Thank you for this interesting approach to the subject. As Jews we certainly need to explore the many ways that we have related to the social construct of race in America. I see many white (or white appearing) Jews make comments that indicate that they have not considered white supremacy to be “their problem.” But it is our problem because it exists in our communities (both Jewish ones are the larger ones to which we belong). And because as white (or white appearing) people we benefit from the systemic racism embedded in this country. I especially appreciate the connection between Jewish immigration and the Great Migration of Black Americans to northern cities from the South. Black Americans were definitely seen as just another immigrant group at that time. There was no national understanding of Black Americans having survived a cultural genocide. Even today white people in general (and white Jews in particular) balk at any comparisons of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Black enslavement in the US with the Holocaust. Of course these horrific events are entirely different in the details. But not in the fact that they were horrific and that they were enacted by one powerful group on another group of entirely innocent people. And in doing this we have to accept that a small number of the white people committing these acts of atrocity toward Black enslaved Americans were Jews. Small numbers of Jews have been in America from the beginning. And small Jewish communities were well established at the time of the American Revolution. Jews fought on both sides of the Civil War. Their were Jews in the South who owned slaves. A high ranking member of the Confederacy was Jewish. This doesn’t mean Jews were also the recipients of white violence in America. It just means that the history is complicated and at times uncomfortable. Especially if you were raised to think that the Jews were always “the good guys.”
Thank you for this interesting approach to the subject. As Jews we certainly need to explore the many ways that we have related to the social construct of race in America. I see many white (or white appearing) Jews make comments that indicate that they have not considered white supremacy to be “their problem.” But it is our problem because it exists in our communities (both Jewish ones are the larger ones to which we belong). And because as white (or white appearing) people we benefit from the systemic racism embedded in this country. I especially appreciate the connection between Jewish immigration and the Great Migration of Black Americans to northern cities from the South. Black Americans were definitely seen as just another immigrant group at that time. There was no national understanding of Black Americans having survived a cultural genocide. Even today white people in general (and white Jews in particular) balk at any comparisons of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Black enslavement in the US with the Holocaust. Of course these horrific events are entirely different in the details. But not in the fact that they were horrific and that they were enacted by one powerful group on another group of entirely innocent people. And in doing this we have to accept that a small number of the white people committing these acts of atrocity toward Black enslaved Americans were Jews. Small numbers of Jews have been in America from the beginning. And small Jewish communities were well established at the time of the American Revolution. Jews fought on both sides of the Civil War. Their were Jews in the South who owned slaves. A high ranking member of the Confederacy was Jewish. This doesn’t mean Jews were also the recipients of white violence in America. It just means that the history is complicated and at times uncomfortable. Especially if you were raised to think that the Jews were always “the good guys.”