The Pintele Yid (Yiddish for “Jewish spark” )
by Guest Contributor Matthew Egan
My fiancée, Soo, put The Savages on our Netflix queue. Despite plenty of slice-of-life humor, I found it to be an unyieldingly bleak story about two children putting their father in a nursing home. In one scene, the son (Philip Seymour Hoffman), shows an old movie to help his father with the transition. The movie? The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson. Not a good choice, considering that they invited the entire nursing home including the predominantly black staff. Blink and you might miss the father react hysterically to a scene of the young protagonist getting beaten by his Orthodox Jewish father. But Jenkins doesn’t linger there, moving to Jolson applying blackface and highlighting the gap between the white, theater professor son and the black, working class staff.
This moment, so quickly covered over, is the only reference in the film to the family’s Jewishness. I think the director, Tamara Jenkins, was intentionally pointing to the assimilation of the two children as something that estranged them from their own father. Since the children won’t acknowledge their connection to Jewishness, the film can’t explore it. If you happen to notice it, that moment is poignant precisely because it can’t be explored. It tints the rest of the film, but uncertainly. No other moment of the film is decidedly Jewish, but details like the children’s interest in theater can be understood as such. This universally recognizable story of a dysfunctional family is also a particular story of the assimilated, Jewish experience in America. The relationship between these two stories, however, remains unclear.
Up to that moment, I was enjoying the film. It’s good, if you like to sit with painful social dysfunction. But once I noticed it was a “Jewish” film, I was hooked. After the film, I went online to find out if Jenkins is Jewish and to try to fill in the Jewish side of this story. She says of herself, “I’m half-Italian and half-Jewish, so I eat lots of food on both sides. I’m very attracted to both sides culturally.” Looking for Jews like that can be a bad habit, promoting stereotypes and the myth of Jewish power. But it’s a hobby enjoyed by both Jews and antisemites, omnipresent in the Jewish press. For me, I’m trying to get a better handle on what it means to be Jewish. Like in Jenkins’ story, I’ve found Jewishness to be underexplored, so that I’m not sure what it means and how it’s affected my life. To my mother’s surprise when I asked her while writing this, at age 34, I knew almost nothing of our family history.
I don’t think that’s unusual for American Jews. At a Jewish wedding recently, the Rabbi made a running joke of the words “Jericho, New York” in the middle of the Aramaic-language ketubah (wedding contract), suggesting an expectation of displacement. With the flowering of a new, Jewish, youth culture embodied in publications like Heeb, Jewcy, and Jewlicious, this sense of displacement and a drive to find roots is coming forward for many young Jews.
My grandmother came to the US with her sisters from Kiev in 1923, after her mother died in childbirth. As bad as the Pale of Settlement was (it always gets excluded from more general histories for space considerations, but I think I have to do that here as well), this was an especially scary time for Ukrainian Jews. The story, though it comes to me through my grandmother, is that that they survived because she was such a cute baby that the soldiers left their house alone. They moved to Brooklyn, but her sisters, recent immigrants themselves, couldn’t afford to take care of her, so my grandmother grew up in an orphanage upstate. She maybe did okay as a mother considering that she didn’t have a maternal role model, but my mother only felt close to her after my grandfather passed away. They sent my mother to Hebrew school, but not to become religious. Grandpa’s parents forced religion down his throat, so he only hoped for his children to be connected to their Jewish heritage and culture. While she smoked outside, passing cars used to scream at my mother, “Christ Killer” or “Jew Bastard.” She tells me she didn’t want to be Jewish. And almost all of her relationships, including two marriages, were with lapsed Catholics. My aunt and uncle also married men from Catholic backgrounds.
I always joke that my father converted to Chemistry.
One of the things my mother liked about my father was his large, close family and the way she had been accepted into it prior to the marriage. The Catholic Church insisted that there could be no wedding ceremony outside their Church. Not even a civil wedding, let alone one in a Synagogue. So my parents only had a civil wedding, and my father’s family refused to come. His mother, an alcoholic who died at 46 from cirrhosis, would call her mother in the middle of the night to complain about my mother leading my father to Hell. My parents divorced when I was very young. They weren’t well suited for each other in the first place, but it probably led to an even more assimilated upbringing for me.
When I was 12, I spent about five minutes contemplating a Bar Mitzvah. Friends talked about Hebrew school or Jewish summer camp, and I was hoping to find a way to be included in that. Mom told me it would make my grandparents happy, in a tone of voice that distanced her from them, but that it would be a lot of work. I dropped it. Two or three times, Mom and I celebrated Hanukah. In Judaism, you’re supposed to cover your head before G-d. For most observant Jews worldwide, that applies at all times. In America, most Jews only do it during prayer. We didn’t even have head coverings, so we used paper napkins. Hanukah is actually quite a minor holiday, exaggerated by its proximity to Christmas. I only learned of the major holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates G-d giving Moses the Ten Commandments, in the last few weeks. Jewishness was never a topic that could sustain a conversation — we were too secular — so I learned about Judaism mostly the same way my Christian classmates did in school.
And I’m still learning in pretty much the same way.
When I’d visit my grandparents in Florida, I almost never wore shoes inside, and my grandmother hated when I came to the dinner table barefoot. She told me that it’s a sign of mourning in Judaism, but I couldn’t understand why Jewish rituals meant anything to her. I don’t know when I realized that lobster isn’t kosher, but I knew she wasn’t observant. It would drive my grandfather crazy when I’d have a sandwich with mayonnaise. He’d explain by saying it wasn’t kosher [to mix meat and dairy, though I didn’t know that then], but he didn’t keep kosher, either. When I pointed that out, he’d turn inward.
I describe myself as assimilated. When I say that, I don’t mean that I’m secular. Judaism and Jewishness are national, cultural, and ethnic categories as well as religious labels. My grandparents weren’t believers any more than my mother was. And while I’m less religious than Mom, she’s amazed at how strongly I’ve come to identify with Jewishness. But not only do I not speak Hebrew, I don’t know Yiddish either. I’ve learned more about Jewish cooking from Molly Katzen’s vegetarian Moosewood cookbooks than from my family. But every once in a while, when I would describe myself as “half-Jewish” growing up, someone would ask if it was my mother who was Jewish and tell me, “So you’re a real Jew then.” It was surreal that gentiles would force religious law (traditionally, Jewishness is passed on through the mother but not the father) on me that way, but I was especially unprepared as I hadn’t yet unpacked the ethnic and religious components of Jewishness.
This year, a Jewish friend I know from a Buddhist temple, Richard invited me and Soo over for Passover. It was my first ever Passover Seder. Richard’s wife, Robin, a strongly atheistic Christian (I didn’t ask if she was raised Catholic), has astounding Hebrew and knowledge of Jewish history. She asked where my family was from, and on telling her that and when they immigrated, she put together a picture I had never thought to imagine. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the story well enough, and what I told Robin was off by about 15 years. But even if it was wrong, it was like a revelation that my family had a history that was specific. The way she asked, just after getting my name, indicated how she saw it as part of my identity, and I suddenly realized it was, whether I knew the story or not, important in who I am and how I came to be.
When I was 19, in Pittsburgh for college, I came across a piece of graffiti that said, “End the Occupation: Nuke Israel.” That graffiti was the first time I’d ever had to really place Jewishness (or Israel) in my life. That night, friends told me about fliers they had taken from the windshields of cars, but they wouldn’t tell me what they said except that it was awful. I always knew there were still people who hated Jews, but they had a fairytale quality. They didn’t really exist for me until then. Though it wasn’t an immediate threat, and I recognized that, I was entirely unprepared.
I grew up in a sort of Uncanny valley, vaguely aware that I was different from others. If I were born in the Bible Belt (or Russia), I might have yearned to be only vaguely aware of a difference, but there’s a risk to understating the effects. Thinking of myself primarily as white, I didn’t think much about antisemitism. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realized what a great hole this was in my life. Identifying as white meant denying a great deal of my own family history. That’s how I could get the story of my grandmother’s immigration wrong. It also meant I was incapable of applying any sort of antiracist analysis to my own life. Today, to the extent that I’m able to understand an assimilated identity, it’s primarily from readings and discussions of non-Jews dealing with their mixed or immigrant identities in poetry and film classes. Li Young Lee stands out, together with a chapter on Native Americans in boarding schools that I read for a class.
But now I’ve been to concerts by Rav Shmuel and Y-Love, and I’ve had that feeling of being surrounded by people who “look like me.” It wasn’t really about looks – Y-Love doesn’t really look like me in a physical sense – but I really felt that I belonged and looked like I belonged in a profound way. I imagine this is what people who have been to Israel mean when they return and say they “felt at home.” All the questions I was anxious to ask (strange at a concert) became silly. In the Jewish spaces created by those concerts, there wasn’t a pressure to cover over anything over. I felt comfortable with myself in a way I never had before. In a way that made me realize for the first time how uncomfortable I had been before.
For a long time, there’s been a promise made to Jews that we would be safe if only we assimilated, but that promise was always a nice way of explaining a threat. If ever anyone could spot the difference, then they felt a right to hate us. Today, even as multiculturalism has replaced assimilation as the favored way to organize society, Jews are still expected to and still try to assimilate. We’re assumed to be happy with our supposedly successful and completed assimilation. That, however, ignores the costs of assimilation and that we assimilated under pressure from more than 2,000 years of violence. And it assumes that antisemitism is something from the past, ignoring the history of Jewish oppression. Violence against Jews has always come in waves separated by periods of peace and relative prosperity. Most importantly, it ignores that Jews still face violence and, to a lesser extent, discrimination.
Jews like myself aren’t the typical targets of violent antisemitism. With a beard, I’ve been told that I look like Seth Rogan. Last Christmas, my mother pointed at her nose and said, “Does this look like a Jewish nose,” when a guest referred to Jews as a race. Instead of people like us, most violence and vandalism is directed at visibly Jewish spaces, synagogues or Jewish community centers. Holocaust memorial centers. So the promise that assimilation will bring peace remains tempting, especially as antisemitism rises.
But the worst antisemites hate assimilated Jews more than visible Jews. They obsess over “crypto-Jews” (they’ll tell you Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner are both Jews) who have hidden their Jewishness to better infiltrate white society. And when they act out violently, they pick targets that aren’t in any way Jewish. Like the Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh’s favorite book was The Turner Diaries, a bible for the far right, and instruction manual for fomenting a race war. It even includes instructions on how to make the bomb McVeigh used. Like in Nazi propaganda, there are many hated groups, but Jews play a central and explanatory role that can’t be ignored. For them, a real war between the races is only possible when Jewish control of the American government is exposed.
Average Americans, referred to as “sheeple,” are hypnotized by Jewish propaganda, and it is Jews who are holding whites down. The talk about Jewish control of the media and government as a way of explaining everything. (Pick any historical event and google it with “Zionist,” for a random conspiracy theory. Pokemon!?! Apparently, no one is safe.) Jewish power and agency are always exaggerated.
So, the more we assimilate, the more nervous these antisemites get. If we’re successful at challenging antisemitism, it seems to confirm their theories of Jewish power. If we speak out against antisemitism, it confirms their worst fears. So Jews often prefer to keep quiet, to ignore antisemitism and to emphasize the possibility of assimilation. But eventually, that which is uncanny gets rejected with disproportionate zeal, and it is never Jews with the power to determine whether we’re accepted as assimilated. We’ve tried being quiet, and it didn’t work. Moreover, I think we’re only beginning to recognize the cost.
Today, I practice Buddhism. (I used to describe myself as a Jubu, but that also means “housewife” in Korean, so I’ve switched to Buju.) About 30% of new Buddhists in America are of Jewish heritage. At my Zen Center here in New York, the Zen Master, Abbot, the head dharma teacher, and the current house master are all Jewish. I think it was David Mamet who pointed out the absurdity of secular, American Jews looking for religion or spirituality who never consider Judaism. There’s not a lot I could say to him. What little I’ve learned about Judaism (excepting the fundamentalists) is truly beautiful, but for me it can only be a way to understand Jewish culture. Soo, who I met at the Zen Center, and I have talked about raising a child with a Jewish/Korean/American identity. It’s a hard balance to include everything without forcing anything. She almost offered to convert so that Jews who don’t recognize patrilineal descent would accept our child as Jewish, but she feels it would be a lie to convert without expecting to adhere closely to the religion. But we will both work to instill our child with a sense of where s/he came from.
While writing this article, I read a book on Holocaust films. A major theme can be summed up in the chapter title, “Whose History Is It?” That chapter argues, “Spielberg’s film [Schindler’s List] fixes the Holocuast at its center while it concurrently returns to a model that places the Jew on the periphery of history whereby he or she functions only as a victim.” When the film came out, a lot of people made a big deal that it was by a Jewish director. There were stories throughout the media about Jews crying at the theater. But it’s a story in which completely one-dimensional Jews exist to showcase Christian compassion. That’s been common in Holocaust films, especially from the 50’s, but it also echoes centuries old philosemitism that takes a sympathetic or even romanticized view of Jews without agency. Perhaps antisemitic conspiracism is like how a woman, idealized in oppression, instantly becomes a castrating bitch when she achieves any measure of power.
When we talk about antisemitism, we tend not to discuss it as contemporary oppression. I think we fail to do that because it’s institutionalized and internalized in subtle ways. The demand to assimilate functions effortlessly, making Jews invisible except through antisemitism. At a friend’s birthday party recently, I met someone who grew up in New York’s Chinatown. I introduced myself when I heard her talking to Soo about the need for understanding one’s roots.
When I noted that I was discovering this, and had recently become interesting in my roots, she had some trouble understanding. In her eyes, I was simply white and my Jewishness was invisible. How can we have a conversation about Jewishness and antisemitism like that? So, I’ve written this with an eye to writing a more coherent story for my own life, where Jewishness is not a detail to be briefly mentioned and then forgotten. And I’ve written with the intention of helping us all to understand how Jewish voices can be blunted in the broader discourse.
So, I mean this article as a coming out story.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
VELMA SABINA!!! wrote:
When I was 19, in Pittsburgh for college, I came across a piece of graffiti that said, “End the Occupation: Nuke Israel.” That graffiti was the first time I’d ever had to really place Jewishness (or Israel) in my life. That night, friends told me about fliers they had taken from the windshields of cars, but they wouldn’t tell me what they said except that it was awful. I always knew there were still people who hated Jews, but they had a fairytale quality.
Um, just because somebody is anti-Israel, doesnt mean that they hate Jews. Geez.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 10:15 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Velma -
I wouldn’t discount Matt’s association of the two.
The Girl Detective just posted something similar on Feministe:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/07/09/this-is-what-anti-semitism-looks-like/
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 10:24 am ¶
Becky wrote:
Um, just because somebody is anti-Israel, doesnt mean that they hate Jews.
Not necessarily, but in this case I think it does. After all, when white Americans say: “We should just bomb Iraq into obliteration”, we all realise there is a racist component there, right? It’s okay to kill all those Iraqi civilians because they are just brown people anyway. When somebody is talking about nuking Israel, it’s the same thing… it’s okay to kill all those Israeli civilians, because they’re just Jews. That’s anti-semitism.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 10:42 am ¶
VELMA SABINA!!! wrote:
I saw that too and I commented there. Like I said, I hate the Israeli government, but I dont hate Israeli people.
It’s like hating on the US government, but not hating American people.
but I understand. some people are so angry and passionate about being anti-Israel, pro-Palestine that sometimes they might say hurtful things.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 10:57 am ¶
christine wrote:
I am too far removed from this to feel comfortable commenting on the content of the article. I just wanted to point out that mayonnaise is not a dairy product, and therefore it is kosher to eat it on a sandwich.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 11:13 am ¶
Ali wrote:
The Girl Detective makes some good points. Thanks for sharing this link.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 11:20 am ¶
Mary wrote:
<ijust because somebody is anti-Israel, doesnt mean that they hate Jews. Geez.
And just because somebody is anti-Israel, doesn’t mean they can’t respect the emotional impact “Nuke Israel” on a Jewish person. Matthew’s example wasn’t someone making a rational critique of the Jewish state, it was graffiti stating the world would be a better place if millions of Jews died a horrible death. It really does not matter what your political orientation is, of course that’s going to cause a visceral reaction in a Jewish person who sees it. (For that matter, I would hope it would cause a visceral reaction in non-Jews as well.) Point being, you don’t need to be some frothing at the mouth Zionist to be hit in the gut by that kind of graffiti.
If you’re horrified by John McCain’s “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” joke, or if you would be horrified by similar graffiti suggesting to nuke the Palestinians, I would hope the thought of bombing Israeli civilians would cause equal or similar horror.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 11:24 am ¶
Persia wrote:
Velma, I’d say that offering to nuke an entire nation of Jews has some anti-Semitism involved. It’s entirely possible to be Jewish and anti-Israel, or pro-Jew and anti-Israel, and even more likely to be supportive of a Jewish state while critical of some of the policies of that state (like me).
When you get out the nuclear weapons, though, all bets are off. Add in that many residents of Israel are not white by any common definition, and you’ve got a pretty damn offensive slogan.
Matthew, thanks for sharing your experience here. It reminds me in a way of my own Native American heritage– pretty much forgotten in our family’s story of assimilation. Have you ever read anything by David Cooper? He’s a Jewish author who’s studied deeply in Eastern traditions– might appeal to you in your quest for meaning.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 11:48 am ¶
Tasha wrote:
@ christine - isn’t mayo made from eggs in turn considered a dairy product? I’m not certain though.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:01 pm ¶
VELMA SABINA!!! wrote:
You all make very good points about the “nuke Israel” statement. Yeah, I can see how that’s very hurtful and hateful.
I do feel offended when a white person would say something like, “we should bomb the f–k out of Afghanistan” because that sounds racist (in my opinion).
I DO cringe, though, when people say stuff like “nuke Israel,” because that’s NOT what I believe in. So it definitely DOES make us pro-Palestinian supporters look bad.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:21 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
I looked up eggs, and didn’t find this to be very helpful. But it’s entitled “Eggs - why Pareve?” so apparently eggs are neutral, neither dairy or meat. I guess it goes to show how much my family knows about kosher.
Persia, no, I haven’t heard of Cooper. I’ll have to look into that. I have, though, read some Jay Michaelson, who teaches Kabbalah with a Buddhist slant and also started Zeek magazine. He’s an interesting guy.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:34 pm ¶
sarah wrote:
@christine and Tasha- Mayo isn’t dairy. Its parve (neither meat or dairy), but alot of culturally Jewish people think its gross on their sandwiches. they prefer mustard or Russian dressing. My mother always yelled at me for putting it on my sandwiches too. Even though its not technically not kosher.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:38 pm ¶
CVT wrote:
Welcome to the bi-cultural experience, Matt. Never enough like one, but definitely not fully part of the other. I’ve touched on the similarities between the “mixed” experience and that of Jews in America, but I think I’m going to write up a full-on essay on that one some time. Thanks for the post.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:57 pm ¶
shah8 wrote:
I thought that this post was interesting. Whatever happened to the writer’s stepfather? Did he care about anything one way or another?
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:08 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
Wow, thanks for the perspective you offer. Judaism is always something that has interested me. When I first moved to the Metro DC area we lived right next to a Jewish community center and a Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue. I always respected the Lubavitchers for their efforts to bring back Jews to the religion. I remember sitting on our front porch watching the faithful walk to prayer services, even helping our neighbors, Jewish, move things on the Sabbath when they were forbbiden.
As a rather vocal supporter of the Palestinians, I would be uncomfortable of anything that advocated the mass destruction of an entire people, especially Jewish people considering history. Advocating nuking anyone is an inappropriate comment.
As a Muslim I am reminded of the comments of some American lawmakers and well known media types who have made similiar comments. How could one condemn one set of similar comments and then support the other?
As I believe in a one state solution, secular and non discriminatory towards anyone, violence against one group of future citizens of such a state against others is counter productive and immoral.
Anyway, as the father of children from two very different backgrounds I am always interested in the stories of others. It helps give me ideas of how I can best help my children negotiate their own lives in the future.
Thanks!
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:12 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
BTW, Y-LOVE is awesome! He is an African American convert to Judaism and has strong ties with Muslims try to fight prejudice and extremism in both communities.
A link to his blog is below. I cannot recommend the guy enough:
http://www.thisisbabylon.net/
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:14 pm ¶
VELMA SABINA!!! wrote:
@ Abu Sinan:
I’ve always thought that Muslim immigrants and orthodox Jews share a lot in common with beliefs, cultural attitudes, and lifestyles. There are a lot of things that both groups could bond over.
I wish that many people would see that.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:32 pm ¶
shah8 wrote:
Velma Sabina…
I think muslim immigrants and orthodox jews, especially the latter, are rather intensly aware of their commonalities.
Some people just don’t like being alike…
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:38 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
Shah, I’ve got good relationships with both my father and my mother’s second husband. (I can’t bring myself to call him a stepfather, though, since I was an adult out of college when they married.) So long as it’s the few of us, there aren’t really any problems with mixed identities. (Though personal problems aplenty.) It’s in the context of a larger society that confusions about identity arise.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:45 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Velma,
I agree 100%. I have always felt that Jews and Muslims share a sort of commonality that they do not with others. Not only are they close, relatively, in the religious sense, look at the difference in the treatment historically of Jews in Europe compared to that in Muslim lands.
For me this is especially true of Sephardic Jews. Traveling in the Middle East and North Africa I always went out of my way to either see the local Sepharardic Jewish communities that still exist, or learn about those that no longer exist.
Arabic speaking Jewish communities fascinate me to no end.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 2:02 pm ¶
ripley wrote:
I too am wary of conflating jews & Israel. A commenter above said there would be a visceral emotional response from a Jew regarding threats to the Israeli state. I agree with many here that although blanket violent wishes can reveal anti-semitism, there are many reasons why many people, including Jews, have a problem with the Israeli state. The idea of a “homeland” as something people “deserve” I actually think is problematic in itself. as was eloquently stated about, there’s a problem with creating borders, especially borders based on ethnic or religious definitions. who gets to define “homeland”? or “people”?
Also, what about all the Chasidim who believe that Israel is blasphemous because we are not supposed to have a jewish state until AFTER the messiah comes? These Chasidim have anti-israel parades. I don’t think they are self-hating, I think they have a critique (based in religious doctrine) of the existence of the Jewish state, and recognize that Israel as a political entity is not the same as “the jewish people” (which they define pretty narrowly)
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 2:43 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@ Ripley,
Spot on! I agree with the problematic nature of “homelands”. There are just too many questions as to race, ethnicity and in this case religion.
In general I am against anything set up to promote one group of people, based on what ever measure, over another. It doesnt matter it if it is Saudi Arabia or Israel.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 2:57 pm ¶
Keren wrote:
@ Abu Sinan and Shah8
That’s not actually unheard of. Near where I live in London is an area called Stamford Hill where there is a large Chasidic Jewish community and also many Muslims, and as far as I know, they get on really well. In fact, there are many agreements between families to look after eachother’s children and elderly parents because they can be sure that there will be no pork/non-kosher/non-halal meat in the house, both men and women will be dressed ‘modestly’ and that the household generally is an appropriate environment for their respective children.
@ Matthew
Great article, I’ve had many similar experiences to you, complicated by the fact that I’m an Indian Jew, and have sometimes felt alienated by the (mainly Ashkenazi) Jewish community in London. Also, thanks for pointing out that Holocaust films and books are oftenromanticized stories about non-Jews who saves Jewish people. It’s something I always had an uncomfortable feeling about but couldn’t quite identify why.
@ Abu Sinan (again, sorry!)
Just to add to what you said about the difference between the historic treatment of Jews in Europe compared to the Middle East- My mother, who grew up in India as part of the 2000 year old Jewish community there always told me that there was never, ever any anti-Semitism there. Indian Jews didn’t eat beef out of respect for their Hindu neighbours, and most of the community still refuses to do so, even though they’ve nearly all left India.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 3:00 pm ¶
Ephraim wrote:
@Abu and Ripley
I agree with you about the problematic nature of ‘homeland’ especially as it’s used towards politically nationalist ends. But, what then of all the many indigenous liberation movements whose ideological backbone is the same, equally problematic, historic-homeland-as-land-claim concept?
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 5:42 pm ¶
kakodaimon wrote:
Interesting post! One question, though - what makes anti-Semites who attack assimilation and non-Jewish targets “worse” or even more anti-Semitic than ones who attack visibly or religiously Jewish targets? It just seems like two flavours of bad to me.
I don’t disagree with the commentators that Israel and Jewishness can be separated. But let’s not overstate the case to the point where we deny the emotional, cultural, and religious connection/interflow between diaspora and Israeli Jewishness. They really are tied together for many people. And not just for Jews - I’ve had many people see fit to launch a discussion of their views on the Middle East on learning I was Jewish. Fun times!
Sometimes it feels like some people perceive this connection to be strong enough for diaspora Jews to be complicit in Israel’s (real and/or perceived) crimes, but weak enough that they should get over identifying with it already. Not saying that anyone here is necessarily doing that, but it’s a good thing to be aware of.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 8:02 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Keren,
I lived in Newmarket, up in Suffolk for a few years at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Stamford Hill? Anywhere near Stamford Bridge? I have been to a few Footie games there in the past, although I am a proud Celtic supporter and tend to only follow Scottish footie.
Anyway, the Jewish diaspora, especially outside Europe, I am really interested. I read a bit about the Indian Jewish community and how they have been granted immigration rights to Israel.
In visiting Arabic speaking Jewish communities in MENA (Middle East North Africa) I have found a lot in common with their Arab Muslim/Christian neighbors. I find it really interesting.
Sometimes, especially in Orthodox communities, it can be hard to tell when you are talking to someone who is Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Many of the Jewish women cover their hair in a “hijab” fashion, and like Arab Christians, they use words like “Insha’Allah” (If God wills it) or “Masha’Allah” (What God Wishes) and “Alhamdulillah” (All praise is due to God).
The issue of racism is a HUGE one in Israel. Jews from MENA and Africa have a VERY hard time in Israel due to the discrimination of European Jews.
Sephardic Jewish culture is a very rich one, I’d argue more so than Europeans Jewish culture, but that is subjective.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 9:35 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Ephraim,
Good question and I am pretty conflicted on this issue to be honest. I have been a long time supporter of the Irish Republican movement and Catholic civil rights in the north of Ireland.
However, as I have gotten older I have gotten to a point where I have serious problems with any type of nationalism, no matter what it is based on.
This is very problematic because I realise the value of many such liberation movements, but have a hard time reconciling that with the realities I have seen first hand in places like Bosnia.
One cannot embrace the positive side of national liberation movements without seeing the dark side of it as well.
I guess the trick is to distinguish what is really a movement of liberation, ie Catholics in Ireland, vs one of cloaked ethnic superiority, ie Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosova.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 9:41 pm ¶
Anya wrote:
@ Ripley et. al.
Yes, those of us who hope for a “no-state solution” share strange bedfellows: anti-zionist Satmar Hasidim (**please refrain from eliding all Hasidim into a single philosophy**) who oppose involvement in nat’l politics as defiance of G!d’s authority (see Pearl Gluck’s most recent documentary); Yiddish anarchists who believed one shouldn’t “ape the goyim” by adopting militarist ideals alien to Jewish culture at that time (such as Emma Goldman — who, to digress for a moment, also claimed that Hasidim were the true anarchists because of their commitment to mutual aid. See how old that pattern is, defining authentic Judaism = Hasidism!); today’s diaspora nationalists, who seek to redefine culture to exclude territorial nationalism; etc etc. There are multiple Jewish critiques of state-power, and they come from multiple pockets of the Jewish world.
Also, a note: my Jewish friends who do Palestinian solidarity work often note the vast difference between US and European non-Jews involved with ISM, and Palestinians whose lives are directly affected by Israel’s policies. One friend put it very succinctly: If you’re a white non-Jewish American doing ISM-type activism, be aware that you inherit the twin legacies of Orientalism towards Arabs and American anti-semitism.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 10:02 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
Anya,
Good points to make, especially the one about white non Jewish Americans facing the legacies of anti-Semitism and Orientalism.
Some of the most fervent supporters of the Palestinians I have ever known have been Jewish. I will never forget one little old Jewish lady who joined up with us at the Israeli Embassy here a few years ago.
I dont think ANYONE was as loud, as vocal, or as passionate about the issues as she was.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 7:25 am ¶
Matt wrote:
@kakodaimon: Those antisemites I described as worse will go out of there way to look for Jews everywhere. That’s how they wind up finding them where there are none. It’s a good point that this might not be “worse,” but I think it makes up a bigger part of their psychology.
@ripley, regarding anti-Zionist Hasidim: Whatever else I might say about them, I think there’s a real problem introduced when someone who doesn’t believe in Judaism adopts or appropriates that view. It’s based on attaching theological meaning to Jewish suffering, romanticizing the oppression of Jews.
@Anya, there’s so much to love about Emma Goldman. But, while she was critical of Zionism, she was increasingly sympathetic to it as antisemitism worsened in the 20s and 30s, and she was very critical of a lot of other anti-Zionists.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 9:22 am ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Matt,
I agree with you about adopting what is a particular view of one sect within Judaism to oppose Israel. Leave Jewish views and Jewish reasoning for people who are Jewish is how I think about it.
For me the overwhelming reason to oppose Israel is the same reason I oppose Saudi Arabia. The idea that a state can or should be set up for the sole purpose of furthering one group of people over another is immoral.
Such a system cannot help but discriminate against those who are not part of the group for which the state was set up to adavance.
However, I find that many people who oppose Israel for this reason are strangely silent when it comes to other nations set up to further either a racial/ethnic or religious group over others.
I wonder if you have noticed a similarity in the thinking of some current Islamophobes and classical European anti-Semitism?
Many of the ideas are very similar, ie Jews/Muslims are out to rule the world, they control the world via their money, if they cannot steal your money they will at least debauch your boys and girls.
Some of the cartoons out there today targeting Muslims and Arabs tend to look A LOT like stuff printed in Der Sturmer and other pre-WW2 Germany media outlets.
If one looks at the debate around Obama, is he or is he not a Muslim, it looks a lot like the old tactic of taring an enemy as a Jew to discredit them.
This tactic used against Obama has found fertile ground in many lower clase, less educated white areas. Many of the people who fall in this demographic are convinced that Obama is a Muslim, even if secretly, and will refuse to vote for him because of it. Exit polls and interviews in places like North Carolina and West Virginia bore this out.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 10:49 am ¶
Joseph wrote:
::Neatly sidestepping “Israel” and the notion of “homeland”::
@Mathhew
This is a great post. I’m really glad you’ve written about assimilation, which we haven’t talked too much about around here. But it is important because it ties together a lot of important stuff like race, class and culture. For immigrant populations in America assimilation mostly means passing into whiteness but that doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone and the Jewish example is really interesting. (Do you know Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s book “Destination Culture”? She makes a really interesting argument about the way American Jewry assimilated partly by using cultural festivals to link Jewishness to the idea of America. You might like it.)
I’m a second-generation American myself and my family came to America (from Lebanon) pretty much when yours did. I’m not Jewish but I identify with a lot of your searching. I used to be angry with my family for cutting off so much of their origin culture but I understand now that they were just trying to survive here. My Aunt tells a story about being a little girl in the family store when my Grandparents spoke to one another in Arabic and a customer of yelled at them “SPEAK ENGLISH!” Subsequently they forbid my father, aunts and uncle from speaking Arabic and they all lost the language one at a time. They pushed them hard to fit in to mainstream American culture…and it worked. In the space of a generation my family rose from poverty to mostly middle class.
But they left a lot behind in order to do it.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 11:40 am ¶
Matt wrote:
I’ve thought about some similarities. (If you read Said’s Orientalism, he notes that Jews served as representative Orientals in Europe.) People do, for instance, sometimes talk about Muslims in conspiratorial ways. But I think there’s also something different. Jews are the internal Other while Muslims are still an external Other. So you do have conservatives accusing liberals of making the West vulnerable to terrorism (or excessive immigration or whatever), but you don’t get people saying those liberals are Muslim. Perhaps we should watch the “Obama is secretly Muslim” stuff to see if and how it grows, but it doesn’t compare (yet?) to the way antisemites will claim that Rupert Murdoch is Jewish. So there’s a shared history, and I think anti-Islamophobia advocates should look at the history of antisemitism carefully for guidance. But at the same time, antisemitism has a lot in common with homophobia (internal other, you can never really tell who is Jewish or gay), that doesn’t seem to me to be part of the oppression of Muslims.
But is this one of the first things you say anytime someone brings up Saudi Arabia? Or France, Germany, Italy, Finland?
Myself, I’m not particularly fond of borders and states, but I do think we have to recognize that this is how the world is ordered right now, with political power is tied to political states. It’s a bit like BET (though clearly BET is nothing on the level of creating an entire state). I’d never countenance an all-white TV channel, but recognizing that most channels are almost entirely white, it makes sense. And when someone says BET is racist against whites, I start wondering about them.
Are you familiar with the Anti-Germans? This is one site, and not necessarily representative of the entire movement, but it’s one of the few Anti-German sites in English. They’re anarchists and socialists, but they think that the falling away of national borders should happen in a particular way. Especially, they think Israel should be the last state to fall away (and sometimes carry Israeli flags to anarchist rallies). It probably makes sense at least to let anarchism begin in Europe (and China?) and spread from there.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 11:58 am ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Matt,
I agree with you to a certain extent, although the practice of using the Islamic term “Dhimmi” for liberals and Democrats has become common place. It hasnt risen to the ranks of anti-Semitism because the presence of Muslims and Islam in the West, especially the USA, is so new. We much watch the progression to make sure it isnt allowed to grow in such a manner.
Personally, I think Jews and Muslims SHOULD be natural allies in this matter and others. The issue of Israel has forced them to part company, and in the case of the Jewish community, forced them into what should be an unnatural allie, that of evangelical Christians whose teachings and ideas border on end of days genocidal anti-Semitism.
When someone brings up Saudi you can BET it is one of the first things I say about it, being married a Saudi as I am, as well as a nice rant against monarchies of any sort. As to Germany, France, Italy or Finland, I would indeed bring up the same argument if they were currently set up to advance one set of their citizens over another, but that isnt the case. There is nothing in the laws of any of those countries that advances one segment of their citizenship over another. If there were you can bet I’d be against it.
I was not familiar with the “Anti Germans”, but being Germany myself, having lived there for years and still travel there often, I can tell you Germany is full of various anarchist and socialist groups. Most of them, incidently, are very pro Palestinian. You wont find many bastions of pro Israel support in Europe as a whole. Curiously, some of their main supporters are actually Protestants from the North of Ireland. You can often see Israeli flags flying next to their “Ulster flags”. This is kind of problematic in that many of them are also linked to the extreme right.
Joseph,
Being a rather new comer to the Arab community here in the USA I can tell you the story you tell is all too familiar. To a certain extent it is the story that all immigrants to this country tell. My grandfather was not allowed to speak German and my mother was purposely NOT taught Czech for the reason you outline.
I remember wearing a shirt once that said “Phalasteen” in Arabic. A young man I work with asked me what it said. I really felt sad for the guy. His parents came from Bethleham, but he couldnt speak a word of Arabic. Then there is the young lady at a local shop whose face turned red when she admitted to me that my Arabic was better than hers.
Language is an important part of culture and it is devistating when people loose it. It is for this reason that my wife and I go out of our way to use Arabic only at home. They’ll get anough English in school and outside the home. We have Arabic cartoons “Sinan ya Sinan” and Arabic TV. Being that our kids are going to be bi-ethnic I know they will be held to a higher standard that children with two Arabic parents. I have seen it first hand, even from people who cannot speak more than a few sentences of Arabic, but still have no problem talking about others.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 12:34 pm ¶
alex wrote:
@ Abu Sinan
I’m sorry, but I just can’t let go of your statement (26):
Sephardic Jewish culture is a very rich one, I’d argue more so than Europeans Jewish culture, but that is subjective.
Can you please explain what you mean?
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 12:39 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Alex,
I guess that is me and coming from a European background. I was born in Germany and lived in Europe a good chunk of my life so I tend to look for things outside of my sphere of personal knowledge and experience.
That is why I’d be more interested in Sephardic history and culture, but that is a personal preference.
Much of European Jewish history is just that, in and of various European communities, whereas Arabic/Sephardic Jews do not share that.
I guess it ties into my interest in all things from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Morrocan Jewish community is still pretty big and interesting, for example.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 12:53 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
As to Germany, France, Italy or Finland, I would indeed bring up the same argument if they were currently set up to advance one set of their citizens over another, but that isnt the case.
Sure they are. they’re set up for Germans, French, Italian, and Finns.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 12:56 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
@Matt,
You are joking right? If citizenship of any of these countries were set up based on nothing more than genetics, religion or the like I would agree. However, citizenship in all of those countries is not structure around religion, nor does one have to be a certain race to gain citizenship.
As we know, citizenship in Israel and the right to it is considered in religious terms. As a matter of fact, there is a movement at the momement in the Knesset to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship if anyone in their extended family commits an act of terrorism.
So think about it, a Jewish person in LA who has never been to Israel will have an absolute right to Israeli citizenship, but a four year old nephew of a Christian Palestinian could have their Israeli citizenship yanked because an uncle they never met killed an Israeli solider.
Any government that sets out different rules or entitlements for their citizens based on race, religion or ethnicity is immoral and should be opposed.
So when Saudi Arabia sets out the law that all Saudi citizens MUST be Muslim I would oppose that in the same way I oppose the way in which the Israel government and society is set up for the advancement of Jews over other citizens.
Since Germany and the other countries you mention do not set out laws, or have for their raison d entre, the promotion of one set of citizens over others they do not fall into this category.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 1:42 pm ¶
alex wrote:
@ Abu Sinan,
It’s great that you’re interested in MENA history and culture. I agree that Sephardic communities have really interesting pasts and present. This is not to discount your interest in Sephardic Judaism However, to call the Ashkenazic experience less rich because it is closer to your own is an odd choice. Are you sure you know what you think you know? I’m curious about your claim that European Jewish history is “just” European. Have you ever studied or been a part of an Ashkenazic community? Do you have any particular experience European *Jewish* communities? Are you sure they already are inside your “sphere of knowledge and experience”?
The reason I’m asking these pointed questions is because I personally believe that the European Jewish experience is, in fact, very different from that of a gentile. While assimilation may have made these differences less obvious, they still exist. The fact that many people who are not Jewish do not recognize these differences - or recognize them in only stereotypical, often anti-Semitic ways - does not mean they don’t exist. In fact, I think that’s the main point of Matt’s essay.
Please don’t think I’m accusing you of anti-Semitism. I’m not. But I do wonder about how much you really know about the Jewish experience, both inside and outside of Europe. Most of your comments have focused on Israel, which Matt highlights for 2 sentences out of 24 paragraphs in his post. I wonder why you chose to focus on that one issue, rather than really listening to his arguments of how Jews are simultaneously insiders and outsiders in mainstream American culture, how we are both white *and* other, both privileged and oppressed. And if you don’t know, why would you not be interested in learning?
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 2:20 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
No, I’m not joking at all. Citizenship for those countries is very neat and tidy because they don’t have the same history as Israel/Palestine.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 3:14 pm ¶
chaia wrote:
Matt, thank you so much for a thoughtful and thought-provoking post. So much American Jewish experience seems to be about omissions, elisions, and invisibilities. I relate really hard to the lack of info about your forbears.
An essay I just read in Chutzpah: A Jewish Liberation Anthology* talks about how part of the condition for Ashkenazis to “make it” in American involved/involves the attempt to make Jewishness about religion and religion only. This may seem pretty obvious, but it felt pretty mindblowing and affirming for all those times I have tried to write off ignorant comments about Jewish literature/art/music/food and especially about my looks, my body, my sexuality.
Thanks for coming out. I look forward to reading more from you!
*very Ashkenazi-focused and also very specific late ’70s lefty Chicago-focused. parts of it are sooooo dated, but other parts are really fresh.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 4:32 pm ¶
kakodaimon wrote:
alex: right on, that was an awkward and off-colour remark…
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 5:01 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
Alex,
I am a person, and just like any other person, some things interest me more than others. It only stands to reason that since you are a different person, different things might interest you.
I didnt bring up the Israeli issue, others did, but as it is something that interests me and an issue I have been involved with for over a decade, that is what I chose to talk about.
Like I said, your interests might not lie as much in that subject, but those are YOUR interests. Mine happen to be a bit different.
It is pretty amazing for you to try and sit and judge me and my intentions when you really do not know that much about me. I happen to be part Jewish on my father’s side.
If you knew my last name it is one you’d recognise it as a well known Jewish name with a rather suprising link to the whole Palestinian/Israeli issue. Think Munich. Anyway.
I cannot claim to have been raised Jewish or even partially grounded in the culture or religion. That is not the case. My father’s link to the Jewish side of his family converted to Christianity and that effectively ended any contact he had with the wider family, which is now in parts of South America, Europe and Israel.
Like many people I didnt even find out about this until I became an adult and took some time to look into our geneology. People had always wondered if I came from a Jewish family because of our last name, but it also happens to be a not so common German name as it so it could have gone either way.
So I cannot claim that my interest in Jewish society and history is much more than an outsider looking in. Being Jewish is much more than genetics and who your mother or father was, and in that manner I am sorely lacking.
As an adult I strove to spend time in Jewish communities in Europe to try and recapture that “missing link” in our family history. As a convert from Christianity to Islam it was always more of an academic/personal idea more than anything else.
I had no interesting in begining to practice Judaism, although I have a great interest in the religion and have been a part of interfaith dialogue and activities both online and in real life.
I certainly feel that the Jewish community in Europe owes a lot of it’s traditions and customs to both the religion and things they borrowed from the people’s around them. It just isnt names and language they borrowed, it goes much deeper than that.
Once again, my interests now are much more in the Jewish communities in the Middle East, North Africa and East Africa. This ties in rather well with my interest in Middle Eastern history, the fact that I speak Arabic and the travels I have been able to make to various Jewish communities in these areas.
Maybe I phrased the original comment a bit differently than I could have. I never claimed European Jewish history was just European, to do so would be to ignore Jewish history and the circumstances that brought them to Europe and the impact of the communities of which they were apart on their road to Europe.
My sole point was that having been in and around the European Jewish community for years, the last decade of my travels and involvement in the Sephardic community interests me more.
I never said that the Jewish experience in Europe mirror the gentile experience. I suggest you read FAR too much into my comment than was there or was intended. That, unfortunately, is on you.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 9:46 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Abu Sinan: I can see where you’re coming from, but parsing your own words, it DOES come across as if you were comparing European/Ashkenazi communities to Sephardim and finding the European communities lacking.
>Sephardic Jewish culture is a very rich one, I’d argue more so than Europeans Jewish culture, but that is subjective.
If anyone was to insert a specific ethnic or regional group in place of Ashkenazi and Sephardim cultures, say, Pacific Asian vs. West African, and they tacked a “but that is subjective” to the end, around here they would still get called on that remark as judging 2 things that cannot be compared equally and fairly. Since they can’t be judged like that, the reader assumes that the judgement must be based on bias, not any measureable quality.
From the further responses, I’d say that wasn’t your intent.. but as a throwaway end comment with no context it comes across as belittling one group and elevating another. Didn’t we just HAVE a comment (on another thread) that did that?
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 10:40 pm ¶
alex wrote:
Abu Sinan,
Thanks for sharing a little about yourself. I apologize if I read too much into your comment. I do think that it’s very different to say what your personal interests are than to say that one culture is more “rich” than another.
- Alex
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 10:48 pm ¶
queerhapa wrote:
Not to nitpick, but the distinction some are making between “European Jews” and “Sephardic Jews” doesn’t really make sense, since Sephardic Jews can also be European, namely from Spain and Portugal. What I believe people mean by “European Jews” is Ashkenazim. Non-European Sephardic Jews from MENA are sometimes referred to as Mizrahim.
And Matt, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on any perceived connections between Jewish and East Asian cultures, since you have ties to both.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 at 11:34 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
East Asians and Jews? Let me start by pointing out that my understanding of Japanese culture is almost entirely through mass media, and I have little knowledge of Chinese culture.
Both are faced with many stereotypes that are mostly positive(-seeming). A more general analysis would depend on when and where. In the US today, male Jews are still somewhat feminized, like Asian males. More specifically, “Jews are quirky, crass, rich, and grotesque, but do they ever make good husbands,” as Phoebe Maltz wrote of SaTC’s attitude. On the other hand, the exoticism of the Jewess, which could be compared to Asian fetishism, doesn’t seem active in the US at this time. It is interesting to me how stereotypes about both groups have changed over time, but it probably says more about Europeans (who created these stereotypes) than about Jews or Asians.
I do think that there’s a more specific similarity between Jews and Koreans. No statistics, but there seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish/Korean relationships. (Almost all Jewish males, Korean females, unsurprisingly and unfortunately.) I think it has something to do with similar histories. Korea has spent so much time under Japanese or Chinese occupation. The culture may have internalized something similar to what I described about myself (and Jewish cultures more broadly). That’s broadly colonial/post-colonialism.
Posted 11 Jul 2008 at 10:10 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:
Matt, re: Jewish/East Asian: It seems that in my experience, lots of East Asian women (especially Chinese) who are married to white men are married to Jewish men.
On the stereotype end - I’ve found that in Toronto, at least, the stereotype of the Jewish Canadian(American) Princess and that of certain Hong Kong women are very similar.
Posted 11 Jul 2008 at 11:37 am ¶
The Girl Detective wrote:
Matthew, thanks for this. So much of it resonates so strongly with my own experience. I was surprised to learn that gentiles brought up the issue of matrilineal descent to you, too. The exact same thing happened to me - except in my case, since it’s my father who’s Jewish, gentile friends would tell me I wasn’t “a real Jew.” It’s a message that, to an extent, I still find myself internalizing.
Posted 11 Jul 2008 at 2:56 pm ¶
Britta wrote:
Nice post Matt.
It does sadden me a little that the first comment was about Israel. Jewish identity is about so much more than Israel, and I think this post is a better place to explore issues of identity and assimilation than to launch in to the well worn Israel/Palestine debate.
The assimilation of Jews into white American culture (like the assimilation of other historically nonwhite groups in Europe) really indicates the cost of whiteness. Yes, American Jews can be white, but to do so they must eliminate much of what is distinctive about Judaism, including excising Sephardic and Mizrahi culture. Years ago I read an essay by a Mizrahi Jewish woman who felt alienated by American Jewish culture, because to her, American Judaism meant Ashkenazi Judaism. To deny non European Judaism is necessary for whiteness in America, but it leads to a diminished concept of Judaism. The same is true of many other groups, for example, Southern Europeans, who must suppress the Mediterranean aspects of their culture and emphasize the European ones in order to gain acceptance as whites in the US.
Of course, living in America involves assimilation by all non-Anglo groups of people (e.g. my grandparents were forced to give up speaking Norwegian because during WWI it was seen as too “Germanic” and therefore an enemy language), but the further you are from upperclass English society, the greater the cost of assimilation. Although my grandparents were self conscious about speaking their native language, and my other Grandmother changed her name during WWII, they did not have to abandon the fundamentals of their culture or their religion in order to be accepted as “respectable” white people, nor did they have to minimize their “ethnic looks.” In comparison, to Jews, the Irish, Southern Europeans, etc, the price they had to pay was small.
I think the first step to unpacking whiteness is the recognition that, while it bestows great privilege, that privilege is not free. What I like so much about your post, Matt, is that you really explore what that cost is for you. The cost of whiteness for white people isn’t materially obvious (the way it can be for POCs). It’s a more subtle, psychological cost, but one that can be devastating.
Posted 11 Jul 2008 at 11:01 pm ¶
Britta wrote:
P.S.
I lived in China for a year with my Jewish boyfriend. I was frequently complimented for landing such a smart man, and was often told that Jews were the smartest most successful people on the planet. In the book stores in the city where I lived, there was a whole section of books entitled things like “the wisdom of the Jews” or “how to make money like a Jew,” explaining how to adopt aspects of Jewish culture in order to be more successful in life. Although obviously problematic in many ways, my boyfriend was quite amused at the sometimes over the top philo-semitic attitudes we encountered and books that existed.
Posted 11 Jul 2008 at 11:08 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Britta
“I think the first step to unpacking whiteness is the recognition that, while it bestows great privilege, that privilege is not free. What I like so much about your post, Matt, is that you really explore what that cost is for you. The cost of whiteness for white people isn’t materially obvious (the way it can be for POCs). It’s a more subtle, psychological cost, but one that can be devastating.”
Cosign.
By focusing on assimilation we can see that not only is white privilege not free, it is conditional. You can be asked out of the club of “whiteness”–sometimes forcibly. This is one of the many things that American Jews and Arab Americans have in common. Although we certainly aren’t the only ones in that boat.
Posted 12 Jul 2008 at 12:30 pm ¶
miriam wrote:
shalom!
Very interesting post. So honest and open. Its appreciated.
Posted 12 Jul 2008 at 7:31 pm ¶
Mary wrote:
@Britta: I had a similar exprience in Japan. One auntie I knew urged me to marry Jewish because “they are so smart, and rich!” Like, you will be set for life. I heard this from other Japanese as well, quite matter-of-factly, as if Jews being smart/rich/clever was as uncontroversial as the sky being blue. Not trying to overgeneralize about Japan, but came across to me like an attitude that was acceptable to express in polite company.
OTOH one of my Jewish friends there hated that the word his host family always used was “clever.”
Posted 14 Jul 2008 at 8:21 am ¶
Janine deManda wrote:
joseph said, “By focusing on assimilation we can see that not only is white privilege not free, it is conditional. You can be asked out of the club of “whiteness”–sometimes forcibly. This is one of the many things that American Jews and Arab Americans have in common. Although we certainly aren’t the only ones in that boat.”
and i just want to say thankyouthankyouthankyou for saying that out loud. everytime i do so, most folks look/respond to me as if i have just announced pixies live in my sugar bowl. though i know other folks who see that conditionality clearly, it is always affirming to hear from another.
Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 7:10 pm ¶
Dan wrote:
Matthew, any chance you frequent the Chan Meditation Center on Corona Ave?
I visited once with my wife but being from NJ, it gets costly to go there every weekend.
My wife and I (I was raised Catholic, she Muslim) want to get involved in Buddhism, but unfortunately, there’s no Buddhism temples or Chan Centers anywhere near our home.
Posted 30 Jul 2008 at 10:42 am ¶
Matt wrote:
Dan, on the off chance you’ll read this late response: No. I’m in Manhattan. The two places I go are both in Manhattan, one in the East Village and one in the Upper West Side.
However, the New York Buddhist Council recently discussed New Jersey on the email list. I know there are groups in Teaneck, Princeton, Denville, Shamong, and Roosevelt, NJ. If you look hard enough, you’re likely to find a sitting group closer to you. Probably with regular visits from a teacher based elsewhere.
Posted 11 Aug 2008 at 3:18 pm ¶