Last night, I received a message from a high-school friend asking me if Jews are White. The resulting conversation lends itself to PQED, so I decided to revise it and post it here. I have preserved the dialogue form because I think my friend’s questions were excellent and helpful. I’m grateful to them for assisting me in refining my own understanding of the topic.

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The question from Francis:

“I have some friends on Facebook who lean pretty far right, politically. I often get sucked into debates that never find resolution. So, recently one posted a video of Ben Shapiro (of the Daily Wire, etc.) and Elon Musk discussing the evils of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies (DEI). I commented how ironic it was for two privileged White men to be discussing the evils of DEI.

My friend responded that they weren’t White, that Musk was African American and Shapiro was Jewish. I said that was ridiculous.  Musk obviously is African American only in the context that he grew up in South Africa but was clearly not Black or AA from a racial perspective.  Shapiro, I said, was both White and Jewish.

The conversation then devolved into a back and forth focused on the assertion that Jews are not White, according to my friend.

I am not Jewish but tried the best I could to explain to him that Judaism was a religion, and that people of any racial background could be Jewish.  Also, that people may consider themselves Jewish from a cultural or historical perspective and part of a community, culture, or even a “nation.”  That a Jew could be that from a religious, ethnic, cultural, or historical perspective but it is not considered a race, and that thinking of Jews as a separate and distinct race was precisely what led to the holocaust.

Am I missing something?”

Me:

This is a super interesting question and there are lots of different threads to pull here. First off, you are right, Musk isn’t African American. He’s a South-African expatriate. He is the son of incredibly rich parents who imported raw Emeralds into South Africa and then had them cut in Johannesburg.

People tend to use the term African American as a synonym for being Black, but there are actually three main distinct “Black” groups in the United States. They are: African Americans, American citizens who are the descendants of slaves brought to this country during the Atlantic slave trade; first- and second- generation Caribbean Blacks who are part of a more recent wave of immigration; and first-and second-generation African Blacks who are also recent migrants.

Musk does not fit any of these definitions. He is also not Black ancestrally. His parents are “of English, Anglo-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Swiss descent.” And, if what we mean by Black is simply having dark skin or other common markers, he does not have those either. His family members look White (see here, here, and here). Your friend’s initial comment that he’s African American is brute ignorance and silly. Again, you were right about that.

The Jewish thing is a bit more complicated because Jews have only been considered White since, maybe, the 1970s, which leads to the question, are we White now?

It is worth beginning by asking what it means to be White in the first place? Again, there is that superficial meaning, having light skin. Ashkenazi Jews whose families come from Eastern Europe usually fit this definition, but Sephardic Jews from Spain and North Africa, do not. Neither do many Mizrahi Jews, folks from Africa, especially Ethiopia, and Asia. Middle Eastern Jews are also non-White. 900,000 Arab Jews were kicked out of countries like Iran, Morocco, Yemen, and Turkey. 600,000 of them settled in Israel, the rest in France and the United States. Those Jews indigenous to the Arab counties have darker skin. There are plenty Jews of Color.

What Americans usually mean by White, though, is something different: a social construct that refers to purity of lineage, oppression and colonialism, and privilege. This is what you implicitly referred to when you asked me your question. To be non-White is to be connected historically to, among other things, race-based exclusion, being thought of as racially and ethnically distinct, enduring centuries of systematic oppression, being the victims of hate crimes, and lacking significant political power.

Jews meet all these criteria, regardless of skin tone, although the last one on the list is iffy. Jews are the archetypal “dirty” race. Until only recently, we have been kept out of “restricted” country clubs and hotels, and subject to quotas at universities. We have been considered to be our own race for most of history and have been thrown out of almost every country in the world. For example, Jews were not allowed in England for 350 years. We also have the highest rate of victimization of religious hate crimes, even higher than Muslims in the US. This does not sound “White” to me.

As for the last criteria, political power, on the one hand, Jews do indeed have influence disproportionate to our numbers. We make up only 2.4% of the US population but are well represented in government, media, medicine, law, and teaching (there are cultural reasons for this, but that’s a conversation for another time).

On the other hand, Jewish power is attacked relentlessly in America and globally. Our “soft power” in the media is regarded as a conspiracy of evil elites, and our “hard power” in government is considered divisive. Consider how people almost spit when they refer to the “Jewish lobby,” even though they have no equivalent venom discussing the oil companies’ lobby, Christian influence, or even the NRA. I don’t mean to suggest that everyone likes these groups; lots of people don’t. But there is a visceral distaste reserved for the “Jewish lobby” that is unique.

Another thing to notice is that Jews are almost always regarded as Jews first and other things later. What is sometimes still referred to as the “hyphenated American” involves using an adjective to qualify one’s Americanness. For example, we refer to African Americans, Irish Americans, and Muslim Americans.  In contrast, Jews are not usually called Jewish Americans, we are considered American Jews. In our case, “American” is the modifier and “Jew” is the essence. We have repeatedly been accused of “dual loyalty,” having allegiance to each other and Israel, over anything else. The classic example of this is the Dreyfus Affair in France.

I think whether one regards Jews as White, is really dependent on context, and my instinct is that if any Jew were to be considered so, it would be Ben Shapiro, who by the way, is also a douchebag-American, but that too is a discussion for another time.

Francis:

LOL about Shapiro

Me:

So, does this mean your friend is right, that Jews are not White? Not necessarily. As a general rule, Jews can access the kind of White privilege that the right wing claims doesn’t exist. Many Jews can “pass.” This is certainly true where I live in North Dakota, where we exist unnoticed most of the time. The problem is when we can’t pass, we really can’t.

This then, is where it becomes even more complicated. Shapiro is a grifter who likely doesn’t believe much of what he espouses. More importantly, I believe he is the victim of false consciousness and considers himself more valuable to his political colleagues than he actually is. Given what role Shapiro plays, given when his handlers trot him out, and given the right-wing exploitation of his Jewishness for strategic gain, there is no doubt in my mind that he is being used as a right-wing tool. This can and will continue only insofar as he pleases the puppeteers who are controlling him.

Going back to your original question then, I think your sense that Shapiro and Musk are two privileged individuals talking disingenuously about DEI is correct. Ultimately, their perspective isn’t about being or not being Black or Jewish, it’s about being rich media folk who have all the resources in the world with no personal experience of oppression to teach them that they should know better. (How much Shapiro identifies with the collective trauma of antisemitism and genocide, I can’t say, but his visit with Musk to Auschwitz was cynical at best, despite being raised Orthodox Jewish from the age of nine and having gone to Yeshiva, Jewish private schools).

Neither Musk nor Shapiro REPRESENT those aspects of any heritage that can lay claim to victimization even if, in theory, Shapiro is still vulnerable to it.

Does this all make sense?

Francis:

Wow.  Unexpected about the treatment of Jews in ND as [non-White]. I guess my NYC upbringing is making my views somewhat biased.

I wonder if Shapiro considers himself a person of color or non-White.  I also quoted my friend the census statistic that 92% of Jews in the US identify as White.

Would you say I’m correct in saying that being White and Jewish are not mutually exclusive?

Francis (in response to a picture I sent him):

I am assuming you live in an area that does not have a majority African-American population.

Me:

Lol. you are assuming correct. ND is 3.6% black, a lower percentage than Native Americans which is our largest minority group, at about 6%. US News & World Report claims 4% of our local high school is Black, and I think most of them are not African American, but first-generation African immigrants.

Francis:

[It is] very disconcerting that there are places in America where a Jewish high-school student is considered non-White.  Not to be insulting or presumptive but I always thought of you and all of my Jewish friends growing up in New York City as White.  Not that I really thought of that at all, but I definitely would have considered my Jewish friends as White.

Me:

I think I’m inclined to say that you are correct, that being Jewish and White are not mutually exclusive. However, for Jews, being White is always a temporary phenomenon. Whiteness is only permitted of Jews, never given, and antisemitism is found at the foundation of virtually all conspiracy theories. For example, if you look at both completed Trump campaigns so far (2016, 2020) you will see the vast majority of anti-Jewish comments happening in the last two or three weeks. When push comes to shove, when the chips are down, you attack the Jews.

I think I was White in New York, for sure, but I’m probably not White in North Dakota, which is what I mean by Whiteness being temporary. When my wife was pregnant, neighborhood kids drew a swastika on our sidewalk. The day after the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, someone threw a rock through our window. This is not how White people are supposed to treat other White people. For the best depiction of what I mean by “supposed to” see the brilliant Eddie Murphy mockumentary White Like Me.

So, in short, and I know this is not a satisfying answer: we think of race (and Whiteness) as an immutable characteristic because Americans still believes in the one-drop rule, and because we regard being transgender/transsexual as possible, but being transracial as not, this also being the legacy of the one drop rule. But Americans are wrong. Race is very much mutable and Jews are the best example of people who are granted and denied Whiteness out of convenience.

Francis:

That is so disheartening to hear. Growing up in NYC (and not being Jewish) definitely sheltered me from that kind of discrimination. I always just thought of Judaism as a religion.  I was Catholic and some of my friends were Jewish. Who cared one way or the other?

Me:

You are right again. Judaism is a religion; it’s a system of belief with adherents and converts, but as you mention in your question, it is a culture too. From the Jewish perspective, converting to Judaism is more akin to being adopted than being born again. More so, Judaism is an ethnicity because historically, languages like Yiddish, common rituals and clothing, shared texts and history, and cultural preferences unified Jews wherever they were in the diaspora.

Finally, and also as you mentioned, one can also think of Judaism as a nationality. Every Jew who ever lived is a citizen of the nation of Israel, although I want to be clear that when I assert this, I mean the abstract unified entity that has existed for six-thousand years, not the modern state of Israel established in 1948. All Jews are members of the metaphysical Israel. Only Israelis are citizens of the particular piece of land that borders Egypt and Syria.

I suppose I ought to explain this part more: the word “Israel” is biblical. After Jacob wrestles with an Angel (Genesis 32:22–32; Hosea 12:3–5), he is renamed Israel, Hebrew for “one who wrestles with God.” (As always with this sort of thing, the word can be translated in numerous ways.) Jacob’s descendants are Jews, no matter where they may live, and many of them migrated over centuries to Europe, North, and South America.

Lots of his descendants, however, did not. They are Levantine, meaning that they and their children remained in Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia, which includes what we now call the Middle East. These are the indigenous Jews. The modern state of Israel is made up of all of these, as well as Christians, Muslims, and others (just as not all Jews are Levantine, not everyone form the Levant is Jewish). To be a child of Israel, of Jacob, is to be part of the conception, the nation of Israel. To be a citizen of the state of Israel is however, to be identified geographically and politically.

Is this confusing? For sure and that’s the point. The history of Judaism is complicated and this makes how we have to tell it layered. I think we need these different categories—religion, culture, ethnicity, and nationality—to explain all the different facets. But what Jews aren’t is a race, in part because race doesn’t really exist, and in part because what we think race is, is wrapped up in biology and genetics that all Jews simply do not share. The Jews of the Levant do share certain genetic characteristics, but they also share these same characteristics with the other religious and cultural groups in the region. Jews and Muslims are siblings.

The world is a deceptive place. I think the biggest mistake that you and I both made growing up is thinking that NYC was representative of the world around it, and of course it wasn’t. But, if we are being honest, we’ll admit that being White meant something different in Manhattan than it did in the Bronx, which was different than it was in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Long Island. Whiteness is a very difficult concept. It is also, largely, non-sensical.

Francis:

Going back a minute, I’m not familiar with the term “one-drop rule.”

Me:

The one drop rule is the American idea that anyone with any blackness “in their blood,” no matter how little, is Black not White. Historically, Blackness was seen as corrupting Whiteness, even though biology doesn’t work that way, and Black blood is an insidious metaphor for ancestry. Even though we now use the term mixed-race, this is still just a euphemism for people with Blackness “in them.” Historically, there was a taxonomy for this: mulatto (one Black parent), quadroon (one Black grandparent), or octaroon (one Black great grandparent).

As outdated and offensive as those terms are, their parallel still exists for Jews. Even in the most formal and public company, people regularly use the terms “half Jewish” or “a quarter Jewish,” is if they mean something. I hear them all the time. As I mentioned above, as disgusting as it is, I think many Americans still think in terms of the one-drop rule, even if they are unaware of it. It governs attitudes about both Black people and Jews.

So, with all of this said and done, here is the TL/DR of your original question:

Shapiro and Musk are both absolutely White and they speak with White privilege. To defend, as your friend did, their anti-DEI comments as the perspective of two non-White people is ridiculous beyond measure and also disingenuous. But the fact that Shapiro is currently White does not guarantee that he, or any of us, will still be considered so in five months, let alone five years. For Jews, Whiteness is always temporary, and we serve at the pleasure of the other White people who deign to include us.

(For an outstanding account of how a group steals whiteness, read Noel Ignatiev’s brilliant history, How the Irish Became White.)

Francis:

Well said.  You’ll find it interesting, I think, that this ‘friend’ of mine grew up in Brooklyn.

Me:

I suspect that like all right-wing snowflakes, your friend will happily use left-wing talking points such as asserting the priority we give to the oppressed to discuss oppression, only when it serves his argument. Whatever rhetorical advantage he gets from them will remain self-serving and never permit him to have empathy for those who disagree with him.

But of course, I am only guessing since I don’t know him.

Francis:

Yes.  Thanks for the insight, as disturbing and eye-opening as it was.

Me:

My pleasure. It’s always nice to feel useful.

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A note regarding the text of this conversation: I have changed the name of my friend to protect their identity. I have edited our responses for grammar and spelling, combined and moved messages when relevant, and have added a fair number of explanatory paragraphs that offer details which we did not get to. I did delete one small exchange that involved personal information a relevant individual would not like shared. My guess is that about 65% of this is original and I hope that our conversation over Messenger didn’t sound quite as “professorial” and lecture-like as this article does, when we were having it.

Follow the author on Twitter @jackrweinstein