I have several Jewish friends, but the question could be perceived as rude, and I wanted to get a better sample anyway.
When I was growing up, I thought of Jewish people as being white people who just happened to have a different religion. Later on, the concept that Jews belonged to a particular ethnicity was introduced. Still later, I understood that there were Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc.
So I was curious about Jewish Dopers’ self-perceptions in this regard. FWIW, I grew up a Catholic white guy who never had any real ethnicity and have always envied others’ ability to belong to something (later I learned Japanese and gained a bit of faux ethnicity that way, lol.)
As a non-Jewish white person, I’ve always considered Jews to be fellow whites. They are a unique ethnic group, yes, but that just means they’re a special subgroup of whites, just like Italians or Germans or Russians are.
I am an Ashkenazi Jew, so yes, white. Sephardi Jews are much darker-skinned, so they may not consider themselves white. And the current Israeli beauty queen is black.
Sure, white, since my family ethnicity is Polish-Russian. We’re about as white as they get. Of course some jews are latino, African, Asian, etc. So I don’t think that in general “Jews are white”. Jews can be anything. Insofar as I have a Jewish ethnicity, it’s so tied up in geography (NYC), sect (reform/lapsed), my generation and other factors. I don’t think Chasidic Jews in Iowa or Jewish-israeli teenagers entering the army have much culturally in common with me.
I converted to marry a Jewish woman.
Upon being divorced, I was surprised that in apparently assuring me that they sided with me rather than my former wife, a number of my friends would say things like, “The thing that’s wrong with Jews is ____.” Insert “Like money”, “are sneaky”, “eat Christian babies”, etc.
I seem to be posting an awful lot about being Jewish these days…
I’m of Austrian, Russian and French descent. So yup, I’m Caucasian. Jewish doesn’t come into it. That just happens to be my religion.
If you got into a time machine and went to ‘the old neighborhood’ in 1954, when my mother was born…there were certainly people who didn’t believe that my grandparents were white (or white enough).
But do see the seminal academic text for this sort of inquiry- ‘How the Irish Became White’ (editing to add, it’s controversial, but worth a look to see where thoughts lie).
Many, in the US in particular, are so used to matters of self-identity being tied to “race” that the concept of ethnic groups that cut across racial lines is unfamiliar to them or causes cognitive dissonance.
Judaism is one such group - most Jews you will encounter in the US or Canada are going to be Ashkenazic and so, racially, “White” by the social construction of race in our society. But it is not the case that Jews are of necessity White - they can be on any race, really. There are many Black Jews in Israel.
Born Jewish, and consider myself caucasian (white), from Polish/Russian/eastern European stock. Great grandparents on both sides emmigrated to US around 1900. I think of race as something more biological or genetic, and ethnicity as something more cultural and human-created and controlled.
That’s disturbing. A bit off topic but, do you still consider yourself to be Jewish? I know that technically you still are because you formally converted.
I’m your standard American Ashkenazi and I suppose that I’m white. I checked the Caucasian box on the census form. That said, I also consider myself to be a minority, although certainly not a disadvantaged minority. One thing that struck me when I was on vacation in Israel was that for once I wasn’t different culturally than most of the people around me.
I guess I sort of consider myself while in the sense that I look like a white guy and have ancestry from all over Europe. But if you were to ask me my ethnicity (doesn’t come up often, but it did actually come up within the last couple of weeks) I would tell you that I am Jewish, not white. It’s hard for me to explain, but it’s different for me.
This is also a totally different answer than I would have given when I was younger.
