good place either). Or maybe more like rolling a big and heavy barrel or trying to roll a boulder? But I digress.
Also quoting from your article:
"In that same article, McKinney-Baldon quoted Africana scholar Wade W. Nobles on why the act of self-naming is so politically important. The act affirms our “being family and being awesome in a hostile, toxic . . . reality.” If there is something we Jews can learn from this episode, it is the necessity of Jewish inclusion for exactly that reason. We have to remember and remind others that our Jewish family is diverse ethnically, racially, socially, politically, economically, professionally, and in every other way you can name or self-name."
Following yet another fine point here of many, I'll state the end point first and repeat it at the end: "What more can and should we do NOW to recognize this matter and the underlying concerns from WITHIN, and similar and analogous matters, from WITHIN the Jewish community WITHOUT allowing outside influences and agendas to conflate the matter and to hinder our Jewish journey?"
Dr. Bitton, I feel you summarized this challenging matter well, including from your personal experience and study and the experience of your relatives and knowing your family history, after having enjoyed your written contributions in recent years even before Committed.
Beyond this context as addressed, and not in my opinion the foundational reality of this matter as did indeed originate within our community before recent voices from the outside have added to the discussion and then some,
once again I also do not see it as a healthy sign for the allowance of society outside our tent(s) to define us in various regards over the centuries.
Such developments have been especially the case since the Haskalah in the West, and in many examples they have been yet again associated with either attempts to divide us or to successfully divide us, which we have witnessed especially in recent years even before 7 October 2023, including from forces fundamentally OUTSIDE our tent EVEN when we share concerns and interests on the underlying issues.
However, as you note as I quote above is both where I dominantly agree and perhaps I slightly differ. I think many, if not most, would agree that there has NOT been even close to enough done to address such a matter and underlying concerns, and analogous matters, from WITHIN for Jews also in the Diaspora (leaving aside matters within Israel for now for a discussion that understandably goes deeper and remains beyond me here in the US) who, as you cite with examples, in any given shul or gathering do not have what is seen or perceived by many as the "common appearance" (pardon the terminology borne of a troubling subject matter in itself and reality many of us know) within our tent(s) / shuls, however informally defined in our respective communities and shuls.
I feel that understanding HOW we got here so as to have this issue discussed and addressed now is just as important as is how we now address this matter. With examples as you cite, don't we learn from our mistakes also throughout history and more importantly, work our utmost not to repeat them!?
"Jews of Color" as designated from within our tent even before outside forces weigh into the matter, as well as other designations from within by those who choose to define themselves by their own choices or "non-choices", are a personal and individual decision as well in my view, and amongst those making such choices (or "non-choices") are those who had reached out for a very long time well before recent years for understanding from WITHIN the tent.
This matter is yet another matter that is not to be referred merely to rabbis and scholars, as has been done commonly like for many more difficult matters. Many if not most rabbis indeed have done much more and are doing much more to tackle these concerns, but rabbis and scholars alone cannot make such desired improvements merely themselves. When some voices are not heard or are dismissed or undermined consistently by a community or shul, and disproportionately so, just what is prone to happen and has happened? Again.
When we do not do enough to take care of ALL of ourselves from WITHIN the tent, other forces from outside enter the picture and here we are once again with far greater challenges, and that consequence is irrespective of how we choose to identify from within.
We return to handling matters from within, for indeed we can and will do better from within so as to make such overdue improvements.
"What more can and should we do NOW to recognize this matter, and similar and analogous matters, from WITHIN the Jewish community WITHOUT allowing outside influences and agendas to conflate the matter and to hinder our Jewish journey?"
I really appreciate this question. In fact, am working with some friends and colleagues to put together some events (from WITHIN) to address some of these issues which are an affront to our covenant and our obligation towards each other. Thanks for writing -
The Jew of Color construct remains similar to the Cosmopolitan Jew of Joseph Stalins Antisemitism. As you stated, a weaponized ideology to aim at the successful. I can be counted as a Jew of color who has undergone systemic American racism to delegitimize my existence. Yet the reality is--to me-- Autocracy is taking hold globally in the form of Mohammad, once again, and a United Jewish Coalition of Historically accurate Scholars is what is needed.
This rise of Colonial Economic Theorization is far too dependent on the dismantling of Judicial Protections against Hypercapitaist Actors to limit Free Speech and dismantle The Middle Class.
I feel as you, while there is merit in the theory this feels like a call to arms to fragment our communities along Autocratic lines.
You touched on this when you talked about Ashkenazi Jews assimilating into whiteness in America. But but wouldn't it be a fact that all Jews are of Levant ancestry and not white? Not that they can't have European ancestry as well from being in the diaspora But ultimately Jews are the indigenous people of what is now called Israel in the Levant. And that is their ancestry, no? Seems to me that indigenity and ancestry is what would be important to focus on at this time. Not that any of the other history has to be ignored.
I didn’t really delve into it in this article, but whether we should call any Jews “white” in an uncomplicated way is itself a big question. I was using the term in reference to how people self-identify in surveys.
Some people reject the label of whiteness for American Jews (even those who “pass”) because of the particular ways Jews experience antisemitism in the U.S. Others object for the reason you’re naming: because of Jews’ ancient Middle Eastern roots.
Generally, I think of race in America as something negotiated and shifting. I really like Eric Goldstein’s work—The Price of Whiteness—which explores how Jews have at times gained or lost access to whiteness.
One more interesting (and complicating) point: in the U.S., people from the Levant, Middle East, or Arab backgrounds are officially classified as white. That’s expected to change in the census, but for now, it makes things even messier.
I am old enough to remember when no Jews were considered white. I remember when we weren’t allowed to drive through certain white towns — this in New England! I am Ashkenazi but I’ve seen photos of Iraqi Jews who look like me. As a child we always filled in “Other” in government forms because we were not considered white by anyone, and there was no “Middle-Eastern” or “Jewish” on the forms. And then suddenly we were white, which at the time I thought was strange, but I figured it’s the same as what happened to the Irish and the Italians, who originally also were not considered white. What constitutes whiteness? Is it class? Accent? I have no idea. Now our transitive whiteness is being used against us, but in my mind we were never white because whiteness can be given and whiteness can be taken away.
It's most interesting when you go through immigration records prior to as late as about 1965. My Italian great uncle in 1948, for example, was designated "northern Italian" under "race" on his immigration document, and not "white." Like other eras and concurrent proceedings in US history through also well into the 1990s in some regions of the US, especially from those who would have any one of us so designated otherwise rather forget, such an era was not as long ago as has been represented in recent times.
Yes, it’s never ever mentioned. You have to have lived through it to know it happened.
Thanks for this! Want to recommend Eric Goldstein's The Price of Whiteness - he offers a similar framework to what you are saying - "whiteness can be given and whiteness can be taken away"
Well written and nuanced. Another example of non-white Jews not fitting into Simple American narratives about race is that Florida, not a hotbed of progressives, has Jewish communities much more diverse than NYC.
Heshy, I have a forthcoming study on Sephardic Jews and we looked at South Florida's Sephardic/Hispanic population. Our findings align with what you wrote!
I love this so much. The pressure to conform with anti-Jewish views disguised as concern for racial justice is great. Your voice is so important and I hope it seeps into the cracks of the hearts and minds of those who would demonize us.
Thank you so much!! I like how you put it - "anti-jewish views disguised as concern for racial justice". Fits Sarsour's ideology perfectly.
I really appreciate your perspective here Mijal. Reading this helps me understand why, despite my own caught-up-ness at times in the racial justice dogmas of the past decade, I have always felt a deep resistance to those who wish to discuss reparations in Jewish communal circles. The insistence of our “whiteness,” in the proponents’ view, subjects us to a reductive CRT analysis of America’s legacy of chattel slavery — and therefore our necessary place within it.
What’s lost in this analysis is any sense of irony about potentially aligning ourselves with legacy white institutions (like the Episcopal church down the street from my shul which created a reparations fund because it was founded by actual slave-holders). But, the sometimes participation by Jews in the oppression of Black people was not “Jewish participation.” And suggesting it was only provides ammunition to those who want to insist on the erasure of our own Jewish history.
Thank you. I think this is 100% correct that we are asked to assimilate into whiteness but in ways that seek to highlight "Jewish participation".
Re: CRT - yes. And also, the whole intellectual exercise of CRT is helpful as a lens but becomes really destructive when offered as dogmatic truth, and not just for Jews.
What you say here is brilliant.
I have thought about this subject a lot because of my own life experience (a term I much prefer to the trendier "lived experience", (a nod here to your use of the term))
I love your thoughts on oppression. Who gets to determine who is oppressed? Sometimes I feel that in today's politics there is a competition for victimhood instead of a shared sense of suffering.
Labels to identify individuals or groups are useful for medical diagnoses or self-defining purposes only. No one should have the right to label anyone else. Then it's simply name-calling. So Jews are Jews. Any specifics and variations of what it means to be a Jew ought to be met with curiosity and welcome. If we want to lift up our communities, rather than disingenuously use numbers to manipulate a political or ideological idea, we Jews can take responsibility for our past failings while noting our strengths. We can do both. We must do both and we need to do a better job as a whole of doing both and educating how to do both. This expectation of ourselves is no different than the way an improved world would work. It is a model. We don't need numbers to prove it. We all know how we all fall short of what it means to welcome. How do we change that? We are obligated to examine ourselves and our peoples' history to learn lessons. By rejecting bandwagons of what are considered acceptable terms suiting the guilt trend of the moment. And not by simply elevating stories of suffering, but elevating the unique, diverse qualities, cultures, experiences within our people.
Thank you for addressing this and digging deeply into it. It is so important.
Love what you wrote, Amy. "Then it's simply name-calling" - what a great line!
And agreed 100% that we need to be able to do multiple things at once. I have been concerned about reactionary responses to weaponized ideologies - i.e., I don't want us to stop doing diversity and inclusion work - I want us to do it better and more honestly.
Thanks for an informative article that parses the issues of Judaism and race. I would love to see a synthesis of your thoughts with those of another Sephardi who has written about race in a Jewish context, Devin Naar, https://jewishcurrents.org/our-white-supremacy-problem
Thanks Robert! Devin's work has been very interesting to me - mostly because of how different it is what we look at. Devin has especially looked at the historical ways in which Ashekazni Jews racialized Sepahric Jews in the US which came together with bias and discrimination. I study contemporary Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews so have a different ventage point. In my forthcoming study on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews we dig into this a bit more!
An absolutely brilliant article on a complex and difficult topic. Yasher koach!!!
Thank you so much!
Good article. https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/poems-by-pat-califia-high-risk
Thank you!
Dr. Bitton:
Quoting from your article as follows:
"None of this lessens my commitment to the urgent work of fighting racism and bias inside and outside our communities. Recently, I met a young black Jew who shared how awful it’s been to walk into synagogues and be repeatedly asked whether he belongs. I was furious that this still happens. It is a desecration of our covenant. Our dispersions have for millennia made us what we might now call a multiracial and multiethnic people. Our covenant reminds us that every Jew belongs, every Jew matters, and that our vision for a better world must include the fight to make this a reality. But we must reject falsehoods and the distortion of our Jewish stories. This cannot be the path to a better world.
Many of our conversations about Jews of color relied on two false assumptions. First, that racial oppression in the Jewish community was a scale model of that in the broader world. Second, that accentuating racial differences within the Jewish community would be the means for strengthening it."
Dr. Bitton, firstly, thank you for your courage and effort to tackle such a fundamentally challenging and uncomfortably lingering matter in our Jewish community, which has also been akin to a rusty can kicked down the proverbial old road (and exactly what road and where that road would lead, I have no clue, but it's probably not a good place either). Or maybe more like rolling a big and heavy barrel or trying to roll a boulder? But I digress.
Also quoting from your article:
"In that same article, McKinney-Baldon quoted Africana scholar Wade W. Nobles on why the act of self-naming is so politically important. The act affirms our “being family and being awesome in a hostile, toxic . . . reality.” If there is something we Jews can learn from this episode, it is the necessity of Jewish inclusion for exactly that reason. We have to remember and remind others that our Jewish family is diverse ethnically, racially, socially, politically, economically, professionally, and in every other way you can name or self-name."
Following yet another fine point here of many, I'll state the end point first and repeat it at the end: "What more can and should we do NOW to recognize this matter and the underlying concerns from WITHIN, and similar and analogous matters, from WITHIN the Jewish community WITHOUT allowing outside influences and agendas to conflate the matter and to hinder our Jewish journey?"
Dr. Bitton, I feel you summarized this challenging matter well, including from your personal experience and study and the experience of your relatives and knowing your family history, after having enjoyed your written contributions in recent years even before Committed.
Beyond this context as addressed, and not in my opinion the foundational reality of this matter as did indeed originate within our community before recent voices from the outside have added to the discussion and then some,
once again I also do not see it as a healthy sign for the allowance of society outside our tent(s) to define us in various regards over the centuries.
Such developments have been especially the case since the Haskalah in the West, and in many examples they have been yet again associated with either attempts to divide us or to successfully divide us, which we have witnessed especially in recent years even before 7 October 2023, including from forces fundamentally OUTSIDE our tent EVEN when we share concerns and interests on the underlying issues.
However, as you note as I quote above is both where I dominantly agree and perhaps I slightly differ. I think many, if not most, would agree that there has NOT been even close to enough done to address such a matter and underlying concerns, and analogous matters, from WITHIN for Jews also in the Diaspora (leaving aside matters within Israel for now for a discussion that understandably goes deeper and remains beyond me here in the US) who, as you cite with examples, in any given shul or gathering do not have what is seen or perceived by many as the "common appearance" (pardon the terminology borne of a troubling subject matter in itself and reality many of us know) within our tent(s) / shuls, however informally defined in our respective communities and shuls.
I feel that understanding HOW we got here so as to have this issue discussed and addressed now is just as important as is how we now address this matter. With examples as you cite, don't we learn from our mistakes also throughout history and more importantly, work our utmost not to repeat them!?
"Jews of Color" as designated from within our tent even before outside forces weigh into the matter, as well as other designations from within by those who choose to define themselves by their own choices or "non-choices", are a personal and individual decision as well in my view, and amongst those making such choices (or "non-choices") are those who had reached out for a very long time well before recent years for understanding from WITHIN the tent.
This matter is yet another matter that is not to be referred merely to rabbis and scholars, as has been done commonly like for many more difficult matters. Many if not most rabbis indeed have done much more and are doing much more to tackle these concerns, but rabbis and scholars alone cannot make such desired improvements merely themselves. When some voices are not heard or are dismissed or undermined consistently by a community or shul, and disproportionately so, just what is prone to happen and has happened? Again.
When we do not do enough to take care of ALL of ourselves from WITHIN the tent, other forces from outside enter the picture and here we are once again with far greater challenges, and that consequence is irrespective of how we choose to identify from within.
We return to handling matters from within, for indeed we can and will do better from within so as to make such overdue improvements.
"What more can and should we do NOW to recognize this matter, and similar and analogous matters, from WITHIN the Jewish community WITHOUT allowing outside influences and agendas to conflate the matter and to hinder our Jewish journey?"
I really appreciate this question. In fact, am working with some friends and colleagues to put together some events (from WITHIN) to address some of these issues which are an affront to our covenant and our obligation towards each other. Thanks for writing -
The Jew of Color construct remains similar to the Cosmopolitan Jew of Joseph Stalins Antisemitism. As you stated, a weaponized ideology to aim at the successful. I can be counted as a Jew of color who has undergone systemic American racism to delegitimize my existence. Yet the reality is--to me-- Autocracy is taking hold globally in the form of Mohammad, once again, and a United Jewish Coalition of Historically accurate Scholars is what is needed.
This rise of Colonial Economic Theorization is far too dependent on the dismantling of Judicial Protections against Hypercapitaist Actors to limit Free Speech and dismantle The Middle Class.
I feel as you, while there is merit in the theory this feels like a call to arms to fragment our communities along Autocratic lines.
Thank you for your article.
Very good. In fact, the whole white versus black racist ideology is wrong. As Jews, we have nothing to gain and everything to lose by buying into it.
Good to see you here, Mijal!
Good to see you as well!
As a gentile may I ask a question?
You touched on this when you talked about Ashkenazi Jews assimilating into whiteness in America. But but wouldn't it be a fact that all Jews are of Levant ancestry and not white? Not that they can't have European ancestry as well from being in the diaspora But ultimately Jews are the indigenous people of what is now called Israel in the Levant. And that is their ancestry, no? Seems to me that indigenity and ancestry is what would be important to focus on at this time. Not that any of the other history has to be ignored.
Hi Tamra,
What a good—and complicated—question!
I didn’t really delve into it in this article, but whether we should call any Jews “white” in an uncomplicated way is itself a big question. I was using the term in reference to how people self-identify in surveys.
Some people reject the label of whiteness for American Jews (even those who “pass”) because of the particular ways Jews experience antisemitism in the U.S. Others object for the reason you’re naming: because of Jews’ ancient Middle Eastern roots.
Generally, I think of race in America as something negotiated and shifting. I really like Eric Goldstein’s work—The Price of Whiteness—which explores how Jews have at times gained or lost access to whiteness.
One more interesting (and complicating) point: in the U.S., people from the Levant, Middle East, or Arab backgrounds are officially classified as white. That’s expected to change in the census, but for now, it makes things even messier.
Thanks for giving such a thorough answer.