racism and antisemitism

[vaznetti]

I was going to post about my response to ibarw (International Blog Against Racism Week; visit the comm for links and discussion), and kept putting it off, because I get the sense that people's feelings are still rather raw, and goodness knows we don't need another round of "those Italians/Hungarians/Russians/Protestants/whatevers beat up my grandparents!" I think that IBARW is a good and useful thing, irrespective of how it makes me feel.

Now I'm in the situation where I think I ought to speak up about that. This is in response to a chain of posts which have something to do with that thing about bands playing gay on stage which (a) I do not know anything about and (b) I do not care anything about. As far as I'm concerned, what I'm talking about starts here, with a comment which I am going to come out and say is anti-semitic. chopchica, who I do not know at all, responds here. And finally technosage examined her own discomfort with discussions of antisemitism here.


One of the weirder things about being a member of what we call an invisible minority is the sense that you really are invisible: that honestly, the world would be a simpler and happier place if you simply didn't exist to mess up other people's world view, and that, if you insist on your existence, you're doing something rude. I didn't post this during ibarw because I didn't want to be rude. A lot of people I like and respect are involved in ibarw, and I think it is a good and important thing, and I didn't want to mess it up by insisting on imposing my perspective on it. But I feel silenced by IBARW, not because I don't usually talk about racism in my off-line life, but because I do; but when I talk about racism in these contexts, my experiences and understanding of antisemitism are considered relevant to the discussion, whereas in IBARW I'm not sure they would be welcome.

I think there are a couple reasons for this. The biggest, probably, is that a lot of the IBARW discussions are about white privilege, and American Jews are usually able to take advantage of this. I don't mean to belittle the importance of this: it's a very significant advantage. I would point out that being white and being Christian are not the same things; I don't think I can pass for Christian, although I've never tried. I don't know how relevant that is to most IBARW discussions, honestly, so I understand why the issue gets sidelined; being Jewish -- which includes not being Christian -- is pretty central to my own identity.

The second, and more insidious reason, is that I don't think antisemitism lives in the same places as other forms of racism (or, "as racism," if you want to draw a distinction between the two), which is to say that in my experience you never really know who's going to come out with an anti-semitic comment, and it often seems to me that antisemitism is a bit more acceptable on the left wing than the right wing, at least in the countries I've lived in. The anti-racist "we" may hold a variety of different attitudes toward antisemitism, and bringing the subject up might well end up fracturing that anti-racist "we." I sometimes get the sense that there is a certain amount of denial about this on the left.

I rather feel like I have taken my life into my hands writing that last bit.

And honestly, right now I also want to add that I am not going to discuss Israel in the comments to this post.

I should also make the point that the urge to pass is a strong one: why draw attention to your differences from the majority if you don't have to? And the answer is right there: because eventually, the majority will point them out to you anyway.

We used to joke about a family friend who thought there was an anti-semite hiding under every bed; more and more, the joke seems to be that there usually is.

I'm not sure where else to take this, except that I don't think that it's right that I feel silenced on this issue. And therefore, I am speaking. And that is probably why I will not lock this post.

My perspective may be a little odd. I grew up in San Francisco, which is not a very Jewish city, but which is a pretty tolerant place, and I went to an Ivy League college which was probably 20% Jewish, if not more. Most of my experiences with antisemitism have come while I lived outside the US, either in the UK or in Canada; some of it is just "Oh, aren't you exotic," some of it is the more disturbing habit of taking stereotype for fact. I usually blame anti-semitic comments made to my face on ignorance rather than ill-will. One of the reasons I would like to move back to the US is that Jewishness feeds into my feeling of being alien in both Canada and the UK; visiting New York this summer, a city I have lived in for about ten months total, was like having a weight lifted from my shoulders. I have a lot of issues about Judaism, and my Jewish identity, but they're my issues: my identity isn't going anywhere, while I work them out.

Comments

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad you posted this. Other than smacking down anti-Semitism when we see it, is there anything else non-Jews can do to make the internet community a more comfortable place for people to discuss/explore/celebrate Jewish issues? Because Judaism is awesome; it has so much to offer -- morally, spiritually, philosophically, however you want to put it. And while many Americans have a basic acquaintance with some of the outward manifestations (Hanukkah, keeping kosher, etc.), they kind of assume that what goes on inside is just "Christianity-lite", as it were.

Judaism isn't on my LJ interests list and it's not something that I bring up in potentially relevant discussions, because I'm not entirely sure that it's my place to do so and I don't want to offend actual members of the faith. Compare it with Buddhism, for example: enough prominent Buddhist leaders have made it clear that they're happy for Westerners to engage with Buddhist philosophy in whatever way and to whatever extent makes sense to them, that I have no problem sharing my dilettante opinions on the subject (even though there are probably thousands of monks across Asia gritting their teeth and thinking "OMG stop encouraging the poseurs!" every time Thich Naht Hanh publishes another book). But I'm not sure that there's a role for that kind of isolated dabbling in Judaism, because so much of the faith is relational, grounded in one's commitments to God [hmm, would not spelling the word out be respectful, or would it make me look like a poseur?] and to the community of Jewish people. It's not clear to me where an appreciative non-Jew ought to fit in that framework.

And one last anecdote about anti-Semitism: it is the only form of prejudice that my grandmother ever lectured me against. Not that I personally needed this lecture (every guy I ever dated was Jewish, until Andy), but she was very determined that no descendant of hers was ever going to support or allow anything like the events of the Holocaust again. She was just in high school during WWII -- it's not like she could have personally done anything to help the two Jewish families in her village when they were arrested and deported, but to her dying day she felt like it was a huge moral failure on her part that she didn't question it or object or protest or *something*. I think many of her friends had a similar evolution in their thinking, which is why they were all similarly shocked when they went back to Latvia after the Soviet travel restrictions eased up, and found that their friends and relatives in the old country hadn't progressed *nearly* so far.

[vaznetti]

I am going to have o think about some of the things you say and questions you ask here, because I'm not sure what I think about them. I mean, I hate for you to feel like you can't express an interest in Judaism, but at the same time I think that there's something... I don't know, distasteful... about the kind of multiculturalism where people pick and choose elements from religions like Buddhism, often without making the effort to see the whole picture. Which I'm sure is not what you would be doing, but is an unsettling phenomenon sometimes, at least from my perspective.

I do want to just say thank you, though, for sharing that anecdote about your grandmother, which is one the one hand so sad, that there was nothing she could do, nothing she knew how to do, but also so heartening that she took that loss and tried to pass it on to you as something to build with, something constructive. I may not be saying this well, but I think it's an amazing story.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I know what you're saying, and I think it's probably the same thing I'm saying... maybe? *g*

If a discussion about something were getting deep and philosophical, as discussions sometimes do, and something reminded me of the Buddhist doctrine of no-self, I would probably just say "Oh, that reminds me of the Buddhist doctrine of no-self," and then explain my understanding of it. I wouldn't be claiming to be a Buddhist and I wouldn't be making anyone else a Buddhist, but at the end of the conversation I might have enhanced peoples' intellectual appreciation of Buddhism and provided an interesting perspective on whatever the topic of discussion was.

But if under similar circumstances something reminded me of the Lurianic Kabbalist concept of repairing the world, I would be much less likely to bring that up, even though I think it's a beautiful idea that more people should know about. I would have many more concerns about whether I was the right person to be talking about that.

I think what makes the difference for me is that Buddhism did not begin its existence as a religion. It began with the Buddha saying, "Here are some ideas and practices that I found useful; maybe other people will find them useful, too." Over the centuries it became much more comprehensive and elaborate and diverse and took on all the functions of religion, becoming a nexus of identity and community for millions of people, and so on. But at its core it's still something that each person can encounter independently. Whereas Jewish thought feels much more tightly situated in Jewish identity and Jewish community. So it's not mine to talk about, but it would be equally offensive for me to try to prod my Jewish acquaintances into talking about it. "Come on, you guys -- screw the anti-Semitism that ambushes you at every turn, and be a light unto the nations!" No, I don't think I'll be pulling that one any time soon.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were interested in Judaism... well, I guess that's why I didn't know. ;)

Speaking only for myself, I would not be offended if you were to write, "I'm not Jewish and feel free to correct me, but according to what I've read about repairing the world..."

That way you're not pretending to be something you're not, and if anyone who knows more about it than you wants to step in with an addition or correction, they've been explicitly welcomed to do so.