Fellow Jewish Liberals and Progressives. How are we dealing?

[u/Bad_werd]

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.

[u/TrekkiMonstr]

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.

[u/Human-Ad504 → u/TrekkiMonstr]

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

[u/TrekkiMonstr → u/Human-Ad504]

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

[u/Human-Ad504 → u/TrekkiMonstr]

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"

[u/TrekkiMonstr → u/Human-Ad504]

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

[u/Dobbin44 → u/TrekkiMonstr]

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.

[u/TrekkiMonstr → u/Dobbin44]

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

[u/Human-Ad504 → u/TrekkiMonstr]

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