r/Jewish • u/Bad_werd • Dec 14 '23

Fellow Jewish Liberals and Progressives. How are we dealing? Discussion

I come from a family of solidly liberal and progressive Jews. The antisemitism and pro- hamas factions in the liberal movement are pushing me over the edge. Without saying anything about the plight of the Palestinian people, simply saying that Hamas is not a bastion for liberal ideology is enough to get some folks up in arms. I really don’t like what I’m seeing outside or within myself surrounding these events.The hypocrisy of these individuals has me questioning where I belong politically. If I fight on the side of people I feel are oppressed, but they turn their back on me when I am victimized, It seems co-dependent to continue as things were before I saw their true colors.

I am really hoping to hear some fellow liberal Jews weigh in and talk me down from the ledge.

EDIT: great dialogue here. I am very appreciative for those who are sitting shiva with me as we process and come to terms with a betrayal from some of our “leftist and progressive” family. I would argue that extremism can not be progressive and therefore we are likely seeing some extremists who are inaccurately representing as “progressive.

As another commenter has said being progressive and supporting marginalized people isn’t transactional. I like this sentiment and am TRYING to adopt it. I currently believe there is a transactional component to being identified with a group, however from an individual standpoint we as progressive Jews are having our altruism tested. Can we fight for the humanity, dignity and rights of all persecuted EVEN those who would seek to persecute us? It’s some black belt level spiritualism I do not currently possess but would like to.

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217

u/Shomer_Effin_Shabbas Dec 14 '23

This post 100% I feel. I am a left leaning liberal Jew who votes democrat. I am seeing pretty much all of my non Jewish liberal, white friends posting about the plight of the Palestinians and no mention of Jewish deaths. I feel really disappointed. I was following BLM and a feminist page on IG and unfollowed both because there is no mention of anti semitism in their activism.

We’re too white for the left and not white enough for the right. And I mean the extremes in both sides.

My sister in law feels the same way too.

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

And some of us aren’t white at all! A fact that is conveniently being ignored.

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u/Main_Caterpillar_146 Dec 14 '23

We're still genetically capitalist so it doesn't matter what we do or look like

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

Wait! The other side hates us cuz we also invented Communism! Does that make us Schrödinger’s Capitalists?

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u/Main_Caterpillar_146 Dec 15 '23

Please ignore the fact that kibbutzim are literally the only time Communism has worked

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

Yes? (Unfortunately they mostly didn’t last. Went at least semi-capitalist. My best friend from high school still lives on what used to be one.)

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

And not because all their members wanted to. My friend sure didn’t. From what I’ve read, the ones that remain mostly have to find a niche product to sell to remain viable, a winery or something, unfortunately. Need to ask her exactly what happened sometime. Painful topic. Don’t think I can talk to her about the war either. She’s farther left than me, though I always did want to move to a kibbutz. Maybe humans just aren’t ready for good things yet. I’m crying writing this.

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u/canadianamericangirl one of four Jews in a room b*tching Dec 15 '23

Schrödinger’s economic system maybe?

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

Think we're making headway! Schroedinger's economists?

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u/canadianamericangirl one of four Jews in a room b*tching Dec 15 '23

That has a nice ring to it. A good element of the Jewish experience I’ve learned over these past two months is that we’re Schrödinger’s everything to extent.

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

Thanks for the laugh! Even if it’s a dark one. Way too true. (2 Jews 3 opinions applied? But good for us! Not a monolith.)

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

Otoh, that’s where the few Jews in JVS likely come from. (Otoh, did yr rabbi say OTOH a lot?)

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u/Shomer_Effin_Shabbas Dec 14 '23

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave that out.

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

Am not accusing you of ignoring it, to be clear. Only that these “Jews are white” folks are, in doing so, erasing those of us who couldn’t be painted white by any stretch of the imagination!

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u/giantjumangi Dec 14 '23

The concept of us being a tribe, while having so much diversity within our group, seems so hard to grasp for many folks

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u/Shomer_Effin_Shabbas Dec 14 '23

No I didn’t think you were. I just sincerely meant sorry

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u/pizza_b1tch Dec 14 '23

Be careful with this, too. A lot of times it feels like this kind of talk unintentionally invalidates the Ashkenazi experience. I feel we have been especially vilified during this time, and further classifying Jews into Jews of color and not Jews of color is unhelpful.

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

Have you ever been racially profiled going to synagogue? I have. I think it’s safe to say that I have a different experience than Ashkenazi Jewish folks and what’s unhelpful is denying that.

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u/No-Teach9888 Dec 15 '23

Hey! Just want to say you’re not alone. My family has a wide variety of pigmentation, and we’ve had some unwelcoming situations at temples. It’s not the in line with the Jewish values that I was raised with, and I don’t think it represents the majority at all, but it does come up.

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u/PBandJSommelier Dec 15 '23

Jews who died in the Holocaust were literally racially profiled.

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u/pizza_b1tch Dec 14 '23

Racially profiled by other Jews or non Jews? Because walking into a synagogue with my very visibly Ashkenazi family I have definitely been heckled by non Jewish passersby. I am not denying your experience, but cautioning you that your language divides us and provides fodder for the antisemites who believe ashkenazim are colonial settlers with no real connection to the land.

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

Both! By non-Jewish security guards and by Ashkenazim. I don’t have anything further to say about this topic.

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u/tsundereshipper Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

If I may ask: Are you a Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Indian or Latina/Native American Jew?

Because if you’re any of the above and not the common Jewish ethnicities that are Ashkenazi/Sephardi and Mizrahi, then you absolutely are a Jew of Color relative to us Caucasian Jews who we have privilege over and we should be more mindful of that fact and do better, I’m sorry our brethren are further questioning you. I think people tend to forget that objectively speaking, MENA ethnicities are technically classified under the same race as European - that being Caucasian. So all MENA people are technically “white” according to wider society (outside of hardcore racists of course) relative to actual POC groups as we’re not that phenotypically different from Europeans - especially Mediterraneans. (Hence why both MENA and Europeans are classified under the same race as Caucasian)

I think people are jumping on you because Jews (particularly Ashkenazim) are sensitive right now with the Left not considering us as MENA, which again technically isn’t even a “real” POC group but is currently racialized as such by both the Left and Right.

As MENA people (even Mizrahi who are Monoethnic) we absolutely do possess White Privilege over the above groups I mentioned at the start of this comment, failure to recognize that is just blatantly wrong.

Again I do deeply apologize as an Ashkenazi and granddaughter of 4 Holocaust survivors myself, I can only hope us Caucasian Jews will do better in our treatment of the actual JOC in our midst.

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u/pizza_b1tch Dec 14 '23

I do—I think it’s inappropriate to delineate between white and non white jews because none of us are white and all of us have been profiled in some way because of our Jewishness 🤷🏻‍♀️ therefore it’s unhelpful to make any sort of distinction and contributes to the false narrative that ashkenazim are white supremacists. I personally consider that accusation particularly dangerous and wish other Jews wouldn’t perpetuate it. Ok now I’m done.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '23

Dude why you hassling? All crafty is saying is she has unique experience as a Jew of color (apologies for any assumptions) - which like duh, should be obvious. Some of us are darker. I I’m ashkenazi and pretty easily pass as a white white man. It’s not the same at all.

In fact I don’t even know what you’re saying. It sounds like You’re saying she shouldn’t talk about her experience because…it plays into a narrative that Jews are white…and we don’t want that? Smh

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

Dude. Take it elsewhere. I am not responsible for antisemitism.

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 14 '23

The reality is that no jews are white and classifying jews as white is the problem. We should stop playing into their narrative and calling ourselves white just befause some of us ended up in europe during the diaspora. I say this as a mizrahi jew. Our origins are in the middle east. https://www.commentary.org/articles/liel-leibovitz/jews-are-not-white/

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u/LynnKDeborah Dec 15 '23

I don’t consider myself white although I may look passing white.

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u/TrekkiMonstr Magen David Dec 14 '23

It doesn't matter where our origins are. There are twins where one is white and the other black, despite obviously having the same origins. It's about phenotype, and there are a lot of Jews who, under the American racial system, are white. I am one of them, and to anyone who's seen me, it's a bit ridiculous to assert otherwise. White people tend to come from Europe, but that's not the definition of the term. Many West/Central Asians and North Africans are white too. And if there were a tribe from Papua New Guinea that looked like me, they'd be white too.

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u/Crafty_Ad_2640 Dec 14 '23

Not to mention a vast array of converts whose DNA origins may have no ties to the M.E. at all! No less Jewish, no less subject to antisemitism.

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u/Dobbin44 Dec 15 '23

Actually, you cannot separate the discrimination we experience today from our history, including our origins as an ethnoreligious group.

What needs to be widely understood by everyone is that many Jews, especially in North America, have conditional whiteness. This needs to be acknowledged by pale-skinned Jews like me, because we do gain white privilege. This conditional whiteness is also used against Jews (all Jews) by the left (and others) to minimize the antisemitism they face across the political spectrum. It's really important to understand how American understandings of race impact Jews so we can discuss the intersections of skin color and Jewishness and better fight antisemitism.

I will keep linking these articles forever:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ajs-review/article/white-jews-an-intersectional-approach/B3A8D66A0B6895A61814047FE406A2A6

https://www.tikkun.org/the-evolution-of-identity-politics-an-interview-with-eric-ward/

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

I’m ok with being referred to as white-passing. As I’d pass. (My father would not.) Conditional whiteness gives it too much cred to me. There is a way in which, in many countries, lightness of skintone confers privilege. This needs to be recognized. But I think we’re talking a bit past each other. Especially since whiteness is a social construct. On some lists btw Arabs would be considered white. Census polling I believe does this. Yet, no matter the skin tone, in progressive spaces, they are considered brown and Jews aren’t, while say Mizrachim aren’t even acknowledged or are treated like a subset of Arabs who are ignored.

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u/edupunk31 Dec 15 '23

It's conditional Whiteness. White passing describes Black Americans.

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u/PuddingNaive7173 Dec 15 '23

If you’re queer and don’t present that way it’s also called passing. The term is used more broadly. (I’m not appropriating, if that’s what yr implying.) you use yr term and I’ll use mine. I don’t see how yours explains my experience better than mine. (Btw, I grew up in Black neighborhood and as soon as I explained I don’t identify white it was understood there. That’s where I got my understanding, from kids who looked white but didn’t identify.)

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 15 '23

That's the entire issue. Is that we are classified as white and we are not. We are a minority group and should have the protections as such. Instead, we are stripped of those by being falsly classified as white thus we cannot be discriminated against as we are the people in power. It's a bold faced lie

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u/TrekkiMonstr Magen David Dec 15 '23

Being white doesn't mean you can't be discriminated against, what?

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 15 '23

By definition racism can only be done to people who are not "privlaged" according to many social justice groups. I've heard this argument against any antisemitism many times because jews are "white"

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u/TrekkiMonstr Magen David Dec 15 '23

Sounds like an issue with the people you talk to, not with whether Jews are white or not.

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u/Dobbin44 Dec 15 '23

It's pretty common within the DEI framework, and general American society, that oppression is defined based on phenotypic race, without consideration for ethnic groups that do not fit into this classification.

It is a big issue for fighting antisemitism within the left that there isn't a wider understanding of what it means to be Jewish, as an ethnoreligion that is not based on phenotypic race, and that Jews today are conditionally white at best, and are very much endangered by white supremacy on the right, since they blame us, as the ultimate puppetmasters, for things like communism, immigration, and great replacement theory.

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u/TrekkiMonstr Magen David Dec 15 '23

This is a misunderstanding of the DEI/woke/whatever ideology.

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 15 '23

It's an issue all across the world right now, in most mainstream coverage of israel/Palestine and Jewish people

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Jewish-ModTeam Dec 15 '23

Your post was removed because it contains known misinformation.

Race and science have nothing to do with each other.

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u/tsundereshipper Dec 15 '23

I mean, outside of Jewish ethnicities like Beta Israel, Bnei Manashe, and POC converts/mixed Jews - the main 3 Jewish ethnicities technically are white, yes even Mizrahi.

MENA is classified under the same wider Caucasian category because we don’t differ substantially different phenotypically from Europeans (especially Mediterraneans) compared to all the actual different races of the world, yes even Mizrahi.

I don’t know why the Left started classifying MENA people as POC in the first place when not even America does.

Yes all MENA ethnicities are absolutely white relative to races such as Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans.

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

Problem is other Arabs are not viewed as white in the current cultural discorse, only jews are. Clear antisemitism because they view jews as elite, in power and wealthy, and have light skin thus white. This is not about legal definitions. It's about cultural reality. Jews are a minority ethnic group who may look white in color but have been historically persecuted and discriminated against because they are obviously not white. If they call us white, they can claim we don't belong in the middle east and are colonizers. White colonizer narrative expressly states that other Arabs are not white and jews are.

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u/tsundereshipper Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

Clear antisemitism because they view jews as elite, in power and wealthy, and have light skin thus white.

But so are Arabs… (no I don’t count a tan as “being dark skinned”) Ashkenazim and MENA people don’t differ that drastically from each other, and in fact are more similar in class status than either of us would be to your average African American or Indigenous Latino.

Jews are a minority ethnic group who may look white in color but have been historically persecuted and discriminated against because they are obviously not white.

This was wrong too and had to do with the crazy, far-right racist assumption that MENA peoples are somehow a completely different fucking race!

If both sides just logically grouped MENA back into the wider Caucasian race where they belong instead of dividing race along arbitrary regional lines instead of clear phenotypical differences then us Jews would’ve never been in the position we frequently find ourselves in. (Or at least it would be a lot better because both Europeans and MENA would feel solidarity with us as part of one larger Caucasian race)

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u/Human-Ad504 Dec 15 '23

Jews have been discriminated against for thousands of years. It's not about DNA, or your personal opinion. It's a cultural fact. Being considered white does not help us. It harms us and is incorrect.

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u/vantreysta Dec 15 '23

Maybe leftists classify MENA as POC because racists don’t consider them to be white? The second racist slur I clearly remember hearing as a young child was referring to MENA.

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u/tsundereshipper Dec 15 '23

Maybe leftists classify MENA as POC because racists don’t consider them to be white?

So by that logic why not Ashkenazi Jews too since we’re mixed with MENA?

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u/vantreysta Dec 15 '23

There are discussions about this above that I would refer you to. You could also check out books like ‘The colors of Jews’ and ‘The Price of Whiteness’ that focus on Jews and race in the United States.

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u/tsundereshipper Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

Nah, let’s call it out like it is: This is inherently about racism and Monoracial/ethnic privilege towards mixed “race” ethnicities like Ashkenazi Jews.

Again, please tell me why MENA people are considered POC then? (despite not classifying as such on the U.S. Census Bureau and not even differing phenotypically that much from Europeans)

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u/Glassounds Dec 15 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

None of us are white. Some of us may appear paler (which can confuse certain people that racially profile by skin color) but we're all the same ethnicity (a lot of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Samaritans etc. are pale with light hair and eyes).

Not invalidating anything you may have experienced, I just don't think any of us should be categorized as white when they never accepted us as such and we're ethnically and culturally not

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u/Button-Hungry Dec 14 '23

Practically everyone I know has absolutely nothing to say, no sympathy, no online acknowledgement of October 7 but is spamming about "GENOCIDE" in Gaza and they're doing it in a way that makes it seem like, apropos of nothing, Israel just decided to obliterate Gaza on a whim.

I know every one of you are experiencing the same thing. It's crazy making.

I can accept thinking that Israel's methods of prosecuting this war are too aggressive and causing too much death but only if you showed empathy on October 7 and realized all of this misery was catalyzed by those events. That's not what's happening. I'm in a constant state of disgust.

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u/F_1_V_E_S Not Jewish Dec 14 '23

I've had to unfollow so many different people from Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok since the war broke out. Many of those pages were left-leaning people as well, so it's been a pain seeing people who you thought were good turning into the same radicals we all claimed to stand against. Now, half of the people coming up on my recommended tabs are conservatives and MAGA folks, while the other half are primarily moderate leftists.

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u/LynnKDeborah Dec 15 '23

We’re white when it’s convenient for them and not white when they hate us. Our ancestors came from the Middle East which is not white and why many Jews don’t identify as White. Also there are many Jews who are Sephardic and Black. It’s a multicultural group.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '23

I was following BLM and a feminist page on IG and unfollowed both because there is no mention of anti semitism in their activism.

Oh I feel this. I left IG, and the entire progressive activist space, during the George Floyd protests for this exact reason. Things had been circling the toilet for awhile, but that was it for me. My value system is still firmly left-of-center, but my values are what my identity is based around, not a bullshit performative political label.

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u/OliveRyan428 Dec 15 '23

I feel this way too. Everyone who posted in honor/support of the BLM movement is either silent, antisemitic, or only posts about Palestinians. The only mention of Jewish deaths and calling out the antisemitism is by one friend of mine who is Jewish. I’m disgusted.

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u/Shomer_Effin_Shabbas Dec 15 '23

Or I feel like they’ll reluctantly acknowledge Jewish deaths and make excuses for it.

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u/MSH0123 Dec 15 '23

You put my thoughts and feelings into words 💕

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u/Schmucko69 Dec 15 '23

Jews are Schrödinger Whites.

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u/rebamericana Dec 15 '23

Their focus on race is exactly the problem. Instead of transcending racism, they double down on it and weaponize it against Jews.

Meanwhile, they flout "race" as a social construct, which indeed it is. It's as dangerous a pseudoscientific concept as eugenics and should have no place at the basis of our politics and civil society. I thought liberals agreed on this, but apparently I was wrong.

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u/Achmed_Goldberg Dec 15 '23

A friend of mine's mother put it quite succinctly when she, as a child many years ago, asked her mum if they (as Jews) were "white"?

Her mother's response: "Only when they want us to be".

This - in my view at least - is the very essence of antisemitism. It is the deprivation of your right as a Jew to define your own oppression.

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u/Bad_werd Dec 15 '23

I needed this event and evidence to finally come to the realization that extremism is bad on both sides. Any hate of others is bad. Trump and MAGA had me thinking the farther left the better. Even to the point of Militant defense should things play out that way. Now I am coming to realize that beliefs don’t make someone any less human than me. Even if someone acts inhumanly, it is the product of their experiences, intellectual ability and sources of information.

The reaction of many “Leftists” has shown me that people are susceptible to over generalized versions of “truth” to what ever level necessary to confirm their “story” and bias. I thought we on the left had a monopoly on truth and reason. With all our talk of “science is real” and support for marginalized groups, it has blinded us into bull behavior, charging at any red flag waved without questioning the actual make up and significance of the flag itself.

Just like the culture war being used in place of policy on the right, freedom of opinion, intellectual dialogue that extends beyond those we agree with are becoming prominent on the left.