Wow, Mallory, this article was a lot of work, with a lot packed into it. Kudos to you. Great article. Thanks for writing it.
I have a couple of comments. I don’t agree that, “Jewish people are an ethnoreligion,” “characterized by a generally unified practice of a religion.” The reason I don’t agree is that so many Jews do not practice religion at all. In fact, many are atheists or just areligious.
Like it or not, no one can help what culture we have been born into. This is just one of the fundamental reasons racism is so absurd. Racists don’t seem to understand this. Jews do not need to practice, or even agree with, Judaism in order to be Jewish. And antisemites really care very little whether a person practices Judaism. Their hate is a special kind of crazy.
Next, you wrote, “…traumatized Jews in America [have been] mobilized to assimilate in order to protect themselves from the horrors of genocide.” (my brackets added). Is this the real reason? Certainly we can find other periods in history wherein Jews wanted, and tried, to assimilate, including in the decades prior to the Holocaust, the Hellenistic period, etc.. It doesn’t seem like the Holocaust is necessarily a defining reason for assimilation, although it definitely has been for some.
This made me laugh: “little is actually known about Jews among most gentiles, other than ingrained hatred and antisemitic blood libels.” I laughed out of the blatant truth of your sentence and how amazing it is that people believe and act in certain ways.
This point is a curious one: “there are converts who are religious Jews, but they will never be ethnically Jewish.” If we go back to the origins of many Jewish people we will find that some distant ancestor was a convert, but nevertheless today they are considered Jewish. So being Jewish rests on such a ridiculously arbitrary definition. Where does someone’s Jewishness begin and end and who is to be the judge??
This is a good point, a little-known fact that you brought out: “Nazism was widely influential in shaping Arab sentiments and actions towards Jewish people in Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century. Even prior to the Nazi era the Arab world was swayed by anti-Jewish propaganda by British and American interests vying for their oil.
The idea of white privilege, which you discussed, is a new one. It didn’t exist when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, even though it existed at every turn. I personally remember many clubs and golf courses with a policy of not allowing Jews or Negros admission.
My last point is that at the turn of the last century we find that few people were deemed to be white by the white establishment (whatever that really means). Italians, Jews, Irish, Armenians, and others were not considered white. What changed other than the fickle minds of human beings?
