Are Jews white? It depends on the incentives.
A few weeks ago I began the long process of applying to several American universities. So there I was, filling the lines away, until I found myself faced with a nasty old foe – the ethnicity check box.
For any Jewish person faced with the spare prose of official U.S. forms, there always comes that strange moment of stumbling across that stubborn box. It’s not that you don’t know it’s coming – if you’ve been around the block once or twice you know for a fact that it’s coming – but you hope maybe this time they forgot. Maybe this time you won’t have to face that strange decision.
But, time and time again, it appears, out of the proverbial bend, just when you least expect it. You stand facing that monolithic square and try to decide for the umpteenth time what you are: “white” or “other”?
That choice is seemingly easier as a result of the little parenthetical remark next to the “white” option, which now includes “original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East.” That addition should, ostensibly, solve the problem for Mizrahi Jews – Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent – but I’m still stumped. As an Israeli of Ashkenazi descent, am I a people of the Middle East? I mean, I think I am, but then again I’m told I’m not that either.
More recently, the U.S. census bureau, following lobbying by American organizations and activists, started testing of a new separate category for individuals identifying themselves as originating from the Middle East and North Africa ahead of the planned 2020 census. In other words, on that questionnaire they would have the option of choosing MENA, and not “white.”
But the issue of Jews identifying themselves as white or not, is not just one of race or complexion or even origin, but of attaching oneself, or distancing oneself, from power. The problem is whether Jews are willing to stop being white.
There was a time, one that perhaps persists, when being white, or being able to pass as white, meant power. It meant you could, in a racist world, move ahead, create a better life for your children. That made the choice quite easy for Jews living in the white world: they would definitely mark down “white,” since every other choice meant discrimination and pain. It’s that Jewish survival thing, where you choose what aids in not being killed, not being marginalized, or at least reduces the chances of both. If white works, go for white….
But, in a world that is becoming increasingly multicultural, and in which distinct ethnic groups, including the many Jewish extractions, begin to not only attempt to hide their differences but take pride in them, that “assimilate” part is beginning to take on a much more sinister tone. Passing as white, in this sense, is its own quiet extermination of identity and history, the kind in which one discards any trait that marks them as different in the hopes of surviving another day.
So yes, a good student of Jewish history definitely should go for that “white” box, since it provides you with a sense of security and of proximity to power. But, I think until a different box comes along, perhaps one that reads “accepted as white by whites as long as you’re nice,” I’ll stick with my “other.” It seems that’s what the world is telling me to be anyway. Might as well enjoy it.
* If Jews were tabulated separately from whites for the purposes of racial bean-counting, it would be terrible for the Jews and the Narrative in general. It would make their extreme overrepresentation in elite institutions very obvious, and give the lie to the notion that generic “whites” are dominating these institutions.
* Why aren’t Jews counted ethnically on the US Census, like everyone else is? I think the terms “Ashkenazi” and “Sephardi” would cover 98% of them, referring to blood not faith (eg, Lawrence Auster, not Sammy Davis, Jr), so it’s not a First Amendment issue.
Instead, they’re Russians, Poles, Hungarians, etc, clouding matters not only for themselves but for those other groups as well.
* ‘Other’ box?
If they are proud, they should check JEWISH.
And we shall soon find out that there is a group even MORE POWERFUL than the whites.
Of course, that is why Jews prefer ‘other’ than ‘Jewish’.
* Is the flight-from-beauty phenomenon related to this?
For example, the stunning French singer Alizée in 2003:
And (after some very conscious choices) in 2014:
* I’ve always considered Jews to be a white ethnic group- Irish, Italians, Greeks, Jews.
* I am still looking for a Judeo-Christian. I am not sure how the ‘Judeo’s’ hijacked the narrative.
* Flight from white, meanwhile Trump is making a flight to white. Recent speech had the stage decked out with Christmas trees. Sure, it’s a direct appeal to Christianity but more broadly he’s wrapping himself up in the identity of pre-65 America.
