Jews in America struggled for decades to become white. Now we must give up whiteness to fight racism. (Rabbi Gil Steinlauf)
As per our discussion today of Jewish involvement in fighting for civil rights for African Americans in the post-War era, I thought this article, written by Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, might add some food for thought to the conversation. His general premise is that 21st century Jews can't operate under the same paradigm our parents and grandparents did. We need to question our whiteness in order to start being true allies for the #BlackLivesMatter movement and other racial justice advocacy groups today.
One of the most provocative lines he writes is in his opening argument:
" Finding our true Jewish identity can begin by questioning our whiteness. In a flawed and racist society, we Jewish Americans are prospering, reaching the top echelons of privilege and power. With racism and injustice entrenched year after year, generation after generation, we must now ask ourselves: What role do we play in that injustice now that most of us live as white people in America? We must cease to consider ourselves to be part of the social construct of whiteness, despite all the white privilege that America affords us, privilege that eluded many of our parents and grandparents."
What do you make of his argument? Would this article affect the way you teach about race and Jewishness in religious school?
1 comment:
I think that Rabbi Steinlauf's argument shows an incredible naivete. My biggest problem stems from the suggestion that Jews could actively "give up" whiteness, as if it were something that we actively sought as such. Yes, certainly we are reading and learning about a narrative of trying to fit in, but white privilege is not something that Jews created nor that Jews actively sought to maintain (with the possibly exception of the south) and so to suggest that Jews today could simply "give it up" seems to me to minimize the reality of privilege. We cannot simply "teach our children that we are, in fact, not white, but simply Jewish" because like it or not, for many/most of our children, society will still see them as white and thus they will still have the inherited privileges that many of us have been undeservingly granted. All that said, we CAN teach about privilege and use our Jewishness as a means to try to subvert white privilege in general. I think that this is actually what Rabbi Steinlauf wants to suggest, but he gets stuck in this idea that Jews could somehow "shed" their whiteness any more than one could shed being short or tall or brown-haired.
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