Steven Feldman, Ph.D., Higher Education student, Indiana University Bloomington
In August 2017, white supremacists
at the Unite the Right rally shouted “Jews will not replace us” as they marched
through the University of Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville.
On October 27, 2018, Robert Gregory Bowers murdered eleven people attending Shabbat services at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
On October 8, 2022, rapper Kanye West tweeted “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The headlines continue to pour in and yet only begin to scratch the surface in documenting the rise in antisemitism nationwide. Although it is easy to write these off as the mistaken views of lone terrorists and misguided celebrities, antisemitism nevertheless runs rampant across the country, illustrating an entrenchment in our culture that few are comfortable admitting.
May our memory be for a blessing.
With each passing day, our history as Jewish people gets more erased or distorted to further villainize Jewish people. Kanye (and many others) claim Jews control industries like entertainment and banking. Meanwhile, Christians are overrepresented in most industries, including high-ranking positions in state and federal government and the public sector more broadly. Jews do not “control” any industries. How could we? when we make up only 2-3% of all adults in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2021). Jews may be more represented in entertainment and finances, but there is a historical and discriminatory precedent for it. For a long time, entertainment (in particular, comedy and motion pictures) was considered work for the lower echelons of society. Additionally, it used to be considered dirty work to manage someone else’s money. Due to exclusion from many industries, Jews took on work in finance and entertainment instead. Specifically, white Christian hegemonic forces constrained employment options for Jews. If there are debates about who “controls” industries, evidence, and history–not conspiracy–must rule.
May our memory be for a blessing.
The psychological trauma of antisemitism cannot be understated. Words fail to describe the feeling of hearing classmates and/or professors deny the brutality of a genocide, which wiped out roughly one-third of all Jewish people in the world, leaving many more displaced from their homelands and families. Words do not begin to capture the feeling of hearing “Hitler was right” or “Hitler had good qualities too.” These comments look tame compared to the “6 million dead but they missed 1.”
May our memory be for a blessing.
In my Master’s program, a cohort mate seemed surprised to learn that Jewish students studying abroad often hide any memorabilia that might visibly indicate their Jewishness. I was not sure how to explain that in the U.S., Jewish students also often hide memorabilia that might visibly indicate their Jewishness. My friends do not wear Stars of David out of fear for their safety. I do not hang a mezuzah on my door out of fear for my safety. When I told a couple of my friends that I was planning to write this post, they called me brave for speaking about our experiences so publicly. This is not bravery - this is a necessary conversation amidst a larger societal silence.
May our memory be for a blessing.
Despite society’s attempts to whitewash Jewish identity as a way of pitting us against other racially minoritized groups, Jewishness is more than a religious identity. To be Jewish is to sit at the intersection of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion (Blumenfeld & Klein, 2009). To be Jewish is to hear People of Color claim that white Jews have never experienced racism and to hear white people claim that Jews are an inferior race (Rubin, 2019). To be Jewish is to understand that white Jews and Jews of Color exist and yet neither is viewed as a mixed-race or multiracial group of people. Instead, both Jews of Color and white Jews have their Jewishness erased. This is not to say that white Jews do not benefit from white privilege but rather to highlight the ways that Jewishness is nuanced and complex, and yet gets reduced to a simplistic and problematic definition that only stands to benefit white supremacy.
May our memory be for a blessing.
We as Jewish people have all had that conversation with our parents. “Why are there police officers with guns outside of the synagogue on the high holy holidays?” In 2021, there were 525 logged incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault that took place at Jewish institutions including synagogues, Jewish Community Centers, and Jewish schools (Anti-Defamation League, 2022). In 2020, the Chabad Center at the University of Delaware was intentionally set on fire but was not reported as a hate crime (Eichmann, 2020). Simply choosing to be in a community with each other requires us to put our safety at risk. Whether we worship publicly, privately, on campus, or not at all, Jews are always in danger simply for being themselves.
May our memory be for a blessing.
Being Jewish means being denied a racial identity and yet being constantly judged for your physical appearance. “Oh well, you don’t look Jewish. I mean that as a compliment!” “You’ve got a Jewish nose.” “You should grow out your hair into a Jew-fro.” Jewish people have been degraded for their physical appearance for centuries. These stereotypes became a staple used in Nazi propaganda to identify, target, and persecute Jewish people. But like Fanny Brice from the musical Funny Girl, I am left wondering “Is a nose with deviation such a crime against the nation?” The vocal and physical threats against Jewish people indicate that is so.
May our memory be for a blessing.
Every time someone like Kanye West, Dave Chapelle, Nick Fuentes, or Donald Trump spews antisemitic nonsense, Jews wait to see which of our non-Jewish friends will come to our aid on social media. Seeing few to none, we get defeated. We grow numb to the response (or lack thereof) but not immune to the pain it causes. It is not that I believe my friends or colleagues are explicitly antisemitic nor is it that I believe any of them believe the white supremacist lies and conspiracies. But I do not believe any of them have any sort of awareness of what it means to be Jewish in the U.S., let alone the world. And I do not think any of them care enough to find out.
May our memory be for a blessing.
History has taught us about the kind of manipulative, psychological tactics Nazis used to gain credibility and power during the 1930s and 40s. The rise in fascism, antisemitism, conspiracies and lies about Jewish people were the antecedents of the Holocaust. And despite seeing similar characteristics within our society today, there is a similar level of reluctance to speak out against it.
To the non-Jewish reader, if you continue to refuse to seek out and disseminate substantive education on the Holocaust… If you continue to recognize Jewish identity solely as a product of whiteness instead of as a complex ethno-racial-religious identity… If you continue to ignore the voices of Jewish people, especially in education… If you continue to allow antisemitism in any form to exist in classrooms, social media, or the public sphere… we risk another Holocaust.
That is not an exaggeration. Those of us who are familiar with the signs see the signs. We desperately need people to step up, speak out, and take action, including those actions recommended by the Anti-Defamation League. If you continue to turn your head the other way, then at least do us the courtesy of admitting now to being complicit in our death.
הזיכרון שלנו לברכה (ha'zichron shelanu liv’rachah)
May our memory be for a blessing.
References
Anti-Defamation League. (2022, May 3). Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2021. https://www.adl.org/audit2021
Blumenfeld, W., & Klein, J. (2009). Working with Jewish undergraduates. New Directions for Student Services, 2009(125), 33–38.
Eichmann, M. (2020, August 27). Jewish center intentionally set on fire at the University of Delaware, investigator says. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/jewish-center-intentionally-set-on-fire-at-university-of-delaware-investigator-says/
Pew Research Center. (2021, May 11). The size of the U.S. Jewish population. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/the-size-of-the-u-s-jewish-population/
Rubin, D. (2019). Navigating the ‘space between’ the Black/White binary: A call for Jewish multicultural inclusion. Culture and Religion, 20(2), 192-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2019.1624267
About the Author
Steven Feldman (he/they) is a PhD Higher Education student at Indiana University Bloomington where they also work as a Project Associate in the Center for Postsecondary Research. They have prior experience working in LGBTQ services, academic advising, and undergraduate admissions. Their research focuses on trans and queer communities in higher education and has been published in the Educational Review, The Bulletin of ACUI, and Journal of Student Affairs, New York University. In their free time, Steven enjoys playing Pokémon Go and drinking iced coffees from Dunkin’.
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