Blue eyes, black hair … white as anyone else. (Jewish, but genetically only 1/4 Ashkenazi).
Culturally speaking, the vast majority of Jews in the US, outside of Orthodox communities, lead very “white” lives. Generally urban or suburban, middle to upper-middle class, and more-or-less culturally assimilated though still retaining a strong sense of self-identity (IMHO, not much different than Italian-Americans in the Northeast).
While many Jews “look Jewish”, if you go to a typical synagogue, you might be surprised by the sight of blue-eyed, blonde, and redhead Jews. In larger cities, you’ll see more black Jews; both Ethiopian and African-American.
Of course it’s geography- Ashkenazi were ghettoed abd shtetled and that how they got so inbred. Louisiana Cajuns also carry it, are they in the same “race”? And the Ashkenazi are not the be all end all of Jewishness, in America or anywhere.
Which is ITD why Malthus’s “tribe” description is less poor than either “race” or “shared religion.”
Tribal identity can be granted by a variety of means, birthright (matrilineal, patrilineal, either, must be both) or acceptance according to the rules of the tribe (conversion, initiation rites, so on). Reigion is one common aspect but not the only aspect of tribal idenity. To some it is the most important aspect of this particular tribal identity but not to others. In truth what constitutes being a member of this particular tribe (so to speak) will vary according to who you ask.
What is the consensus as to whether or not Jews are part of majority culture in America?
Uh Oh. Going into Friday PM. Yes we know that the Orthodox and more observnt Conservative posters will soon not participate for 24 hours. Is okay.
I’d say that they are (aside from the ultra-Orthodox, who are a self-contained community everywhere). They no longer really face any of the typical disadvantages of minority status.
Plenty of other groups in North America have gone from (in some cases disliked) minority to part of majority culture (with a bit of an ‘alternative flavour’ as it were) - for example, the Irish and the Italians.
Nowadays, “no dogs or Irish allowed” signs would generally be considered intentionally funny novelty items, rather than serious statements of bigotry. A century or so ago, they would have been serious.
Well, considering I wasn’t arguing Jews were a race, simply pointing out that it’s not as simple as shared religion, but falls somewhere in between, I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with.
Where did I say Ashkenazi Jews were the be-all of anything? It was an example.
Please recall- this was the specific post I was responding to when I said it wasn’t as simple as simply shared religion.
I guess you will have to articulate a position then. What does “it’s not as simple as shared religion, but falls somewhere in between” even mean? Inbetween what and what? Inbetween a religion and a race?
No, gotta disagree with that (assuming, of course, that is what you mean). I agree Judaism isn’t simply a “religion” because it is no inherent contradiction in being a “jewish atheist”.
The fact that a subset of the Jewish population was isolated from intermarrying with the surrounding community says nothing significant or essential about what Judaism “is”, it merely indicates that, for whatever reason, the two groups were not interbreeding.
Fair enough. My position is that certain subcultures of Jewish individuals do represent separate ethnic groups. I would not argue that they fit the definition of a race. However, because of geographical history and a historic tendency to not intermarry, the genetic relatedness is more pronounced within certain subsets of Jewish groups than the other ethnic groups that they lived among.
For example, an Ashkenazic Jew living in Poland has a higher risk of carrying the BRAC1 mutation than the ethnic Polish person on their same block. In addition, someone who converted to Catholicism but was ethnically Ashkenazic Jewish by heritage still needs to worry about increased risks of Tay-Sachs. Conversely, someone converting to Judaism will not all of a sudden have those increased risks.
So, by saying it’s “in between”, I’m articulating the idea that Jewish ancestry does impart additional information beyond the cultural trappings.
I am considered racially normative in a white-normative society; I have white privilege*. In that sense I’m white. I regard myself as white. I have a skewed sense of how other people see me from living in New York: if I’m the only Jew in the area, I’m probably also the only white person in the area. I do think that 100 years ago I would have been considered less white, if not non-white.
*I consider those to be equivalent but I think the word “privilege” is needlessly confusing and tends to spark tedious strawman arguments.
Discredited it has certainly been and many times over. Unfortunately the ‘blood libel’ is still going strong in many parts of the Arab and Muslim worlds. We miss a lot of this stuff emanating from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iran, Egypt, etc because the Western media rarely translate it but there are helpful sites such as PalestineMediaWatch which show just how common this appalling stuff is, even to the extent of being taught in the schools.
It’s interesting because I mostly agree with you. 90% of the time I feel like I have as much white privilege as the next guy, but its that other 10% that makes me think of myself as Jewish first white second.
In high school (Los Angeles, not exactly a small town) I was physically assaulted because I was Jewish, so was my younger sister on a separate occasion (different school). Mine was a full on fist fight, she just had rocks thrown at her while being called names. I graduated in 2000 so it’s not like this was a long long time ago.
My family was asked to leave our daughter’s first day care a few days after they found out we were Jewish. We can’t directly connect their finding out that we are Jewish with our dismissal but after they found out they spent a week not speaking to us other than to conduct business. They had previously been a talk your ear off with chit chat type of place. After that week they told us that they were shutting down their program for infants under 9 months old and we couldn’t come back. A week later as we were frantically trying to find a new day care we came across an ad for their facility stating that they had a new space for an infant. We are fairly certain our Judaism is the reason for our dismissal.
Or the time a guy I had known casually through work for a couple of months slipping into a drunken rant at a party some about “the Jews” and throwing in a kike or two for the humor of it. And then once he realized that I was within earshot reassuring me that he was really sorry and that he didn’t mean me. I was one of the good ones, not like them. He didn’t even know I was Jewish, couldn’t tell at all.
I could throw in a couple handfuls of other stories about less overt stuff. And sure, bigotry happens to lots of people, and those few instances of bigotry in my history are very few compared to a lot of minority groups and most of my experiences are really minor. But they happen often enough to make me very aware of the fact that I am not *really *white, not the way that gentiles think of white people. To other minorities, sure, I’m a white guy. To that end I really do receive most of the white privileged mentioned in the quote above. But I am not really part of the white majority.
If you haven’t had these same experiences it is quite possible that you won’t feel this way.
*Most *of my experiences are more along those lines. I really don’t think that the US on the whole is crazy anti-Semitic, but I have had enough first hand experiences with genuine hate to make me aware.
US is a lot less anti-semitic than most countries. But I still remember, in the 80s, in Texas, one of my co-workers finding out I was a Jew and inviting me home to show to his family, since they’ve never seen a Jew before (I politely declined).
