The point of the article is that, while the neo-Nazi right views Jews as fundamentally other and non-white, the far left often views Jews as essentially white when it comes to issues like Israel/Palestine rather than recognizing their place in the intersectional coalition as a religious and racial minority. The transactional and transitory nature of whiteness is at the core of the piece, that's why it's in the headline.
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The Atlantic - Are Jews white?
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The point of the article is that, while the neo-Nazi right views Jews as fundamentally other and non-white, the far left often views Jews as essentially white when it comes to issues like Israel/Palestine rather than recognizing their place in the intersectional coalition as a religious and racial minority. The transactional and transitory nature of whiteness is at the core of the piece, that's why it's in the headline.
Angelus Errare
Banned
I doubt this complicates the question at all. Judaism is a religion this is where Ethopians fall into. This article is more about the Jewish 'race".
I doubt any American is going to look at an Ethopian Judaist and ponder if they're white or not because they practice Judaism.
America's illogical racial system is based solely on appearance.
As someone else said, "white" is more like a club than anything else where they extend who can enter every once in a while (s/o to Irish for getting into that club).
gutter_trash
Banned
Dude Abides
Banned
"Compartmentalize" as "other". Ethnic studies buzzwords masquerading as argument.
For now.
Whiteness is a shadow intersectionality. When the white supremacists need help winning, they invite more people into their whiteness label.
Contrariwise, when the white supremacists are winning, people they previously needed to pretend to embrace, they no longer need. Whiteness is a movable feast. Just ask the Slavs how white they were when Hitler started the war, versus how white they were when Barbarossa began and the Hunger Plan went into effect.
Actually, as a secular-Jewish man, who has white skin color and has never actually felt white, this article really says everything I've always wanted to say about my religion and ethnicity.
Plus, I think the title of the article is very appropriate and well thought out. It is a question that I ask myself constantly.
I consider myself non-white and I urge other Jews to do the same. And when someone tells me I'm white, I always say, "Yes... but not really."
Whiteness is not just about skin color. It's about power and historical persecution. As an minority-group who faced genocide, I do agree we are in the same race as non-Jewish people with white skin.
Jews were not hunted during the holocaust for their religious beliefs. Rather, they were killed due to their biology as Jews. That is a racial implication rather than a religious one.
Plus, I think the title of the article is very appropriate and well thought out. It is a question that I ask myself constantly.
I consider myself non-white and I urge other Jews to do the same. And when someone tells me I'm white, I always say, "Yes... but not really."
Whiteness is not just about skin color. It's about power and historical persecution. As an minority-group who faced genocide, I do agree we are in the same race as non-Jewish people with white skin.
Jews were not hunted during the holocaust for their religious beliefs. Rather, they were killed due to their biology as Jews. That is a racial implication rather than a religious one.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Like you can read the article?
They discuss this
The ending summarizes it pretty well.
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
Why did Jeff roll a 1?
Mammoth Jones
Member
This. "Whiteness" has always been used as a members only club.
Stereogatari
Banned
This is like my people (Turks).
We aren't part of the White category (which is usually understood to be European Christian descent).
But many members of our ethnic group can pass as White.
We aren't part of the White category (which is usually understood to be European Christian descent).
But many members of our ethnic group can pass as White.
WaffleTaco
Wants to outlaw technological innovation.
Whiteness really is about skin color in this day and age. If someone saw you on the street are they thinking...there goes another white person, or are they thinking you are Jewish?
Is this a joke question? I can't tell anymore.
If they weren't I'd be half non-white. Weird.
Yes, and I explained my position a bit more in my edit, but I'll repost it below:
Specifically this:
I consider myself non-white and I urge other Jews to do the same. And when someone tells me I'm white, I always say, "Yes... but not really."
Whiteness is not just about skin color. It's about power and historical persecution. As an minority-group who faced genocide, I do agree we are in the same race as non-Jewish people with white skin.
Jews were not hunted during the holocaust for their religious beliefs. Rather, they were killed due to their biology as Jews. That is a racial implication rather than a religious one.
Jewish people do have power, though, a lot of it.
They have also been persecuted.
Read the article.
I don't think you're thinking about it the right way. It's not about skin color.
If someone saw Michael Jackson walking down the street, would they be thinking, there goes another white person? He was clearly not white despite looking like a white man since the 90s.
Race and skin pigment are not the same thing.
I read the article....
Our current circumstances do not change our history or make us (necessarily) white. The question is extremely nuanced and difficult to answer. The article goes into this dissonance too if you read the whole thing.
Appatently with me it's both. And I'm not Jewish.
And while whiteness works like this with strangers on the street, it's not how it works in every interaction. (For example, once some people know I'm Latina or meet my family, they explicitly consider me non-white no matter what my skin tone actually is.)
kingkaiser
Member
AuthenticM
Member
The President-Elect is.
theignoramus
Member
Ive never fully understood why the extreme wing of White nationalism hates Jews about as passionately as they hate Black people. What is behind the Nazi ideology of Jews being the mortal enemy of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority? I understand Hitler associated Jews with Marxism, but why does the neo-Nazi movement still consider a Jew to be a diabolical threat?
This is also a very important point and illustrates how race and skin color are not the same category at all.
My friend is of Cuban heritage but has totally white skin (which is common for many Cubans). Is he not Latino? Are Latino people not white?
It's a very complicated thing to answer.
Because it's a biologically based hatred rather than a socioeconomic or religious based one. That's why Jews are not the same race as white people (in my opinion). Jews are hated for the same reason that black people are hated: simply because they exist.
Hate groups don't need a "reason" to hate others. The "reasons" are used to justify the hatred and not the other way around. They simply hate the existence of other groups, pure and simple. It's a tribal-based mindset.
If someone who hadn't known who Michael Jackson was had seen him in the '90s and later, that person would have thought he was white.
I suppose you didn't edit fast enough. Oh well.
Anyway, that dissonance is what I clearly mentioned with my two sentences. Of course there is nuance. That is why Ms. Green wrote the article.
No one said anything about changing your history. The whole point of the article is about perception.
It seemed as though you didn't read it because your other post ignored those points.
Among people who do not take issue with the question, but engage with and consider it serious, are the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.
Also, from the article: "So, are Jews white? “There’s really no conclusion except that it’s complicated,” said Goldstein. This is not the kind of question that searches for an answer, though. It’s a question designed to illuminate."
Click bait how?
Historically, Italians weren't granted "whiteness" in America. Buncha dirty socialist, garlic-eating papists. Irish got a similar treatment. Immigrant quotas, discriminated against by WASPy "whites", not suitable for marriage, restricted from professional life and relegated to manual labor, etc.
Quite enjoyed the article itself but front lining it with a clickbait headline will just lead to more uneducated racist dolts looking at and proclaiming "LOOK! EVEN THE LIBRUL RAG THE ATLANTIC GETS IT NOW!".
Maybe you guys feel differently but that feels at worst irresponsible to me and at best pointless.
Maybe you guys feel differently but that feels at worst irresponsible to me and at best pointless.
Palette Swap
Member
The headline isn't great but it isn't exactly the end of the world either (I guess the webpage's title "The Alt-Right reopens questions of Jewish whiteness" is better).
I mean, of course race is not a biological notion, but an identity built by both exclusion (how the rest of the world perceives you) and inclusion (how/where you perceive yourself). In that regard, it's remarkable how quickly white supremacists fall back to the exclusion and persecution of Jews.
I mean, of course race is not a biological notion, but an identity built by both exclusion (how the rest of the world perceives you) and inclusion (how/where you perceive yourself). In that regard, it's remarkable how quickly white supremacists fall back to the exclusion and persecution of Jews.
This dissonance is removed by the anti-establishment approach of people who are effectively the establishment, the elites, the privileged, the ones with power. I don't think every anti-establishment person means it this way obviously, but if your populist platform is one of white supremacy, it sure as hell is a great way to do some gatekeeping and exclude specific groups from power.
As mentioned with the Irish, Italians were previously not considered white.
Funny enough I'm Slovak, polish, Italian, and Irish so all of me ascended into whiteness in the last century.
My great grandfather(polish/Slovak) had to deal with harassment from the KKK (including a lovely cross burning). I highly doubt I'd get the same treatment today
(Also worth noting that all of the ethnicities I mentioned often involve Catholicism in their culture. There was definitely a religious aspect of that too)
John Kowalski
Banned
This has always been my perception of race in america. Whiteness feels like a descriptor of nondescriptness, because there seem to be a ton of things that are unrelated to how one would perceive a person without any knowledge of them that can change what race people describe others as.
Can't help but think of it as a white supremacist structure based on dislocating folks off of a restricted platform to determine their social standing.
Latinos with white skin are considered white until we aren't. Which is pretty much the point of the article but about another group. Whiteness is a social construct. I can point at my skin tone all I want, but once other people have decided I'm not "white enough," my membership to the club has been revoked (to use the metaphor from this thread.)
WaffleTaco
Wants to outlaw technological innovation.
I feel like he is the exception rather than the norm.
Hmmm. Honestly this is where it's confusing. In situations like yours. However I think in the case of Jewishness it is a little bit different.
johancruijff
Banned
fuhgeddaboudit
Wait
What if you're black or Asian
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
We weren't considered white until fairly recently.
Imagine how it feels to be the writer whose work gets stuck with clickbait headlines by editors constantly.
Muppet of a Man
Member
Having an ethnic heritage that is primarily Italian and Irish and being raised Catholic in the context of those ethnic traditions, I can tell you that I've never felt "white" in the classic white American protestant / WASP way. I've always been culturally at odds with those people, but had a hard time articulating that until I was older. Growing up in NJ in a place where people were ethnically like myself, Jewish, of African descent, of Central American descent, and/or of South American descent, I always felt "white" people were the "other".
Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest in a primarily liberal "white" American enclave, I still feel weirded out by the cultural distance I feel to the "whiteness" of these people, even though I tend to agree with them politically.
That's exactly how I feel about being a Jew. I'm part of the club because I'm in NYC and we are all over. But if I go to many rural areas of southern states as well as many places around the world, I am totally looked at as a "blood sucking Jew" (to quote the KKK).
By the way, I'm not saying I don't enjoy the benefits of being white. I clearly get a white privilege that other non-white people do not have. I just do not racially associate with actually being a white person. And if I wore traditional Jewish garbs or had a slightly bigger nose, I'd no longer enjoy the privilege.
But again, this is such a hard thing for me to talk about. I'm not white in many aspects... but I am of course white in others.
It probably is in some ways but I also dont think Jewish people are automatically considered part of a white majority. While I'm not Jewish, many strangers read me as such (and tell me so) instead of as some generic white person. So I do think there's some racialized profiling going on there otherwise why do they specify Jewish? Or I dunno maybe people in the United States do the same thing with other groups that fall inside the white umbrella and I just don't hear it? (Saying you look French, German, etc.?)
Cotton McKnight
Member
So as a Jewish person I am standing here and wondering, "When did Judaism become normal for non Jewish people in this country?"
I mean if I share that I'm Jewish (with a non-Jew) I usually get a confused look from someone, and even questions that are pretty far-fetched in their realm of ignorance of how Judaism works.
I mean if I share that I'm Jewish (with a non-Jew) I usually get a confused look from someone, and even questions that are pretty far-fetched in their realm of ignorance of how Judaism works.
Jews, and to a lesser extent Catholics were heavily persecuted during the days of segregation. I kid you not, there were people who would've rather had a black man in office than a Jew or Catholic.
This is largely because the racist groups in America (ie the KKK) are also heavily religious and prodistant. Luckily foe those in the geoups, they were not as easily recognizablr as someone who was black, and we're not as frequently harrassed.
But the identity of Jewish people in America has always been an intresting one.
This is largely because the racist groups in America (ie the KKK) are also heavily religious and prodistant. Luckily foe those in the geoups, they were not as easily recognizablr as someone who was black, and we're not as frequently harrassed.
But the identity of Jewish people in America has always been an intresting one.
Yeah I get you. We get a ton of white privilege even if it's privilege that can be revoked at any time because we're not "really" white. So I don't post about my experience to complain about the relatively small racialized injustices I face, but rather to showcase just how much the concept of whiteness in America is a social construct beyond just skin color.
Muppet of a Man
Member
What area of the US are you from? This might have something to do with it. Generally, people are reasonably familiar with both Judaism and Jewish cultural traditions in large swaths of the Northeast. Not everywhere there (perhaps not New England), but definity in the NYC tristate area.
Italians used to be considered nonwhite. Sometimes southern Italians still are.
I'm Polish, Sicilian, English, and Norwegian, so in the old days I would've been considered a half white mutt, but nobody these days would think I'm anything but white. Even fascists like Spencer talk about wanting to make America a homeland for ALL Europeans, not just Anglos.
Who is and isn't white changes with time. Just look at how many Iranians and Indians consider themselves white due to their ancient actual-Aryan heritage while white supremacists don't. But in time, they might join the club too.
To Far Away Times
Member
I myself am not Jewish but my fiancée is. I went to her temple the Saturday after Donald Trump won the election. The atmosphere was like a funeral march filled with outrage and fear. For crying out loud there are people in that temple that lived through the concentration camps.
Think about how selfish those votes for Donald Trump and his white nationalist movement are.
When those of us take an extremely hardline stance against racists, this is why. This shit matters. Everyone that said Donald Trump wouldn't go through with the White Nationalist stuff is in denial that they themselves are white nationalists as well. That Donald Trump and The Swamp didn't get absolutely steamrolled in the election is just devastating.
Unlike being Muslim, being Jewish is also tied to ethnicity.
Yes, the majority of the world's jews are now white. Many Israelis and American and European jews are essentially genetically white. The ethnic group of jews like Askhkenazi or Sephardi jews may share similar subtraits but anything uniquely identifying them from other groups is done.
They are not white in the sense that they are free from discrimination or part of the ruling elite. Though these days it is different. Is Alison Brie not white? Someone like Drake is half-white jewish etc.
They are not white in the sense that they are free from discrimination or part of the ruling elite. Though these days it is different. Is Alison Brie not white? Someone like Drake is half-white jewish etc.
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