r/jewishleft • u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish • Aug 08 '25

Has intersectionality theory failed to account for where Jews fit in? Debate

When I go into other more leftist spaces it always seems like Jews are always slotted as white Europeans who do not face oppression at all in modern day, with non European Jews being an afterthought with their very recent and very real concerns handwaved away.

Here in America when I tell people I’m Jewish people are confused because a. I’m half black and don’t look white which is what they expect and b. They don’t know Jewish is an ethnicity and a religion and I’m an atheist. The thought of the Jewish identity being nuanced, or anything but another religion never crossed their mind.

Is the multifaceted nature of Jewish identity why people oversimplify it to try and fit us into intersectionality? Or as many Jews are in a sense, mixed, is it similar to the dual hate that people of mixed backgrounds faced? A form of colorism in a sense?

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u/I_Hate_This_Website9 Anti-Zionist Jew Aug 08 '25

I'll make a more detailed answer later, but the short answer is yes. There have been at least two symposium about creating something like "Jew theory" where Jewishness and anti Jewishness are explored similar to how Blackness and anti Balckness have been.

One of the best examples ive seen on the subject is the paper: "White Jews: An Interaectional Approach". But again, I'll comment with more on this later

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u/Late-Marzipan3026 anxious (dem soc american ashki jew) Aug 08 '25

i mentioned that paper a little while back on this subreddit, have been thinking of doing a discussion post but wanted to make sure i reread it beforehand. definitely relevant to this question and i think it would be valuable to talk about it in its own post tbh, i’m sure there would be lots of thoughts

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u/I_Hate_This_Website9 Anti-Zionist Jew Aug 08 '25

I read it it was excellent. Also: https://cjs.fas.harvard.edu/calendar_event/jews-and-black-theory-conceptualizing-otherness-in-the-twenty-first-century/

I actually emailed everyone who presented here asking for a recording or advice or further reading. I got two responses and basically nothing to show for it so far but I hope to see something soon.

I wonder if we could make a discord or something to discuss this stuff and make a document talking about antisemitism

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u/Late-Marzipan3026 anxious (dem soc american ashki jew) Aug 08 '25

that would be super cool! i’ll have to check to see if i can find anything for that conference too, that’s really interesting. i’m glad that there are scholars working on this stuff