A Jewish Mom

This is the attitude that I have seen way too often from too many so-called social justice oriented people and groups in response to finally noticing that Jewish people are talking about antisemitism. And okay first of all – even if this was actually new, like brand new – that should horrify you?? How is it ever okay to respond in this smug, callous, “I-told-you-so” way when a small ethnic/religious group is actively being threatened with not just any violence, but actual extermination??? But of course it’s not – this has been around for literally thousands of years and Jews have been speaking up about it and protecting each other and Jewish communities the whole time.

I’ll take this one since I’m the blog’s resident Jew.  Oy vey, where do I start…

SJ community loves to police Jewish identity and silence actual Jews when they talk about their own identities.  This usually happens in context of either “Are Jews White?” or “Jewishness is just a religion” conversations.  In reality, Jews are an ethnoreligious group that ethnically originated in the middle east, and while some ethnic Jews have light skin, it’s actually due to centuries of forced assimilation in European and Slavic countries through rape, which is a big reason why Jewishness is matrilineal.  Furthermore, there exist Jews who do not look white at all.  There are black, brown, and asian Jews who are all ethnically Jewish, and these conversations erase them.

“Jewish privilege”.  Fact: It’s not a thing.  It’s actually a very common anti-semitic trope that says that Jews run everything so they are not oppressed.  Jews are oppressed, and face anti-semitic violence.

“Anti-semitism is not just about Jews, there are other semitic people.” While yea, there are other semitic people, the term “anti-semitism” was created by Germans in the 19th century to refer specifically to the hatred of Jews because it sounded more scientific.

Blaming anti-semitic violence in Europe on the actions of Israel.  I see this literally every single day on this site, and it’s very upsetting.  Jews that live in the diaspora are not responsible for Israel’s actions, and especially should not be suffering at the hands of white people in Europe under the guise of anti-zionism.  

Finally, and this is a big pet peeve of mine.  The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-semitism are other Jews.  Even a lot of my non-Jewish followers will reblog posts about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. but ignore posts about anti-semitism, and that as a Jew makes me feel unsafe. 

That’s enough for now.  If you’re interested in learning more about Jewish identity and anti-semitism, you are welcome to check out my personal blog: yochevedke.  I discuss that stuff a lot.  

Again, The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-Semitism are other Jews, while many blogs I follow reblog every post under the sun relating to racism, sexism, and homophobia. This issue has on occasion made me feel pretty isolated, because I have seen a lot of people reblogging posts related to recents events in Gaza that reflected extremely anti-Israel points of view. There’s nothing wrong with that, people have every right to hold those opinions, and I even share some of them. However, as the original poster said, a lot of recent anti-Semitic violence in Europe stems from the the willingness of anti-Israel Europeans to hold Jews in the Diaspora responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. This is not ok. This is anti-Semitism, and this is part of what American Jews are seeing as anti-Semitic in what tumblr users say and do.

The average American Jew on tumblr doesn’t think “I support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and the horrible things people say about Israel are anti-Semitic attacks”.

banning queer jews from safe queer spaces is antisemitic. 

deciding whether a jew is “good” or “bad” based on interrogation about zionism is antisemitic.

Liberal Jewish congresswoman gets shot in the head? Fine.

20 first-graders murdered by a gunmen in their own classroom? Fine.

Sikh worshippers slaughtered in their temple by a white gunman? Fine.

Three Muslim students shot to death by their neighbour? Fine.

Nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shot dead for the crime of ‘praying while black’ by a white supremacist? Fine.

Three people murdered at a Kansas City Jewish Community Center by a gun-wielding Klan member? Fine.

Man with a licensed firearm who would have been an NRA poster boy had he not been black shot dead in his car? Fine. 

Black child playing in the park shot dead by police? Fine.

49 people, most of them LBGTQ Latinxs, shot to death in a gay nightclub? Fine. 

here are some of our holiday: passover (escaping slavery), channukkah (resisting assimilation under threat of genocide), purim (escaping genocide). See a pattern? Most of jewish history is about being punted around from place to place because no one wants us between pogroms, ghettoes and shtetls. 

When you celebrate a Jewish holiday as a non-Jew, you take our history of suffering and turn it into your little party and then happily step out of it. You play dress up as a Jew with no care for the suffering of actual Jews, historical and modern. 

Now this is ESPECIALLY bad when Christians do it. Lots of times it was Christians instigating pogroms, confining us to ghettoes and trying as hard as they could to destroy our cultures. You don’t get to profit off of 2,000 years of systematic destruction and then pretend you’re Jewish. 

While we’re here. Messanic Jews ARENT jews. 

a lot of the stuff I see about celebrating Jewish holidays (particularly passover) is that you all want to do what Jesus did. How ever, please consider:

1) Jesus was Jewish. He was born a Jew and died a Jew

2) you are not Jewish

Most Jewish families LOVE to share their holidays and culture. If you’re interested in learning, there are networks to help people find seders. But above all remember you are a guest. Eating someone else’s food in someone else’s house and having someone else’s culture graciously shared with you.